First off, the warning one:
(image courtesy of Robb Allen)Preschooler's homemade lunch replaced with nuggets
A Hoke County preschooler was fed chicken nuggets for lunch because a state worker felt that her homemade lunch did not have enough nutritional value, according to a report by the Carolina Journal.My first thought was that maybe the parent sent the kid in with a bag of Skittles or something - while I'm still not comfortable with the school arbitrarily deciding to change the kid's lunch, at least it would be changing to something more reasonable. But a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, apple juice, and potato chips? That looks pretty damn balanced to me - meat, grains, fruit/vegetable, even dairy are present. And this wasn't good enough?
The West Hoke Elementary School student was in her More at Four classroom when a state agent who was inspecting lunch boxes decided that her packed lunch — which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips — “did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines,” the Journal reports.
And I can't help but wonder what the chicken nuggets offered that the turkey in the turkey sandwich didn't. Protein? There's plenty of protein in turkey (and cheese, for that matter). Is there now a daily fried coating allotment that was missing? Unless there's something important missing from this story, it looks like nothing more than a naked power play from the school officials. It's yet another notch in the cradle-to-grave nanny state - you're not smart enough to pack your kid's lunch correctly. Even if you are.
All your lunch are belong to us.
That is all.
Another dispatch from...
(image courtesy of Robb Allen)
12 comments:
Sad. Very sad.
Inspecting kids lunches...now that's just wonderful!
You missed the kicker, they billed the parents $1.25 for the lunch.
To avoid jail time, I would need a long quiet walk in the woods before explaining to the school why they will never, ever, get their money.
What needs to happen is for a parent to pack an "ethnic" lunch that does NOT meet the dietary guidelines, then scream bloody murder if the school interferes. End of problem!
I was just thinking I'm going to pack my granddaughter a Twinkie and a Coke.
The kid had a more balanced lunch than I eat every day, and I'm a grown adult. This beaurocrat is simply trying to justify his small, petty existence.
The part that just pegs my meter is that there exists such a person as a "State Inspector of Lunches" .
..... and they are not inpecting the luches the SCHOOL provides, They are there to inspect the Lunches the PARENTS supplies.
Yikes.........1984 has arrived a little late but it's here.
Would have been really interesting if the child had been allergic to something in those nuggets. Seriously, read the label on a box of nuggets sometime.
I don't usually go for frivolous law suits. But someone needs to be sued out of the work force for this. Start with the inspector and don't stop until you have removed the entire school board and everyone in between the two.
You know, the school gets X amount of dollars in federal funding for the school meals program. Doesn't matter if the kid eats it or throws it away, if they can say the served on, they get some more of Uncle Sugars tax monies. So, a lunch inspector exists so that can do exactly what they're doing, throw out a home packed lunch and increase the served lunches by one. More money for the school, one more tic on a metric that some "public servant" can use to show what a bang up smashing success their little program is oh and can you increase our budget by 49% next year?....
I suspect the parents of that child could have gone into the cafeteria, taken a lunch tray of whateve they were serving that day, put it in a paper bag and it still would have been rejected by the lunchdouchebag.
IIRC, the Chicago metro schools banned home-made lunches (not nutritious, natch) unless the student brings in proof that they have to have kosher/halal/Jain/Hindu/ medical consideration.
LittleRed1
Uhm guys you might want to see an opposing viewpoint.
"what this story boils down to is that a low-income child whose tuition is fully subsidized by the state under a program her mother opted into was offered some additional food to supplement the boxed lunch she brought from home. This option was provided not because of some overarching, generally applicable law or regulation, but because the program in which her mother and school voluntarily participate requires such an option be available. The mother apparently objects to this option being provided to her daughter, not because of any health concerns or the like, but because she incorrectly believes that she will be charged additional money for her child being provided this option. "
taken from http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/02/15/a-north-carolina-non-troversy/
Please note that I have no idea what is going on, just remembering how accurate the media is when it comes to firearms.
NukemJim
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