Reason for the dumping: Cost too much, kids didn’t eat it.
BOSTON (CBS) – Teaching kids about good nutrition is a life lesson, but in Boston Public Schools salad bars have vanished. The move is leaving a sour taste for many parents, as well as the mayor.
With First Lady Michelle Obama pushing healthyfoods in school, half a dozen Boston schools were among those who bought into lunchroom salad bars in the battle against childhood obesity. A couple years later, none remain – to the chagrin of parents hoping to pry their kids away from junk food.
“My little one’s not in school yet, but I’d hope by the time he gets there that they’d have healthy options like salad,” said Boston mom Tara Hayes. “I’m a healthy eater and I try to promote that at home.”
The school salad bars were a pilot program scrapped amid cost overruns, sanitary concerns, and according to some, the simple truth that very few kids partook.
Boston Mayor Marty Walsh is not buying it, and isn’t happy that this healthy option has disappeared.
“There’s ways of creating a salad bar that kids and young people will eat,” the mayor told WBZ-TV.