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School Sends Child's Lunch Home After Determining it Unhealthy
halfEvilTech writes "A North Carolina mom is irate after her four-year-old daughter returned home late last month with an uneaten lunch the mother had packed for the girl earlier that day. But she wasn't mad because the daughter decided to go on a hunger strike. Instead, the reason the daughter didn't eat her lunch is because someone at the school determined the lunch wasn't healthy enough and sent it back home. What was wrong with the lunch? That's still a head-scratcher because it didn't contain anything egregious: a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice. But for the inspector on hand that day, it didn't meet the healthy requirements."
Actual story:
- Lunch was not taken away from the girl; she was given extra food because they were worried she might not have enough.
- A standard form letter was sent to the parent, which said that she may be charged for the food - in fact, since the child was enrolled in the right program, she was not actually charged for the food
- The food given was milk and vegetables, not chicken nuggets.
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/02/15/a-north-carolina-non-troversy/
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From the article:
The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home
Sandwhich was turkey and cheese and was made of bread, so that's the meat, the dairy and the grain, and the banana covers the "fruit or vegetables". A reasonable quantity of potato chips isn't unhealthy, and neither is apple juice. Also, the alternate meal that the girl was given apparently consisted of chicken nuggets.
The USDA requirements are a bit of a joke anyway. They're not really based on particularly good dietary science, they mostly conform to politics rather than real nutritional standards. Meat, vegetables and fruit sure, but dairy and grains? They're not necessarily bad for you, but they're also not requirements. Calcium is important, but you can get it in other ways than dairy, and you can certainly get better sugars, proteins and fats from other sources once you're no longer an infant. Pretty much anything you could get from "grains" (which covers a range of things that are mostly nutritionally just carbohydrates) you can get from a larger vegetable serving.
There are certainly meals that can be put together that aren't healthy, but you probably have to put a lot of effort into doing worse than the typical school lunch in the first place. If the mother in the story had sent her child to school with a big cube of liver, a raw brussels sprout and a bottle of beet juice it would have been a lot healthier than the USDA requirements or the school lunch. Her child would probably beg to be taken away by social services, but the meal would be healthy.
It's bad enough that a demagoging article like this would be posted in the first place, but that can be written off as the editors making a mistake and being tricked.
But you... either you lied about reading the article or you lied about its contents. From the first article:
'She came home with her whole sandwich I had packed, because she chose to eat the nuggets on the lunch tray, because they put it in front of her,' her mother said.
the other article:
While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch. The mother says the girl was so intimidated by the inspection process that she was too scared to eat all of her homemade lunch.
And yet you claim that "The School Person REPLACED the whole lunch with an ALTERNATE version, not just 'supplemented'," and then go off on a rant about the evil leftwing nanny state. You should be ashamed of spreading these hateful lies.
The mother was NOT charged. She received a form letter, sent to all parents, that the school might start charging for extra food given to students at some point in the future. However, since she is voluntarily enrolled in a program for poor parents, she would be exempted from paying regardless.
Please stop repeating these right-wing, scaremongering lies.
However did the parent actually say this? So far the school has said no one is being charged for the food. Original pseudo-journalist probably just making a bunch of stuff up, the mother is angry and shouting about having to pay (there is a hint in the rules of the voluntary program that they might have to pay for extra food the child takes).
The story has been corroborated by the Hoke County Assistant Superintendent.
http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/childs-lunch-allegedly-taken-by-teacher-told-it-wasnt-healthy-enough
It appears that it wasn't the "pseudo-journalist" just making a bunch of stuff up. I can't say the same for you.
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