Green bananas and gristly chicken: Sioux Falls school lunch goes viral on Facebook
Megan Raposa
UPDATE: Superintendent responds to viral photo criticizing school lunch
Mandy Berkhof couldn't keep her lunch to herself Tuesday.
The 29-year-old Sioux Falls woman had joined her second-grade daughter for a meal at Robert Frost Elementary. It was "Grandparents Day," and Berkhof joined her mother for a visit to the school cafeteria.
The meal was so unappealing, Berkhof decided to share a photo on Facebook. Within hours, the post had been shared more than 1,200 times with more than 600 comments from parents both in- and out-of-state.
"Everybody had green bananas," Berkhof said. "The refried beans had kind of like a burnt coating on top, like, you could peel the top of the beans off, and the chicken was really gristly. ... We tried the tortilla. It just tasted like cardboard."
The Sioux Falls School District didn't respond directly to the Facebook post, but said parents and students are represented on the Child Nutrition Services committee that reviews lunch options. In addition, school board President Kate Parker expressed some caution against overreacting to the post.
"What I saw did, to me, seem like a very skimpy serving of meat on that tortilla, but not being there ... I just can't make a judgment call from one picture," Parker said.
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School lunches are regulated by the federal government through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Individual districts are responsible for adhering to strict guidelines on including whole grains, fruit, protein and vegetables with every meal.
But Berkhof, along with many of the commenters on her post, did not feel her lunch was adequate. It was her first time eating the school lunches with her daughter, and she was surprised by the poor quality of the food.
Berkhof was hoping to see a response from her post, but she was expecting a contact number for the school district, not 500-plus shares. A number of the shares and comments are from people sharing their own stories of being disappointed by school lunches.
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"The variety of people that it's reached already and the fact that it happens all over the U.S. is crazy," Berkhof said. "Some people who have their kids that go to Robert Frost, they had no idea that's what their kids eat."
Seeing the outpouring of frustration from parents in Sioux Falls (and as far as Texas), she was inspired to take further action.
She's already reaching out to school board members, and she plans to bring her concerns to one of their upcoming meetings.
"I'm not trying to put blame on anybody or shame the school," Berkhof said. "I'm just trying to raise awareness that this is what our kids are eating. And I think something needs to be done about it."