School lunchrooms give just about everyone the heebie-jeebies, and the fact that so little has changed since the Reagan-era ketchup-should-be-considered-a-vegetable debacle depresses us. But this year gave us reason to hope that the term Salisbury steak soon will disappear from the lexicon of schoolchildren everywhere, and that we will no longer shudder as we tear up the lunchroom menus that come home in our kids’ backpacks without even glancing at them. That hope came thanks to new businesses like... Green Bag Lunch, which provides wholesome, organic and—yes, kids—tasty catered meal options to schools in the city and on the North Shore
...Busy parents can enjoy a get-out-of-making-lunch pass thanks to Evanston-based Green Bag Lunch. It provides organic, bagged lunches that always include a main course, two sides of fresh fruit or vegetables plus a dessert that kids can pick from a range of choices. (Options include grilled chicken wraps, shelled edamame and whole-grain minimuffins with yogurt.) The company even packs the meals using recycled or reusable lunch bags and biodegradable containers, and it takes care of disposal.
[Green Bag Lunch charges $5 per meal, which is], not exactly cheap especially considering the federal subsidy for each school lunch is $2.47. But compared to the long-term cost on our kids’ bodies of a diet that regularly includes stuff like sloppy joes made with mystery meat? We’ll happily cut corners elsewhere.
WILMETTE LIFE May 8, 2008
In the bag: Parents, healthy goals in mind, offer sack lunch program at some area schools
By Ken Goze
With growing awareness of childhood obesity in recent years, many schools have cut down on pizza and sugar-laden sodas in their cafeterias.
But two Wilmette area parents have launched a company for those who want to jump into healthy eating with both feet.
Green Bag Lunch, started last spring by Anne Weber of Evanston and Dave Feinberg of Wilmette, sells bag lunches through a subscription program where everything is organic, low in fat and packaged in "green" eco-friendly material.
"Really it's about healthy foods for kids, and organic is certainly a piece of that, but it's also about balancing proteins and complex carbs, getting plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables," Weber said. "Everything is made completely from scratch; there's no chemicals, no preservatives. It's just very natural food that introduces kids to things like edamame that lots of them have never had, or if they had it in a normal sort of hot-lunch school situation they would probably hate it."
Weber said she and Feinberg developed the idea for the company after meeting at a local preschool both of their children attended. Weber said she spent 14 years in marketing promoting fast food and soft drinks and the kind of over-processed convenience foods she would never eat herself. Having young children also sharpened her interest in the environment, and other parents seemed to share that interest.
Since their start-up, the company has managed to set up in about nine schools in the North Shore area and on Chicago's North Side. Parents either contract individually for lunches to be delivered, or the company serves as the designated vendor for a certain day of the week, selling larger numbers of lunches in the school's cafeteria or lunchroom. Deerfield District 109 schools are among the company's biggest customers, and Wilmette's St. Francis Xavier School also has the service one day a week. The company is introducing the food to test groups at schools such as Glencoe's South School, which have made no decision on whether to adopt it.
"So far we've hit our benchmarks, but it's tough just to sort of break through the inertia of school administrators and PTOs," Weber said. "It's human nature to kind of get stuck in your ways, and this is really different, so that's kind of the boulder we push uphill, but we're doing well."
The menu features six different entrees such as a grilled chicken mini-wrap with a whole-wheat tortilla, sides of organic vegetables or fruits and a dessert for $5 a day including delivery. Weber said that's about a dollar more than it would cost for parents to make their own meal using similar quality organic food from a supermarket. The meals are made at the company's kitchen at 1601 Payne Ave. in Evanston.
Part of their selling point is that the meals are all packaged in eco-friendly material: Plastics made from potato starch, and sandwich bags made from plant-based cellulose instead of plastic wrap. It's more expensive, and finding such materials took some research, but Weber said it's a natural fit for those concerned about healthy eating in the largest sense.
"If you want really healthy fruits and vegetables, they've got to come from an Earth that's been nurtured and still has the ability to put vitamins back into our foods. To me it's kind of a big circle," Weber said.
Many schools have taken their own steps to clean up their cafeteria menus, which has helped open people's minds to healthier eating, but left many parents wanting more.
"I think they've sort of taken that half step, instead of pizza every week they're bringing in maybe Subway or something that is perceived a little bit healthier, and they're serving bottled water instead of soda, but this is definitely not a half step; it's a full step towards healthy," Weber said.
At St. Francis, the program has a loyal but select following, said Mary Claire Belton, president of the school's Home School Organization. Green Bag Lunch began serving lunch on Tuesdays at the school, and the HSO gets a portion of the proceeds. Belton figures about a quarter of the school's 160 families tried it at the start of the year.
"It has dwindled down a bit, but the people who like it are hard-core and really love it, and so we're continuing to carry it for them," Belton said.
The shakeout seemed to happen for several reasons. Some didn't care for the menu items; others were not used to the smaller portions, even though they are in line with what federal guidelines identify as healthy amounts of food. Belton said it seems to be catching on more among younger kids who aren't as set in their ways of fast foods or super-sized meals, and the program could catch on in coming years for that reason.
"It raises kids' awareness of what foods are good and even the kids who don't subscribe to it, they see the other kids eating it and it kind of gets into their head what's a better way to package things and a better, healthier way to eat," Belton said.
CHICAGO
TRIBUNE Sunday September 9, 2007
Q SECTION: HEALTH
Green Bag it for your kids'—and planet's—sake
By Julie Deardorff
When 5-year-old Isabelle Weber of Evanston started kindergarten
last week, she toted along something her mother, Anne, dreamed
up to revolutionize school meals: a Green Bag Lunch.
These healthy, eco-friendly lunch bags come filled with freshly
made sandwiches, whole-grain muffins, lean protein, organic
fruits, yogurts and vegetables, and bite-size treats that
deliver a lesson on portion control.
And because a healthy child depends on a healthy planet --
and the average American child produces 67 pounds of trash
just from school lunch each year -- the bags are waste-free;
only recyclable, reusable or biodegradable materials are included
in the packaging.
Parents simply go online to order, or set up a prepaid account
to allow young children to select their own food. The $5 lunches
-- which include a main course, two sides of fresh fruit or
vegetables plus a dessert -- are delivered directly to schools
or camps along Chicago's North Shore by Green Bag Lunch, which
has partnered with The Corner Chef in Evanston.
"I want parents to feel good about themselves,"
said Weber, who launched Green Bag Lunch with business partner
Dave Feinberg after struggling to find time to make healthy
meals for her two children. "I want kids to learn how
to make good choices. And I want schools, parents, students
and camps to see that being environmentally responsible just
isn't as hard as they think."
So far, the fledgling program has been tested at St. Athanasius
in Evanston and at eight summer camps in Wilmette and Highland
Park. This fall, it also will deliver lunches to Rogers Park
Montessori in Chicago and St. Francis in Wilmette, and they're
talking to a dozen other schools. The minimum for delivery
is 20 lunches.
Weber acknowledges that a $5 lunch isn't for everyone, every
day. But she says parents would probably spend $4 if they
packed a similar lunch themselves, and the environmentally
friendly packaging costs a little more than standard fast-food
containers. She also hopes to get the price down to $3 per
meal as the idea catches on. The federal subsidy for school
lunch is $2.47.
One way to help expand the program would be to include Green
Bag Lunch on special lunch days that many schools hold as
fundraisers. But even though the company gives back 10 percent
of its profits, it hasn't been able to compete with Pizza
Day or Hot Dog Day, which tend to be bigger fundraisers. The
question parents need to ask is: Which is a better investment
in our children's future?
