Some call healthy L.A. school lunches inedible

New federal guidelines aimed at making school lunches more nutritious were announced this past week. It may seem like a welcome trend, but in the Los Angeles school district, many students are calling healthier inedible.

CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker reports that everything inside one L.A. school cafeteria may be nutritious, but few students have anything good to say about L.A.'s health lunch menus.

"It tastes bad. It looks bad. It doesn't even look like it's real food," said Baleria Franco, a student at Hollywood High School.

"The healthier it gets, the more disgusting it is," said student Kevin Albrecht.

Some can barely describe what "it" is.

"I guess it's like wheat pasta, but it doesn't look like pasta," Franco said.

"It's called a barbecue 'sandwich', but it looks like an imitation Sloppy Joe," said student Marina Sangit.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. For the past ten years, the Los Angeles school district has been working to overhaul the menu. First to go: canned sodas. Then came the push for fresh fruits and vegetables, which today account for nineteen percent of total spending, up from just two percent in 2005.

Old standbys like corn dogs are out and turkey burgers are in - moves hailed by UCLA nutritionist Wendy Slusser.

"It is common sense to serve a child healthy food," Slusser said. "The big question is why aren't we all doing this. And it is because it is a shift, in where we were, and change takes time."

Taking time to change is not something L.A. can afford. School officials say one in three students are overweight or obese. So far, though, its healthy meals are a bust:

"Usually we go to the student store and I'll buy a bag of Cheetos...or like chips, sometimes a Gatorade, yeah," Sangit said.

To woo students back, the district has launched another menu makeover - a tastier menu, it says, now being tested on elementary school kids and their parents.

The verdict on items like hummus and Greek salad: they're "better." It's a reaction parents did not expect, but certainly welcome.

"Seriously, he's shoveling it in. And I've never seen him eat salad at home!" said parent Amy Nairin.

As schools nationwide this week are looking at new standards for nutrition, L.A.'s experience shows that kids will only eat food that's food for them if it's actually good.

[jamiedbruce]

i find it amazing how contrite the kids seem in the video. Clearly they were grinning and playing to the camera. The producer of the piece should be ashamed. It reeks of manipulation. I feel like i was watching a reality show where everything feels forced. The sad part is that if it was not negative it would not have aired. Shame on all. The Media at its best once again. And for the record like it or not the kids should get healthy food wether they like it or not. Solution if they don't like it, eat at home or be happy there is food on the table at schools. The LAUSD has to make 750,000 meals a day and over 40% of LA kids depend on it. How about reporting that!? I was furious after watching this clip and felt like those kids were a bunch of spoiled brats.

[bixbygretta]

Really? People actually think offering healthier food is a bad idea? No wonder we are obese! Listen, the food isn't being "forced" on anyone....don't like it? Bring your own. YOU HAVE A CHOICE. We try and teach the 4 food groups at school and then we feed our children crap at school lunch. Sends a mixed message doesn't it? MAYBE the ones complaining are obese and only eat fried chicken and potato chips...BEIGE, BEIGE, BEIGE...THOSE diets ar the crap..This entire transition isn't going to go smoothly at first. Nothing like this would now would it? It's going to take time to teach children to "like" healthier food because they don't get it at home. Enthnicity issues? Bring your own! Eat what we have or go home.

[bixbygretta]

Really? People actually think offering healthier food is a bad idea? No wonder we are obese! Listen, the food isn't being "forced" on anyone....don't like it? Bring your own. YOU HAVE A CHOICE. We try and teach the 4 food groups at school and then we feed our children crap at school lunch. Sends a mixed message doesn't it? MAYBE the ones complaining are obese and only eat fried chicken and potato chips...BEIGE, BEIGE, BEIGE...THOSE diets ar the crap..This entire transition isn't going to go smoothly at first. Nothing like this would now would it? It's going to take time to teach children to "like" healthier food because they don't get it at home. It's ALSO going to take time to perfect what and how the food is being offered and prepared....I suppose NO ONE here ever made an error on a first try. Sheesh...Give credit where credit is due.....If we aren't going to make changes at a school level (where kids actually go to learn something , and we keep feeding them junk), then where are we going to make changes? All I'ms saying is you can't fix stupid. keep feeding your kids junk......you are what you eat....

[nehicks]

Why is the student store still selling stuff like Cheetos and Gatorade? If the students don't like the food in the cafeteria, then bring what they want to eat from home. The reasons they don't recognize "good food" is that they don't get it at home.

[MariePearle]

Short of tying kids up to a chair and force-feeding them spinach and tofu, you are not going to be able to make them eat things they don't want to when they are given a choice between school food they don't like or bringing food from home.

