State Inspectors Searching Children’s Lunch Boxes

A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.

The mother, who doesn’t wish to be identified at this time, says she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. 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. The girl ate only the chicken nuggets provided to her by the school, so she still didn’t eat a vegetable.

http://www.nccivitas.org/2012/state...-childrens-lunch-boxes-this-isnt-china-is-it/

Beware the food police. :hills:

TrackerSam said:

A mother in Hoke County complains her daughter was forced to eat a school lunch because a government inspector determined her home-made lunch did not meet nutrition requirements. In fact, all of the students in the NC Pre-K program classroom at West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford had to accept a school lunch in addition to their lunches brought from home.

The mother, who doesn’t wish to be identified at this time, says she made her daughter a lunch that contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. A state inspector assessing the pre-K program at the school said the girl also needed a vegetable, so the inspector ordered a full school lunch tray for her. 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. The girl ate only the chicken nuggets provided to her by the school, so she still didn’t eat a vegetable.

http://www.nccivitas.org/2012/state...-childrens-lunch-boxes-this-isnt-china-is-it/

Beware the food police. :hills:

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:waitasec:

I just hope this was an instance where the worker was on some power trip and it is not the policy of the school/system/state/country.

This is the biggest joke I have ever heard. So instead of a turkey sandwich, fruit, and chips that the mother sent the child had 3 chicken nuggets. Apparently the school lunch of chicken nuggets was more nutritional. :waitasec:

Surely there is more to this story.

davehead21 said:

Surely there is more to this story.

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Jani Kozlowski, the spokesperson from the DHHS children's division said that the meal sounds like it would have passed the federal guidelines test.

'With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy,' Ms Kozlowski told The Carolina Journal.

'It sounds like the lunch itself would’ve met all of the standards,' she said, not having worked with the school in question herself.

On top of the wasted food that was sent home with the little girl at the end of the day was a $1.25 bill for the 'healthy' school lunch.

'I don't feel that I should pay for a cafeteria lunch when I provide lunch for her from home,' the mother wrote in a letter to her state representative


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ch--favour-chicken-nuggets.html#ixzz1mTDApfGO

Comrade Michelle = federal guidelines.

I wonder if the inspector even considered the child might have a food allergy? Probably not.

More stupidity.

Well, another source seems to indicate that the lunch wasn't taken away. It was supplemented with a school lunch because the person at the school thought it needed to have a vegetable.

The regulation reads:

"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."

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And a spokesperson for The dividsion of child development says that the child's lunch shouldn't have been a problem, and indicated that it was probably a misinterpretation on the school's part. The lunch needs to contain a fruit or vegetable, and if it doesn't, it should be supplemented with a school lunch, which sounds reasonable to me.

So it's hardly indicative that we are becoming like China, as the very biased source in the OP insinuates lol.

Second source: http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/homemade-lunch-replaced-with-cafeteria-nuggets.html

It's ridiculous IMO that this keeps continuing after she has repeatedly tried to clear up the matter at the school.

In an interview with the Civitas Institute the mother said “I can’t put vegetables in her lunchbox. I’m not a millionaire and I’m not going to put something in there that my daughter doesn’t eat and I’ve done gone round and round with the teacher about that and I’ve told her that. I put fruit in there every day because she is a fruit eater. Vegetables, let me take care of my business at home and at night and that’s when I see she’s eating vegetables. I either have to smash it or tell her if you don’t eat your vegetables you’re going to go to bed.”

The mother added, “It’s just a headache to keep arguing and fighting. I’ve even wrote a note to her teachers and said do not give my daughter anything else unless it comes out of her lunchbox and they are still going against me and putting a milk in front of her every day.

“Friday she came home and said ‘Mom, they give me vegetable soup and a milk,’” said the mother.

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http://www.nccivitas.org/2012/state-inspectors-searching-childrens-lunch-boxes-this-isnt-china-is-it/

Kids need proper, balanced nutrition, but good grief, what's next?

