Posted on 02/14/2012 2:09:37 PM PST by Mountain Bike Vomit Carnage
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 wasnt mad because the daughter decided to go on a hunger strike. Instead, the reason the daughter didnt eat her lunch is because someone at the school determined the lunch wasnt healthy enough and sent it back home.
Yes, you read that right.
The incident happened in Raeford, N.C. at West Hoke Elementary School. What was wrong with the lunch? Thats still a head-scratcher because it didnt contain anything egregious: a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice. But for the inspector on hand that day, it didnt meet the healthy requirements.
See, in North Carolina, all pre-Kindergarten programs are required to evaluate the lunches being provided and determine if they meet USDA nutrition guidelines. If not, they must provide an alternative.
But thats not the worst of it. Instead of being given a salad or something really healthy, the girl was given chicken nuggets instead. On top of it, her mother was then sent a bill for the cafeteria food.
Sara Burrows from the Carolina Journal explains:
The girls turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day.
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.
When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.
The girls mother who said she wishes to remain anonymous to protect her daughter from retaliation said she received a note from the school stating that students who did not bring a healthy lunch would be offered the missing portions, which could result in a fee from the cafeteria, in her case $1.25.
North Carolina Girls Lunch Sent Home for Not Being Healthy EnoughI dont feel that I should pay for a cafeteria lunch when I provide lunch for her from home, the mother wrote in a complaint to her state representative, Republican G.L. Pridgen of Robeson County, reports the Journal.
What got me so mad is, number one, dont tell my kid Im not packing her lunch box properly, the girls mother told the Journal. I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats. It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesnt really care for vegetables.
The Journal provides a copy of the state regulation:
Sites must provide breakfast and/or snacks and lunch meeting USDA requirements during the regular school day. The partial/full cost of meals may be charged when families do not qualify for free/reduced price meals.
When children bring their own food for meals and snacks to the center, if the food does not meet the specified nutritional requirements, the center must provide additional food necessary to meet those requirements.
But what was so wrong with the lunch the mother provided? Nothing apparently. A spokesowman for the Division of Child Development explained that the mothers meal should have been okay.
With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, thats the dairy, Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division, told the Journal. It sounds like the lunch itself wouldve met all of the standard.
Its unclear from reports who determined the lunch wasnt healthy enough. The Carolina Journal refers to the person as a state agent, while the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls the persona state inspector who was checking lunches that day. In an email to The Blaze, Caroline Journal reporter said the inspector was an employee of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Child Development and Early Education.
The school denied knowledge of the incident and said its looking into it.
While I share concerns about childhood obesity, I still remain uncertain of the right role for schools, writes the Journal-Constitutions Maureen Downey. This story clearly exemplifies the wrong role.
Read the full story at the Carolina Journal.
Pure fascism.
are you F’ing kidding me? I used to live in Raeford (nominally, i was in the county) when i was stationed at Ft. Bragg. I’m surprised it didn’t contain 3 bags of chips, Ham and Cheese Biscuit, and a box of grape drink......
Food Nazis gone wild!
NO LUNCH FOR YOU!
Oh but it did contain something egregious. It contained an ingredient that a government bureaucrat avoids like the Sun. A parent’s love. In the sane world of yesteryear we would say a school employee cannot replace a parent because of love. Now, a parent’s love cannot replace a school employee because it’s illegal.
NAZI Chekist scum!
How long before the Obama Civilian Army (Cheka) is conducting house to house searches for dissidents and unhealthy foods?
I would bet dollars to doughnut holes that the school gets federal money for every school lunch it hands out, and they consider a child bringing their own lunch to be taking money out of their pocket.
Liberals gone mad!
How does the school, or government, for that matter, have any info as to the child’s overall diet at home. Perhaps that was her “treat meal”, and everything else provided to her at home is even healthier than that. They have no business declaring a child’s diet as “unhealthy” based on the contents of a single meal. This has gone too far. If parents choose to send food for their children, the school and other public employee busybodies have no business making judgments or dishing out penalties due to the contents of the meal.
It's not Facism when we do it!
What empowers this is non-accountability. Some of the greatest moral monsters the world has ever known hide behind the indemnification cloak of American public schools. Until that protection is ripped away, and these vile bitches and bastards have to personally sign for - and be legally held to - their sadistic “decisions,” this sh!t will continue.
And of course, the moment they are held accountable, they’ll quit.
I can see Zimmern going over to the trash can and puking as he makes faces, and Bourdain wandering about the kitchen commenting on the quality of the aluminum pots "that just never get hot enough to justify preparing polenta, and certainly not pheasant, or even that faux pheasant ~ what do they term it ~ ah, chicken!".
In the background as an after thought there's Rachael Ray opening up school refrigerators and pulling out armloads of stuff she sits on the shelves, and then slams the doors shut with her foot all the while talking rapidly about "did you see the pull dates on that stuff, yech, yech, yech ~ just in time for Superbowl".
I can NOT begin to fathom what this country will look like if these 2 FASCIST get 4 more years to destroy our Great Republic with all the freedoms we (used to) enjoy!
From the description, it sounds to me like the Mother’s lunch was WAY healthier than the GOVERNMENT lunch!
It is time to stop rolling over for this type of thing. Every parent at that school should be there tomorrow morning warning the staff to cut the crap.
Bingo.
I am sure they have to reject a minimum number of homemade lunches every day to justify their funding. When they don’t find enough genuinely bad lunches, they start looking for something they can stretch to cover it.
“Food inspector” forces my kid to eat their sh*& and he gets a chicken nugget shoved up his poo poo by a size 13.
If a had a child in that school system, I’d tech him/her to fake a food allergy. Get the school administrators thinking about liability issues when they assume responsibility for feeding my child.
All it would probably take is one phone call from a lawyer to clarify the issue.
Damn that was a good lunch. When I was a kid, mom packed a velvetta cheese sandwich, with two cookies.
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