Posted on 04/01/2012 2:24:56 PM PDT by raybbr
Beginning next school year, students across the country may be in for a shock when they purchase their lunch in the cafeteria.
In an effort to fight childhood obesity and diabetes, the federal government is requiring students of all ages to buy at least one serving of fresh fruit or vegetable for lunch. Even if they toss the produce into the garbage.
Fresh fruit and vegetable portions will double next year. “Some students don’t take one now, but they will have to,” Eileen Faustich, Milford’s food services director, said Friday. “We can’t let a child go by the cashier without a fruit or vegetable on their tray.”
There’s more, a lot more, in the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act.
Next year, students can buy only nonfat flavored milk or 1 percent white milk. Half of the grains must be “whole” next year. In 2013-14, all products must be whole grain. School cafeterias must offer green and orange leafy vegetables, and drastically reduce sodium use over the next three years. Trans-fats are banned.
If a student refuses to take the fruit or vegetable, the cafeteria employees will have to charge an a la carte fee, which typically is higher because the lunch will not be reimbursable under federal guidelines.
(Excerpt) Read more at middletownpress.com ...
Elana Kagan just got her answer for why “boatloads of money” from the federal government ain’t “FREE”.
In my state, PA, you need a high school diploma to homeschool. You also need to submit a curriculum plan to the school, a notarized affidavit too. Then you are required to keep a running log documenting 900 hours from August to May; at the end of the 900 hours you must take it to the school and have it examined and approved (or rejected, in which case you had better put the child in school at once or else they can contact CPS and bring charges against you for truancy). You also have to report to the school nurse about regular physical and dental exams. Vision exams in some grades. Vaccinations. Oh, and in some grades you have to have the child take state tests. This goes on until they're 17, the age at which compulsory attendance ends. Even after that, they can't get employment without the permission of the Superintendent of Schools, until they are 18.
I think that's all so far...but considering all that, I don't think having to report approved meals is too much of a stretch.
I guess the feds didn’t hear about the lunch revolt in Los Angeles schools this year when they started forcing them to take “healthy” crap.
It was usually meatballs, chicken or fish, plus a small mixed salad, plus mixed vegetables ~ usually soy beans plus parsnips plus carrots ~ all chopped up neatly. There's a juice drink, or milk, and a bun if you want.
If you were confined to a Swedish hospital that's what you'd get, and if you were in school, or many factories, that was it. You'd sit at communal tables.
More recently they've lightened up and allow more variety, but substitutions must be of equal or better nutritional value.
So, that's Sweden. Still, not everybody eats that diet ~ nor can they. But, it could be worse and that's where "the standard meal" came from.
Here in America it's not "worse" ~ in fact, it's better ~ too good ~ and something like "the standard meal' could be pushed off on the kids in school only with brute force.
This is just another reason to abolish the public school system.
Already happening. They're banned in Chicago and inspected in North Carolina.
This is satire, right?
Between not eating or Ding Dong or an apple...wild rice or pizza...orange juice or low fat chocolate milk...all tough choices. (Invest in black market food suppliers)
Wonder if they force feed kids with an IV when they can’t afford to pay the fine.
Just wait. Once the govnannys see the produce in the waste cans, they will hire their own produce police to make sure the kids actually eat. Remember hallway monitors? You think they pissed you off? Just wait for the lunch lunkheads.
I'm so looking forward to Revolution II nowadays. Yes, I'm willing to give all and get dead. I want our f**cking country back.
Wait till there is no food, period.
Methinks a bunch (tons?) of fruits and veggies are going to wind up in the trash next year.
They may force the kids to take it. But they can’t (at least for now) force them to eat it.
Another of the zillion laws we’ll need to repeal next year.
Not on my watch, brother. I'm liquidating this week and getting ready. I've had enough and going Galt.
Federal idiots. Where to begin?
First of all, the fedgov should not be requiring kids to buy fruit. True, they say fruit OR vegetable, but fruit has a high sugar content. This sugar triggers the production of insulin, the fat-storage hormone, in the body to eliminate high blood sugar and store fat. Fruit, therefore, actually can CONTRIBUTE to obesity.
Second of all, whole grains doesn’t cut it. For example, the glycemic index of whole wheat bread is only a little lower than the high glycemic index of white bread. Those “healthy whole grains,” especially wheat, can cause blood sugars to skyrocket, causing, you guessed it, insulin-driven fat storage and obesity. Since most whole grain stuff is wheat, the kids are still screwed.
Orange and green vegetable, and the trans-fat ban, are OK, but how many kids are going to pick the vegetable over the sweet, tasty fruit?
End result: the kids will still be fat. Thanks a lot Moochelle.
A real school lunch would emphasize meat, cheese, veggies and maybe even eggs, and it would lose most or all of the whole grains.
Of course we could just LOSE the school lunch program and let parents pack the kids’ lunches, the way it was meant to be in America.
Nanny State PING!
No, the bill info is in the first post.
bump
FYI
I never bought the school lunches - always brought my own or went to McDonalds or Burger King. Are the kids allowed to bring their own lunches? Are they going to monitor those as well?
They have no idea what people are talking about. They don't see any out-of-control federal government intruding into the most remote corners of our lives.
They think any complaints on that issue are nothing but right wing paranoia, or worse.
Am I correct in assuming that students won’t be allowed to pack lunches with them?
ping to 71 and the OP
“Next year, students can buy only nonfat flavored milk or 1 percent white milk. Half of the grains must be “whole” next year. In 2013-14, all products must be whole grain.”
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