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Nasty, Rotty Stuff' (LA School District Wasting Thousands of Healthy Food. Students Reject Them)
Wall Street Journal ^ | 12/22/2011

Posted on 12/22/2011 4:59:26 PM PST by SeekAndFind

"Nasty, Rotty Stuff"

That's the verdict from student Mayra Gutierrez on the new healthful menu introduced this year by the Los Angeles Unified School District. And she's not alone, according to the L.A. Times.

"At Van Nuys High School," reports the paper, "complaints about the food were so widespread that Principal Judith Vanderbok wrote to [food services director Dennis] Barrett with the plea: 'Please help! Bring back better food!'"

Readers might wonder how, with all of the challenges in reading, writing and arithmetic, school administrators decided that reducing fat and sodium at the cafeteria was a top priority for L.A. schools. And it turns out that the city's decision to ban chocolate milk and chicken nuggets in favor of quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles has created a full-blown crisis.

"Many of the meals are being rejected en masse. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students," reports the Times. "Students are ditching lunch, and some say they're suffering from headaches, stomach pains and even anemia. At many campuses, an underground market for chips, candy, fast-food burgers and other taboo fare is thriving."

So the healthy food is so bad that kids are literally starving themselves rather than tucking into vegetarian curries, or else engaging in a black market. Apparently even an art teacher has been among those caught selling illicit candy, chips and instant noodles. Andre Jahchan, a high-school sophomore, tells the Times, "No matter how healthy it is, if it's not appetizing, people won't eat it."

No one is against healthy eating, and obesity is a growing youth problem, but L.A.'s education whizzes forgot the law of unintended health-food consequences. You can't make a child eat vegetables without a little dessert to wash it down.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: childhoodobesity; foodpolice; healthyfood; losangeles; nannystate; school; schoollunch
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To: SeekAndFind

Public schools are the main engine of the State’s war on human society, and it’s winning on all fronts.


41 posted on 12/22/2011 7:32:20 PM PST by headsonpikes (Mass murder and cannibalism are the twin sacraments of socialism - "Who-whom?"-Lenin)
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To: A_perfect_lady

Mad? Nope, disgusted with your idiotic statements about how the students are brats because they don’t like the BS the Bozo administration is forcing on to them is about the size of it.


42 posted on 12/22/2011 7:32:39 PM PST by calex59
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To: A_perfect_lady

Conservatives for junk food and diabetes here!


43 posted on 12/22/2011 7:32:39 PM PST by Revolting cat! (Let us prey!)
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To: gimme1ibertee
You know the rule about photos-
44 posted on 12/22/2011 7:33:30 PM PST by matthew fuller ("If the past sits in judgment on the present, the future will be lost." Winston Churchill)
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To: SeekAndFind

Most Americans don’t know how to cook. Everything is pre prepared garbage from the grocery store filled with hydrogynated fats, preservatives, and low quality ingredients.

This is slowly changing with the move to fresher ingredients, fewer additives, healthier fats, and better tasting meals.

View this video about French public school food to see the difference. They eat good food, and therefore, childhood obesity is low. That doesn’t mean this is some hippy watermelon (green outside red inside) propaganda. When America gets serious about eating better tasting and healthier meals, this is what we will demand from our public schools. Or better yet, give vouchers so that private schools can provide the services that responsible loving parents are searching for in vain. (or you can homeschool)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovO18E-hgew


45 posted on 12/22/2011 7:35:02 PM PST by Tailback
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
"Do Like I did back in 1956."

In the 60s we had a cafeteria with kitchen that made real food. Salisbury Steak, Fried Chicken, then a hot dog or burger thrown in once a week. No one brought their lunches. Now we make one every morning for our 16 year old. Sometimes she'll make her own.

46 posted on 12/22/2011 7:41:42 PM PST by moehoward
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To: calex59
You apparently haven't tasted it, so you don't actually know what you are talking about. I have, and it's quite good. But it is foreign, and kids don't like to try new things. Actually, I don't either. When one of my fellow teachers pounced on the quinoa salad that first day, I looked at him (and it) in horror. He wolfed it down and I watched with my lip curled up. It took me a week to work up the nerve to start buying the new stuff. Once I tried it, I was hooked. It's really quite good. It's definitely better than what was there before.

Now, the kids who are complaining most likely don't have the kind of parents who urge them to try something new, or tell them to shut up and eat what's put in front of them (like I did). Instead, their parents give them the PopTarts and Cheetos because that culture tends to be quite indulgent to children. They're very nice folks, but most of the ones I see cave to their kids like wet tissue. Again: I know what I am talking about. I'm actually working right smack dab in the middle of it. You only know that if a liberal did it, it must be bad. It's a childish attitude.

