Kitchencraft

Southland Times, Issue 23460, 17 March 1938, Page 15

Kitchencraft

SCHOOL LUNCHES IN THE DIET X \ (By SARAH) An adequate diet for the growing child is of the utmost importance. Not only many of the ills of childhood, decayed teeth, stunted growth, rickets, etc., but some of the mental disorders of later life have been traced to lack of proper nourishment in the early years. Recent better understanding of the relation of diet to disease has resulted in studies of food and health of children with a view to improving them. The school lunch has come in for its share of scrutiny. Ideally a prepared hot lunch provided by the school authorities or by some ciyic organization should be given to children who are too far from home or who for some reason are unable to make a satisfactory meal at home. Particularly in rural districts where pupils have to start early and sometimes walk considerable distances, a warm, nourishing lunch is necessary to keep the children physically fit and mentally alert. A HOT DRINK If it is absolutely impossible to serve a hot lunch, the next best thing is a

hot beverage to accompany the cold lunch brought from home. This can be accomplished with very little equipment or effort, and at an extremely small cost a person. In warm weather cold milk can be substituted for cocoa or soup, which are the simplest forms of hot food that can be served. There is almost no excuse for failure to provide this simple supplement to the noon lunch. The children themselves can manage it with little supervision and without the task becoming irksome to anyone. Two older girls can easily prepare cocoa or milk soup for thirty other children. The responsibility of planning the work and the cost, and the experience of the actual preparation of the food are excellent training, fully as worth while as any of the less practical projects undertaken in the schools. The noon lunch, whether served at

school or carried from home, must provide food suitable to the age and needs of the children in sufficient variety and in such form as to encourage healthy appetites. Not a small part of the value of the noon lunch served at school is the training received by the children in the selection of fpods and in table mannei-s. EDUCATION IN FOOD The teaching of health habits should be considered as essential as arithmetic or geography, and there is no more forceful way of teaching children the relation of food to health than by means of the school lunch, accompanied by short talks or stories and illustrated charts. Before he finishes school every child should have enough knowledge of the use of food in the body to enable him to select his own food intelligently. Through the school lunch children learn to know what foods produce heat and energy, and to appreciate the value of I milk and food prepared from milk, of vegetables, and of fruits. It is futile, of course, to encourage children to eat more wholesome lunches if the parents do not co-operate in providing suitable foods in their lunchboxes for them to eat. So often in the hurry and bustle of getting the children off to school in the morning the lunch is neglected for other seemingly important things. At the last minute some odds and ends of food are gathered up, and probably day after day the lunch consists of a hastilymade meat or jam sandwich, a piece of cake, and a banana or an apple. When there is a girl in the family old enough to be a member of a cooking class, it is a practical and worthwhile project to make her responsible for the school lunches for herself and the younger members of the family. To encourage her some sort of credit should be given her for this home work by the teacher. PREPARATION AT HOME After once preparing food in her cookery class suitable to include in the school lunch-box, she should be able to prepare similar beverages, soups, sandwich fillings and cookies at home without the assistance of her mother. If she can relieve her mother for only a few weeks of this task of preparing the lunches for school, it will mean a

great deal to her in experience, and to the other children a variation in fare. With all the pressing cares of a household, many women have neither the time nor the opportunity to keep up with the latest theories in nutrition. They probably Jjave never had the significance of the proper selection of food brought to their attention until the children start to bring home the facts about foods which they have learnt at school. Next week I wish to talk about the lunch-box and the selection of food for it, while during the week I shall give recipes for suitable bread-stuffs which can be included in the school lunch.