Tales From the School Cafeteria: Food fights? Unrequited Love? Pizza Friday? Stand-Off with the Lunch Lady?

How many of you remember your first lunch in the school cafeteria? Was it a brown bag? Hot meal from the lunchlady? Who did you sit by, and what did you talk about?

While it is unlikely that you remember all of the details of your school lunch experience, it is fairly likely that you remember ONE story from your school lunch days. I quite accurately remember being one of the last kids to be excused from the table because I talked far too much, and never really took the time to finish my food. But the food was excellent! Homemade cinnamon rolls, chicken and noodles, orange cups, mashed potatoes, a lovely salad bar.... school lunch to me was a time to fill up and really get to know my friends.

So now that you're grown, you send your kids off to school each day, knowing that they will get lunch. But how much do you know about the food they will be eating? What is on the menu for that day? And how can you become more involved in the eating choices that will be available for your child?

School Menu, a website designed to encourage nutrition through school lunches, offers games and fun for kids, while offering parents the opportunity to preview their school's menu. Your kids can dance along with a music video, print out fun sheets to color, or even learn some fun new riddles! For even more parent resources, Family Everyday provides informative articles, parenting quizzes, an interactive Q & A memo board, and facts about the nutrition your kids can count on when they choose school lunch. Family Everyday also shows parents how they can get involved with their school lunch program, and it even offers a newsletter so that you can get quick parenting tips in your inbox!

Check out School Menu and its parental counterpart Family Everyday, two sites that work together with School Food Services Directors to provide and promote healthy eating and physical fitness for kids and their parents.