The problem starts in the home, parents should be encouraging their children to eat fruits and vegetables instead of pop tarts and spaghetti-o's. A simple solution to the problem would be to allow children to pick their breakfast and lunch items, it they don't like something they see they don't have to select it so it does not get wasted. Make all the choices healthy choices and if a student doesn't like bananas they may select an apple.

If the banana is still 'greenish', it's not ripe, and isn't going to taste as good as if they'd waited til it was ripe to offer it up. But, yes, there should be a variety of choice, and not forcing food onto kids if they aren't hungry enough to eat it.

Probably because they're plantains. He has always said they're nasty and just doesn't take his serving.

What kid wants a green banana? Also, I saw some other examples, the so called "good food", it was just dumped on the trays with no extra preparation. What about making a mixed fruit salad? Too much work? Same for the veggies, a little seasoning, some extra prep. A really good tossed salad with a home made dressing, so simple. A slow simmered soup made with fresh ingredients? I think so many people are trying to make the good food programs a failure. It is easier for the school kitchens to heat up frozen food and it makes for more profit for the processed food companies and make no mistake, schools are one of their major profit centers.

I used to work for a non-profit that provided meals for an 8 county area, we had a jewel of a lady who ran the kitchens and she and her staff turned out the best food. This was in the 70's and we were getting surplus food from the government. After the lunches were served, the cooks came up with new recipes using the surplus food, my office staff were the official tasters. Yum, yum, they turned out some tasty dishes, all made from scratch. Hot rolls or cornbread every day, all kinds of wholesome casseroles, soups, great chopped salads sent out to serve seniors in 8 counties. Good food can be prepared in an institutional setting, just have to have the will and training to do it.

I saw the TV show where Jamie Oliver went to a town in West Virginia to try to get the children to eat better food and the lunch room workers were not happy with having to spend more time prepping the food. Also, the kids were being served chicken nuggets and frozen French fries at home and that is what they came to expect. Don't know any better and haven't trained their palates to know what good food is.

including foil wrappers from butter packs. It all went to pig feed. The only thing you had to separate our was yoghurt pots - the pigs couldn't cope with them, but presumably were fine with the foil wrappers.

If it had been fresh spinach I would have eaten it.