What's in Tuesday's Lunch - 6/15

On Tuesday, the school will be serving:

Mozzarella Sticks w/ Sauce
Bagel w/ Butter, American or Cream Cheese
Sliced Turkey Sandwich / Salad
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Sides:
Green Beans
Mixed Fruit
Fresh Cantaloupe Chunks

The national school lunch program lets us give our bulk USDA commodity mozzarella cheese to a processor (in this case, Farm Rich) who we then pay to turn it into mozzarella sticks. This is fried cheese with 280 mg of sodium and 9g of fat (3.5g saturated fat). The sauce provides an extra wallop of salt.

Here are the ingredients: Low moisture part skim mozzarella cheese (pasteurized part skim milk, salt, enzymes), bleached white flour, enriched bleached wheat flour (flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), soybean oil, enriched yellow corn flour (corn flour, niacin, ferrous sulfate, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), food starch-modified, contains % or less of the following: salt, onion powder, wheat starch, natural butter flavor, whey, sugar, egg, whey protein concentrate, calcium caseinate, sodium aluminum phosphate, soy lecithin, extractives of paprika, dextrose, nonfat dried milk, leavening (sodium acid pyrophosphate, sodium bicarbonate), sodium alginate, soy flour, oleoresin paprika, maltodextrin, artificial flavor, tocopherols, natural flavor, spices, methylcellulose, dehydrated parsley, garlic powder, monoglycerides, triglycerides, yeast, sodium ascorbate, EDTA (as a preservative), calcium propionate (as a preservative), caramel color.

So, I think this is enough entree ingredients for one day. We've discussed the alternate entrees in previous posts.

On to the green beans -- these are a canned USDA commodity food. They include green beans, water and salt (380 mg of sodium). Since how foods are cooked and preserved affects their nutritional content (canned being worse than frozen which is less desirable than fresh), we called Seneca Foods to ask how the beans were cooked. They said they boiled them already in the can in a machine called a "hadron" - which I have hopefully spelled correctly. Sounds very efficient. (Steaming preserves more nutrients than boiling.)

The sodium in a lunch with the mozzarella sticks, sauce and green beans can top 1000 mg.

The mixed fruit is another canned USDA commodity. The mix is peaches, pears, grapes, corn syrup and sugar -- 15 mg of sugar.

The cantaloupe chunks are fresh!

Do you think fried cheese should be a lunch entree? Would you prefer a homemade version? Do your kids like them? Let us know - click Comment below.

Sara