This much remains the same: Today’s “lunch ladies” still make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to order. But school lunches have undergone a quiet revolution in the last decade, providing children with meals their parents might actually envy, said Barbara Albi, food service manager for Depew Union Free School District.

Her ladies serve about 850 breakfasts and 1,400 lunches daily at three schools.

The days of french fries and soda pop lunches are over. Sales of soda and candy before the end of the last lunch period are prohibited by state law. Since Depew removed its deep fryer, like many other school kitchens, the days of daily french fries are over.

The fries are baked now, and they appear twice a month. But Albi’s pride and joy are the kids who ask for more Brussels sprouts.

“When we started, it was hard to get them to try them, but we said, ‘It’s baby cabbage.’ We’d make them each take one,” said Albi. “Now I have children ask for them.”

The kids on whom she has been pushing beets, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts are moving up to the high school, where the efforts of Albi and her ladies have resulted in an estimated 70 percent of lunch buyers eating them. That’s right: They get high school kids to eat their vegetables.

Everybody remembers that one lunch lady.

“That’s your kind face during the day, that smiles at you, who feeds you. Not to replace Mom, but that’s what Mom does: She feeds you, smiles at you, feeds you and gets you through. That’s what these ladies do on a daily basis.”

The world of the lunch lady has changed since the days I bought Tater Tots for lunch for a week straight.

“Our guidelines are pretty stringent. Nutritional guidelines are updated every five years, which helps determine our meal patterns. Then we’re audited to make sure we’re following nutritional guidelines.

What’s different?

“When I came here eight years ago, the kids weren’t eating whole wheat bread. Now they’re taking it. We changed the milk: Instead of serving whole milk and 2 percent, now I only serve serve 1 percent and skim. The kids at first were, ‘No, I want the red carton.’ But now they’re used to it.”

Brown rice? Tell me you still have vending machines at least.

We’ve come a long way with that. If you look at the vending machines, you see string cheese, yogurt, cereal, milk, fruit, and the kids do buy it. Baked chips. Cereal bars. You don’t see candy bars. Vending is not necessarily a bad choice any more, because we have so many options to offer the kids.

But school lunch still gets no respect.

You see parents go to McDonald’s and throw down $3 on the counter and not even think about it. Here I’m serving something better, and more, with milk, fruit and vegetable, and I’m only charging $1.75. Try to find a meal that follows all the guidelines, has so many calories, so much sodium and so on—and still only pay $1.75. It’s the best deal in town.