Warning:
(image courtesy of Robb Allen)Chicago School Bans Bag Lunches to Get Kids to Eat Less Junk Food
A push for healthier school lunches has led one Chicago school to ban students from bringing lunches from home altogether.Now, there's a few key pieces missing from this story. First off, there's no mention of whether this is a private or public school - that's critical information here. All bets are off if this is a private school, because in that a parent could simply choose not to send their child to that school. If it's a public school, though, it would be interesting to see whether the meals are provided for the children (i.e. by the taxpayers) and which familial connection of the principal owns the food concession company...
Students at Chicago's Little Village Academy are required to eat the lunch provided to them by the school -- a policy that has cooked up controversy among parents and educators amid a national debate about the best way to promote healthy eating for children.
Now, their claim is that the school lunch is healthier than a lunch from home. I'm sure that in some isolated instances this is true, but unless the school's lunch is radically different than any other large food provider on the planet that's a tall tale to believe. Food services don't make money serving organic meals with lean protein and refined sugars - they serve processed foods bought by the bucketloaderfull. While there may be parents out there sending the kid in with a can of Coke and three pixie sticks, it's hard to believe in the majority of cases the school lunch is better than a lunch from home.
The more disconcerting part is right in the article:
Justin Wilson, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Consumer Freedom, said parents should be able to make choices about what their kids eat. "They're saying, 'Parents don't know what's best for their children, the government does.' "Bingo. This ain't about nutrition, it's about control, plain and simple.
That is all.
15 comments:
The company supplying lunches to the school gets paid for every kid that eats a school lunch. I suspect it's more about the kickbacks than the control.
**Shakes head**
Alan beat me to it, I'm sure the principal is getting something back from the supplier, this is Chicago, were nothing happens without a kickback to someone.
It is a public school by the way.
BS
Saw this on NES...
yeah, it's mind-destroyingly stupid, but it's Chicago. What did you expect?
Just wait until the schools have to start providing vegan meals, and 6 different special needs meals. They'll probably have to start giving certain students a pass to bring their own lunch.
Let the lawsuits rain
"it's hard to believe in the majority of cases the school lunch is better than a lunch from home."
And even if school lunch were healthier it's irrelevant. The State has NO business telling students and parents they may not bring their own lunch to school.
Foxnews said that each Principal gets to make the decision on the school lunch program, so the 300+Ward Healers......, er,"School Lunch and Nutrition Staffers" at the Chicago Public School Board don't have a say. But I'm sure that a couple of them are applying for Federal Grant Money to do a 5 year investigation "to study the issue" even as we speak. Also, think of all those Union School Cafeteria Employees they have to hire to dole out the Slop!
mmmmm, coke and pixie sticks......
Anyway, I can't add much to what's already been said. Someone's in it for the money, and someone else is in it for the power. My hope is that parents ignore this rule and continue to provide sack lunches for their children.
I believe that title I funding is based on the number of kids who qualify for free or reduced price lunches. So those evil parents who are packing lunch for their kids are not applying for free lunches and thus at least some of them are costing the school funding that could be spent buying votes...
And this is just the beginning. In a year or two (or maybe less), watch for city, state, and federal workplaces to pick this up.
And it won't be long before private companies follow suit. New healthy eating guidelines as part of Obamacare will be cited.
When they started the smoking ban here in Ohio, I told people this was coming, but they all laughed at me.
Just wait and see.
Chartwell? Both of my kids went to state colleges which used Chartwell as their cafeteria provider.
Inedible is about the nicest thing that either had to say about the food.
I'd quote my son, but this is a family blog.
Funny thing is that part of my doctor's recommendations for losing weight and improving my health was to eat least commercially prepared food and more home cooked food. Commercially prepared foods are loaded with salt and fat, especially when compared to home cooked food.
As Alan and Anonymous note, there is probably a financial incentive of some sort in the mix here too.
Like most other liberal initiatives, it's not about making something better, it's about control.
Let the litigation begin.
Wonder what happens when a child with food allergies or other special food needs like being a vegan meets cafeteria?
No logic, just plain old greed.
That and no one could beat my mothers eggplant parm faux burgers! As kids we looked forward to them, but hey we liked baloney and PB&J too.
Eck!
Yep, a ChicagoPublic School -- fairly close to the school where I teach.
You shouldn't be surprised, we now have breakfast for ALL students, eaten in the room before we begin class.
And the Lunch thing (in practical terms) is not a big deal, 98 - 100% of the kids get free lunch anyway. I haven't had a kid bring a lunch from home in about 2 years. Of course, I still oppose it on principal.
Gee, I wonder if this means Green Bean Pizza like when I was a kid in school. To this day I cannot stomach either pizza, or Green Beans and can barely tolerate hamburgers.
Homeschool.
I know this happened in Chicago, but what options do kids have in Mass. for transferring between schools to another within the same district. As I went to school in the South during the last years of Federal desegregation in 2001, you could not transfer to another school in your district (wanting to go to the school on your side of town is racist, apparently). You were stuck under whatever principle was in place.
-8notch
Post a Comment