School Lunches/Restaurants

This article is about life whether you read literature or not, about having a long, productive and happy life, and it is especially for those who serve meals to the public, and for those who eat them.

Diabetes seems to be headed for epidemic proportions in this country if eating patterns continue as they are. Some people think schools should offer a more healthful menu at lunchtime (and at breakfast for some). Learning that ketchup counts as a vegetable sends some of them climbing walls. But doesn’t it depend on what else is in the meal? The combination of ketchup with a lettuce leaf on the sandwich (whole grain bread, of course) can certainly count as a non-starchy vegetable. The bread is the needed starch and no French fries should be forthcoming. Two starches in one meal is one of the main combinations to avoid, including also corn with potatoes or peas with potatoes. But some bureaucracy somewhere is working on school lunches. I heard the new plan will take several years to complete, but if they’d get the YOU doctors running the project, they would have it done in a few days.

Those enterprises who package up the food sold to schools, stores and restaurants should decrease the amount of salt in containers of peanuts, cashews, and any other items they mistreat that way. A lot less sugar would leave canned peaches still tasting good. Yes, there’s a choice between regular and lite, but I’m thinking of everyone’s being healthier. Sometimes a shopper takes a can from a shelf without even looking at its contents on the label. Men did this, when they first began the family shopping, but now, thank heavens, even some men read labels. It’s a joy to witness that as I do my own shopping.

Now let’s think about restaurants. If we took a survey of foods in the typical restaurant kitchen, we would probably find the cottage cheese is not fat free or 2% fat, even though skim milk and 2% milk may be available. With the advent of pizza on the American scene, lard was the shortening used. How sure are we that no pizza parlor is still using it? Or bakeries, in their dessert piecrusts? How healthful is the oil that comes with a Caesar salad with dressing built-in? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to fill those saltshakers with lite salt, which has half the sodium of table salt? Some diners, who salt their food out of habit, would not notice the difference.

It is time for restaurants to reserve one page of their menus for meals for diabetics, created by dieticians, and from which all diners may choose. Weight loss in America would keep the restaurant busy with customers. Good business and good health to all!