My daughter loves fresh veggies, but I don't always include them in her lunch because she snacks on them at home. She'd never touch a bowl of vegetable soup (believe me, I've tried it), but that doesn't mean she isn't getting a balanced diet.

And chicken nuggets? Aren't we always hearing about the fillers and additives in those, not to mention the breading?

Gardenlady said:

Well, another source seems to indicate that the lunch wasn't taken away. It was supplemented with a school lunch because the person at the school thought it needed to have a vegetable.

The regulation reads:



And a spokesperson for The dividsion of child development says that the child's lunch shouldn't have been a problem, and indicated that it was probably a misinterpretation on the school's part. The lunch needs to contain a fruit or vegetable, and if it doesn't, it should be supplemented with a school lunch, which sounds reasonable to me.

So it's hardly indicative that we are becoming like China, as the very biased source in the OP insinuates lol.

Second source: http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/homemade-lunch-replaced-with-cafeteria-nuggets.html

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bbm
She had a banana. :waitasec:


A turkey/cheese sandwich is a lot healthier than the nuggets. Furthermore, they had the nerve to send the mom a bill for $1.25. :banghead:

This is a great example of how these crap purveyors are insinuating themselves into our lives via laws and mandates. Big agricultural concerns are insisting we partake of their junk-- people need to contact their representatives and stop this trend at the local levels, and follow it through to the feds.

That vegetable soup should be sent to a lab, because I guarantee it's got more sodium than a person needs in a day, the milk is full of hormones unfit for a child, and the chicken nuggets are full of both!

How dare they enact this theater of the absurd on our youngest and most vulnerable-- they are so clearly in the wrong, and yet they have the gumption to stroll in there and usurp a mother's decision?! Pre-K?!

Fight back! :slap:

My son's school system banned home lunches altogether. I sort of saw this sort of thing coming, based on that.

Completely ridiculous. i have complained before that my son has to eat the slop that the school feeds him because I am not allowed to send him a healthy lunch from home. he loves things like bean sprouts and pea pods. Before they started banning home lunches, they took his bean sprout and water chestnut mix from him (which he loves, by the way) because the teacher "could not identify the food he was eating." This is ridiculous.

Does the school get more funding for every child that receives a school lunch, as opposed to a home lunch? Is this another numbers game with kids as pawns?

This is precisely why I choose parochial schooling. There is no food provided other than what the child is sent with from home, or hot lunch 1 time per week that we see the menu ahead of time and can choose to order, or not.

This story just gave me more incentive to find out about grants and tuition help for parochial high school-when the time comes, which is currently double the cost of my tuition at a public college back in the 80's, but I think it is so worth it.

These public school horrors give me the heebie jeebies.

I'm not understanding how one school's misinterpretation of the requirement seems to mean the end of America as we know it? :waitasec:

Let me give a hypothetical - a child shows up to preschool with lunches consisting of soda and chips, or something equally bad. Should the school not be allowed to supplement that lunch with some fruit or veg?

Because again, that's all the statute is calling for. The mistaken interpretation and one instance of wrong implementation here in this case are just that: one instance of a mishandling of the regulation. It's not some sinister plot by "Comrade Michelle" (gmab ... hoh: ), evil public schools, or big gubmint. Its a mistake made by someone trying to implement what seems to me a very reasonable rule - making sure kids are getting healthy meals.

How about making it clear to the parents that sodas are not allowed, and that extra fruit and vegetables are available?

IMO, it's one thing to offer the "Healthy" foods, but it's another to flat-out require that my child must have his lunch supplemented by the school.

Velouria said:

How about making it clear to the parents that sodas are not allowed, and that extra fruit and vegetables are available?

IMO, it's one thing to offer the "Healthy" foods, but it's another to flat-out require that my child must have his lunch supplemented by the school.