47 posted on 12/22/2011 7:42:29 PM PST by A_perfect_lady
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To: A_perfect_lady
Excuse me liberal talking point spokes person. I do know what it taste like because when I was in HS, the cafeteria food tasted like crap, and they didn't try to make it "nutritious" and healthy. So, I have a general idea of what the vegan slop they are trying to push off on the teens today tastes like.

You are an idiot,and a liberal troll, no excuse for you. Please don't respond to this comment because I won't answer.

48 posted on 12/22/2011 7:58:37 PM PST by calex59
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To: calex59

I’m more than happy to have the last word: you haven’t tasted it. You don’t know.


49 posted on 12/22/2011 8:02:28 PM PST by A_perfect_lady
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To: matthew fuller
A pretty, festive, holiday bow Michelle is wearing.

And finally, some sensable shoes!

50 posted on 12/22/2011 10:00:54 PM PST by sjmjax (Politicans are like bananas - they start out green, turn yellow, then rot.)
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To: matthew fuller

LOLOL!!!


51 posted on 12/22/2011 10:56:09 PM PST by gimme1ibertee ("Criticism......brings attention to an unhealthy state of things"-Winston Churchill)
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To: SeekAndFind

Eating healthy takes more time, skill and money than frying up hamburgers. Put a heathy menu in the hands of your typical SEIU thug, and the result is, predictably, nasty rotty stuff. If they had Jamie Oliver in the kitchen, they would not have this problem. But Oliver and Michelle “solved” this problem, and walked away.

Ah, celebrities! Is there anything they can’t do?


52 posted on 12/23/2011 4:41:15 AM PST by Haiku Guy (We don't need to Occupy Wall Street... We need to Occupy K Street!)
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To: SeekAndFind; Eric Blair 2084; SheLion; Gabz; Hank Kerchief; 383rr; libertarian27; traviskicks; ...
 

Belated Nanny State PING!

53 posted on 12/28/2011 5:06:02 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (Occupy DC General Assembly: We are Marxist tools. WE ARE MARXIST TOOLS!)
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To: matthew fuller

Aww, that’s an insult to some perfectly respectable equines!


54 posted on 12/28/2011 5:47:17 PM PST by coydog (Time to feed the pigs!)
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To: coydog

I haven’t seen the accountability of the people that caused this.


55 posted on 12/28/2011 6:17:39 PM PST by AGreatPer (Obama has NEVER given a speech where he did not lie!!!)
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To: SeekAndFind; verga; thesaleboat; Sick of Lefties; Chainmail; StrongandPround; lilyramone; ...
+

Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:

Add me / Remove me

Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of general interest.


56 posted on 12/28/2011 6:18:56 PM PST by narses
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To: SeekAndFind

Dear Wall Street Journal.

NOTHING you print is worth my allowing you to track my reading interests on your site.


57 posted on 12/28/2011 7:02:02 PM PST by Don W (You can forget what you do for a living when your knees are in the breeze.)
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To: A_perfect_lady
I remember kids who came to school in clothes which were pretty much rags, dirt-floor poor kids who still had that little bag of 'tato chips and a coca-cola (well, usually RC) at least a couple of times a week in their sack lunch.

Many of the poor then got those 'face saving' treats from their parents to keep them from really feeling bad, and many of us shared our goodies with them. That was before the Great Society of LBJ, and things have changed...

But, even then, hot lunch at school was rarely an epicurean delight, even for our relatively undeveloped palettes (although we all had our favorites). What may be delightful for a more mature diner might be repulsive to a youngster, too, and peer pressure plays no small part in that.

Simple economics demanded most of us bring bag lunches, and we drank 2 cent 1/2 pints of milk, which were subsidized.

58 posted on 12/28/2011 11:56:31 PM PST by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing)
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To: Smokin' Joe

If they would just TRY the quinoa salad! It has always been the case that adults have to rather pressure kids to eat things that are good for them. I don’t know how many times my mother said “Oh just try it, for Pete’s sake, it isn’t going to kill you!” Because left to my own devices, I’d have lived on cinnamon PopTarts and PB&J.


59 posted on 12/29/2011 7:11:09 AM PST by A_perfect_lady
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To: SeekAndFind
"...At many campuses, an underground market for chips, candy, fast-food burgers and other taboo fare is thriving."

Create a vacuum and someone who stands a chance to profit will fill it.

Once again, we could have told the intellectuals in power that this would happen. Unfortunately, they're too stupid to listen to common sense.

60 posted on 12/29/2011 7:49:00 AM PST by Grizzled Bear (No More RINOS!)
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