School Lunch from the Lunch Ladies

I just posted this to the Huffington Post:
When I was growing up, I spent a very short period of time in a small town in southern Missouri. 5th and 6th grades shared a room, there were about 11 of us total. Every morning when we walked into school, we could smell what was cooking for lunch in the basement kitchen. Always good and homemade by our 'Lunch Ladies'. Shortly after school started, one of the Lunch Ladies would come to the classroom and get a count and take our punch cards. We were given a weekly menu I think on Friday for the following week. It was a great system. Some days there would be 'leftovers­' from the day before and we could ask for them when we got up to the front of the line. On special occasions we were given a choice - rare - and we had to put in our order in the morning. The last day of school there was a choice of tacos and ? - can't remember, but I did choose tacos. And get this, we were allowed to ask for seconds! This was in the '70's.
I agree fast food has taken over the food industry, deliberate­ly getting at our kids to get at our money. If we can get processed food out of schools that would be one huge step for mankind. Keeping it out of our homes, too. Home cooking...  

School Lunch Mystery

I do not understand the big issue of offering vegetables in lunch cafeterias. I just read that they are trying to market the vegetables to the kids. There are so many good cooks and chefs in this country. My question is: Are they not teaming up with the nutritionists? Am I blind thinking there is some kind of conspiracy going on here? This is not rocket science. There are so many ways to add vegetables to food for kids that they will love: use whole wheat flour, make zucchini bread, carrot cake, pumpkin bread, apple cake, use whole wheat pasta and make the meal appetizing. Cut out at least half of the sugar, add bran and flax to the recipe. Use WHOLE FOOD ingredients to make the recipes for the school lunches. I don't understand why this is such a huge issue. To introduce new foods to kids, maybe have a day of tasting at the school so that kids learn about the new healthy food offered to them so they can make good healthy choices. Take the mystery out of what to do by inviting the kids to taste the new healthy items offered, and use some of the budgeted marketing money for this. If it's good, they will like it and continue to eat it. It seems like there is too much of an issue here and it doesn't have to be that way. There are a lot of people in this country that love to cook. Planning lunch menus for a year is not that big of a deal. Give me a week and an industrial kitchen and I can prove it.