Please Bring a Healthy Lunch

My son started camp last Monday. He came home with a notice reminding us to send him to camp each day with the regular stuff, water, bathing suit, towel, and a lunch. But not just any lunch, we were instructed to send "a healthy lunch". With the word healthy underlined.

I appreciate their effort, adding healthy and then underlining it, I'm sure this really took a lot of time. But is this the total extent of their efforts? Probably. I imagine this resolves them of any other nutritional responsibilities. Now I know this is only summer camp and it is not their job to provide nutrition education. But this is a sports camp sponsored by the community parks and rec. department. I know this community has put considerable time and effort into a healthy lunch program in their school district, with excellent results. Comparing a camp, where each child brings a lunch, to a school that provides the lunch is a big difference in control.

But it seems to me that they should either ask us to pack "a lunch" or give some advice or guidelines if they want a healthy lunch. There is free information all over the Internet about what constitutes a healthy lunch. Given this is a sports camp, they may have encouraged us to send nutritious foods given the amount of calories the children will be using and explaining the relationship between healthy foods and sports performance. Simple recommendations would be the to include a fruit or vegetable or both in the lunch. The encouragement to provide some whole grains such as whole wheat bread or oatmeal cookies (when oatmeal is the first ingredient) for longer lasting energy, plus a food with protein (cheese, hard boiled eggs, meats, hummus, tofu, nuts where allowed) and some vegetable fats in avocados, black olives, nut butters, or salad dressing would be great.

Not everyone knows what constitutes a truly healthy lunch. And why should they? There are all sorts of candies and even marshmallows that have the word "fruit" on their labels, and some are even sold in the produce section of the grocery store. There are prepackaged lunch packs that have banners touting the words "no trans fats", "5 grams of whole wheat" or "well balanced meal" and others. But a nutritionist would know that no trans fats doesn't mean no fats--this product could be loaded with animal fats which are the ones that add to high cholesterol. Five grams of whole wheat doesn't mean 5 grams of fiber. Five grams of whole wheat just means that 5 of the 21 grams of carbohydrate are from whole wheat flour, but the major ingredient is white flour. A well balanced meal has no regulated definition, so this label means nothing.

So, we need to have nutrition education part of every one's education so we can all know what "a healthy lunch" is. The money put into public nutrition education is abysmal compared to the money spent by advertisers and marketers who put outrageous claims on food packaging advertisers. I would like to see us, as a country, put more money into public nutrition education than all of the ridiculous funding of projects that benefit a few in one state or industry. Ask for it, expect it. Eat well and enjoy.