Indiana school district loses $300K because students refuse to buy first lady’s healthy meals

The Washington Times ^ | July 11, 2013 | Jessica Chasmar

[yoe]

School officials in Carmel Clay, Ind., said they lost $300,000 last school year because students are rejecting the healthy menu changes brought on by First Lady Michelle Obama’s federal lunch regulations....

[snip] Amy Anderson, the food service director for the school district, said the rules made her feel less like an educator and more like a “food cop.” The changes have even made her consider retiring early.

[snip] “They’re teaching our kids with this meal pattern that it’s OK to throw away,” she told JCOnline. “We did a waste study on three different schools, and there was a huge amount of waste. That was just with produce, fruit or vegetables or milk.”

Other students don’t eat the lunches at all, resulting in a $300,000 loss for the district.

[goodwithagun]

I understand. I was just trying to make a point as well. The thing that really frightens me is not the mandated school lunches, but requiring teachers to approve or disapprove of home packed lunches. If you choose to send a child to public school then their gubmint food is your problem. However, teachers are now required (not everywhere yet) to inspect home created meals and throw them out if they're “unhealthy.” I personally have issues with gubmint’s healthy caloric intake and food pyramid. My kids are skinny and they eat all day long. They eat a lot of healthy fats, complex carbs, and large amounts of protein. They eat many more calories than what Mooch is pushing, and their grain intake is low according to the pyramid. We also eat real food; i.e., no processed prepared items. We make just about everything, including tortillas! I'd be in jail if a teacher threw out my kids’ lunches! Full disclosure: I am a teacher.

[Gabz]

The thing that really frightens me is not the mandated school lunches, but requiring teachers to approve or disapprove of home packed lunches. If you choose to send a child to public school then their gubmint food is your problem.

Maybe where you live, but no such thing happens where I live. So how dare you tell me what I do or do not know about where my child goes to school.

However, teachers are now required (not everywhere yet) to inspect home created meals and throw them out if they're “unhealthy.”

You're right about not every where - in fact it isn't even most places.

I personally have issues with gubmint’s healthy caloric intake and food pyramid.

I've never paid it a bloody bit of attention.

My kids are skinny and they eat all day long. They eat a lot of healthy fats, complex carbs, and large amounts of protein.

So? My household is no different. I''mm 5'10" and other than when I was pregnant have never weighed over 130# in my life. I actually still own and wear jeans I bought in high school, and I'll be attending my 35th class reunion in September.

We also eat real food; i.e., no processed prepared items. We make just about everything, including tortillas!

So do we, and we grow much of it as well. My daughter is 15 and she and her friends love to help in the garden and canning with me.

I'd be in jail if a teacher threw out my kids’ lunches!

So would I.

Full disclosure: I am a teacher.

So are all good parents.

[goodwithagun]

My post was meant to add to the entire conversation thread. For whatever reason you have chosen to take it personally. Relax. Deep breaths. Save your anger for the lunch inspectors, because it is built into the program. Maybe if you’re lucky, your kids won’t be in school then. In fact, there was an uproar a few months ago about a North Carolina school throwing out a little girl’s home packed lunch. The school near Pittsburgh, were a relative teaches, has the same policy. The teachers hate it but it’s mandated. Just because it hasn’t happened to you personally does not mean that it doesn’t happen. Do you have beer or wine handy? Have one.

[tioga]

True, the customer base at McD’s didn’t want healthy. However, I like Uno’s and they are packed every day at lunch, with a line to wait. They serve healthy food for a chain restaurant and people do want it.

[smokingfrog]

Michelle belongs in a landfill along with all that wasted food.

[Pining_4_TX]

For the most part, the children of taxpayers still have to pay their own way. So, taxpayers get hit twice - they pay for their own kids and for everybody else’s. That is what “fair” means in lib land.

[bicyclerepair]

OMG, I knew what that clip was before clicking on it.

Die-hard FReeper.

[Katya]

Literally throwing away large parts of school lunches has always been a first world problem in America. In my daughter’s high school, BEFORE any of these dietary changes were made... the only kids who ate the cafeteria lunch were getting free lunch. The food looks awful. I went to public school decades ago and remember the same thing, no one but the poor kids ate the food, so I don’t see how much has changed even with the healthier foods.

I for one, know that they could easily offer delicious and healthy foods instead of the over cooked glop that is traditional to school cafeterias. If the Admin rules have required a certain amount of fruit/vegetables I have a feeling the schools are meeting those requirements by dumping disgusting tasting canned vegetables in the food service trays.

Sorry, but I would rather my tax dollars went to subsidizing nutritious food... what this article is saying, is that the kids who have cars and can afford to buy food are not having to eat what they’re serving. It’s the poor kids who are going home hungry because they can’t stand the taste of the healthy choices.

[jeffc]

It's what happens when those at the "top" don't bother to mingle with the common folk and make decrees off the top of their heads. They know what's best without having to ask (and dirtying themselves by talking to "lesser" people).

It's the way of the Dems.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Nanny State PING!

[Mears]

My grandchildren all pay too.

.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Statism and central planning is REAL HARD WORK. The damn cats don’t want to be herded. They have a mind of their own.