So is that what's next with government-controlled health care? Because that is the only way you will be able to force health onto people.

[MariePearle]

Also what about food allergies? Believe it or not, some kids are allergic to soy products, and there is also such a thing as a fruit/vegetable allergy. I had a friend with such an allergy, and he was skinnier than you would think not being able to eat most fruits/veggies.

[jamiedbruce]

then kids should not eat it and can eat their crap at home. How about the fact that almost half of the kids in LA county depend on this food? And i will not support paying junk food for kids so they come in sick later in life in the ER which I will be paying for as well. So this basic common sense. As for the kids eventually they will eat it. Like adults they hate change even if it is bad for them. It's like addicts.

[credibility2]

So, how much of this so-called revised menu food items are being thrown out? How much does that translate to taxpayer gouging? Why aren't parents protesting? Maybe the kids need to start their own occupy movement and force these misguided socialist green food loons to get off their backs.

[Mike_in_USA]

So now the feseral and state governments are telling us how and what to eat, and now doing their best to make us follow their 'laws'?
'You are not required to like it, you are required to eat it!' Sounds like a dictatorship to me.

[credibility2]

...all of the green foodie zealots and the First Lady are behind this latest in socialism...

[vielmann]

So eating healthy food is socialism? Well bring on the freedom fries or just bring your own diabetes producing food from home and be free.

[jenmmhalliday]

The LA food isn't inedible because it's healthy. It's total garbage. My kids both qualify for free lunch. But if I send them to school without one from home, that usually means they won't eat. The problem is not that it's healthier. The problem is that it lacks quality. If the district commits to spending money on healthier, BETTER quality food, it won't be disgusting. I can make very healthy meals for my children at home by spending a little extra that they gobble up.

[ajvw]

you have a computer, with internet access, and yet your children qualify for a "free lunch." get rid of your cell phones, your cable tv, and your internet and maybe you can afford to take care of your own kids.

[InnerView]

You're teaching your children to bite the hand that feeds them. And if its "total garbage", then its time you cooked food for your children and focused them on grades. A free lunch and you spit at it? C'mon. T
he food is NOT that bad, its a lemmings/sheep mentality that all kids start grimacing after a bite, its not true, they are fronting.

AND YOU, the parent are actually teaching them, guiding them so wrong. I'm appalled at your attitude as a parent, NO WONDER we have such awful kids these days. YOu're the proof parent.

[InnerView]

I live in those communities and know from a direct source that these kids, in the inner city, mostly of Mexican descent, they are the majority Latino, throw away this food on a daily basis. Its appalling that they take trashcans FULL of un-eaten school food, EVERYDAY.

You can suggest all kinds of solutions as to how, or what to offer these kids, but honestly, I'm telling you from knowing them, that its not about that.

I have observed that it could actually be something to do with the food being "American Healthy" food. In other words, many of these kids are rejecting the food because culturally its not "their" food. They aren't open other cultures foods like say, humus or pasta, etc.

I won't go into it further, but its obvious that there's something going on, thats got nothing to do with the food being healthy but being "white" or "American". I welcome anyone to prove me wrong. And the parents, ooh forget it. They don't instill any values about appreciating FREE...FREE FOOD.. and learning to eat.

Here's what one said about the food given to her offspring: "Que le dieron a mi hijo? Se vomito, que les estan dando?" ... it was carefully cooked, healthy food of course, but what do they cook for their kids...? Yes, taco's and constant red meat, you know the fair.

And they don't really cook anymore, its easier to go down to the makeshift taco stand with lightbulbs that seem to be popping up everywhere, a now new American cultural melting pot phenomena, than to actually make food at home? Who's got time to cook?! There are novela's to watch!

The solution? Simple and tough. Stop serving them food and have them prepare and bring, heck, yes even COOK their own foods.

[14FREEK]

yes, if the director is at his/her dexk she can direct all kinds of nutrious foods. but healthy and nutrious have to also be satisfying and filling. Little changes like the whole wheat pasta is a good plae to start. But for now just switch the pasta leave the sauce and cheese toppings alone for now. Maybe next year change the cheese. Make it a process not an attack. Kids can adjust. another thing is start with the younger kids more. Younger kids will eat if they are hungry, older kids know they can get the bag of chips around the corner. STill in three or four years you could havemade a significant change that will be acceptable if not well recieved.

[Frank-Cooper]

Why change at all. The "healthier" foods are so full of genetically altered, preservative filled, artificially coloured and flavored, pseudofood that kids are reacting with natural self preservation tendencies. You don't drink that bottle of bleach over the laundry but you want them to chemically take the biological equivalent as being healthy. Give them meat, vegetables, dairy and grains in moderation without a lot of additives and they will eat it.