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But no one is forcing the child to eat it. The statute says *supplement* with items. So say they put down an apple, a slice of cheese, and a roll with that soda and chips - you are not okay with doing that, simply because they are required to do so? :waitasec:

It sounds like you are more okay with the hypothetical kid having a junky Lunch than you are with the idea of the school being told they must supplement.

hey, I'm not saying that the school should completely ignore unhealthy meals. Iwould not want a five year old to be allowed to eat a lunch of a cupcake and a Mountain Dew every day and the school ignore it. But I think that parents should be left alone mostof the time. My kids don't get every food group in every meal that I make them, I admit that...BUT, they don't get it in the school lunch either. I usually serve a fruit with breakfast and fruit with lunch, and then a vegetable for dinner, because I have to be sneaky with it, or they won't eat. The school lunches do not always include all five food groups. there are some days where the school mandate against home lunches means that my son can only have a container of milk for lunch, because they serve things like tacos, with grape juice or milk, and a fruit cup for a lunch. My son cannot drink grape juice, he's intolerant and it will give him diarrhea so bad that he'll have to be sent home, like he was earlier this year, and the tacos are impossible for him to eat, due to the spiciness of the seasonings. He has a medical condition that makes it impossible for him to eat spicy foods, salty foods, or citrus foods without problems. Sometimes, he's lucky enough to be able to eat the fruit, and sometimes not, so if the menu is chicken nuggets, fries, grape juice or milk, and a fruit cup, all he can eat is the nuggets and the milk. The fries have too much salt, and he can't drink the grape juice, and he can't eat the fruit cup if it contains oranges, pineapple, lemon juice or pieces...so he can eat preprocessed blobs of chicken byproduct and a fatty, steroid filled cup of milk, and that's healthier, according to the school, than me sending him a chicken tortilla with lettuce and cheese, apple slices, and a 100% juice box (random example of one of the lunches I have sent him to school with). It's a double standard, and it's dangerous, and it's another example of government trying to over-parent parents, and trying to idiot proof the art of raising a child, instead of focusing on only the ones that can't parent their way out of a paper bag.

MOO.

Gardenlady said:

Should the school not be allowed to supplement that lunch with some fruit or veg?
. It's not some sinister plot by "Comrade Michelle" (gmab ... hoh: ), evil public schools, or big gubmint. Its a mistake made by someone trying to implement what seems to me a very reasonable rule - making sure kids are getting healthy meals.

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Yes it is. Or a corrupt school brd that makes parents buy food that'll get thrown away. They're not making the kids eat the supplemented lunch - yet - but they are making the parents pay for them. If it's not eaten then "healthy" is moot. His home made lunch was tossed away as well as most the supplemental lunch. I guess you're OK with wasted food. And the school doesn't give a damn whether its eaten or tossed in the garbage. Maybe it's really a tax.
It's none of your business what a mother packs their child for lunch. It's none of your business what a mother packs their child for lunch.It's none of your business what a mother packs their child for lunch.It's none of your business what a mother packs their child for lunch. Write that 1000 times. That there are inspectors checking lunches is ludicrous and should scare you gmab.

Gardenlady said:

I'm not understanding how one school's misinterpretation of the requirement seems to mean the end of America as we know it? :waitasec:

Let me give a hypothetical - a child shows up to preschool with lunches consisting of soda and chips, or something equally bad. Should the school not be allowed to supplement that lunch with some fruit or veg?

Because again, that's all the statute is calling for. The mistaken interpretation and one instance of wrong implementation here in this case are just that: one instance of a mishandling of the regulation. It's not some sinister plot by "Comrade Michelle" (gmab ... hoh: ), evil public schools, or big gubmint. Its a mistake made by someone trying to implement what seems to me a very reasonable rule - making sure kids are getting healthy meals.

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I understand what you are saying. I think the problem here is the utter inflexibility of the school and teachers (why that is, I don't understand). This mom has sent a healthy, balanced lunch with her kid and has communicated multiple times with the school about it (which, IMO, is more than 50% of parents do these days). Her requests and directives about her child's lunch should be respected, especially since it makes her daughter feel uncomfortable every time they come around and fuss about her homemade lunch. Of course, JMHO.