A healthier, more civil lunch period is on the menu.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

PHILADELPHIA _ At 10:39 a.m., 400 sixth-graders at Haverford Middle School pour into two basement cafeterias. The 30-minute hustle, known as lunch, is under way.

Billy Uditsky rushes to buy pizza and fries, using 12 of those precious minutes just getting through the food line. Greta Moorhead settles at a round table with friends and unpacks a peanut-butter sandwich, grapes, cucumbers and a granola bar, all from home.

As the period winds down, both students say they wish they had more time for lunch.

"If I want to talk and eat," says Greta, half a sandwich untouched, "there isn't enough time."

Some schools offer an alternative to the commotion, such as the Literary Lunch Club in Haverford, where students can eat in the school library while listening to a teacher read, or the Norristown school where a teacher eats with her first graders. But they are the exception.

It is a common lament in our fast-food society. Everyone from principals and parent-teacher groups to national food-service associations are hearing grumbles about the length _ or rather the shortness _ of ...