Thread: Pure Gestapo Insanity Regarding School Lunches

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookou ... food-fight

LOL this is too much!

Here's the article





Mon Apr 11, 12:29 pm ET
Chicago school bans homemade lunches, the latest in national food fight
By Liz Goodwin



Students who attend Chicago's Little Village Academy public school get nothing but nutritional tough love during their lunch period each day. The students can either eat the cafeteria food--or go hungry. Only students with allergies are allowed to bring a homemade lunch to school, the Chicago Tribune reports.
"Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school," principal Elsa Carmona told the paper. "It's about ... the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke."
But students said they would rather bring their own lunch to school in the time-honored tradition of the brown paper bag. "They're afraid that we'll all bring in greasy food instead of healthy food and it won't be as good as what they give us at school," student Yesenia Gutierrez told the paper. "It's really lame."
The story has attracted hundreds of comments so far. One commenter, who says her children attend a different Chicago public school, writes, "I can accept if they want to ban soda, but to tell me I can't send a lunch with my child. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????"
For parents whose kids do not qualify for free or reduced price school lunches, the $2.25 daily cafeteria price can also tally more than a homemade lunch. "We don't spend anywhere close to that on my son's daily intake of a sandwich (lovingly cut into the shape of a Star Wars ship), Goldfish crackers and milk," Northwestern education policy professor Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach told the paper in an email. She told The Lookout parents at her child's public school would be upset if they tried to ban homemade lunches.
"I think that lots of parents at least at my child's school do think that what they pack is more nutritious [than school lunches]," she said. A Chicago public school teacher started a blog to protest the low quality of the city's school lunches, and last year the schools tightened their nutrition standards for cafeteria-served school lunches. Every lunch must contain whole grains, only reduced-fat salad dressings and mayonnaise are offered as condiments, and the meals must feature a different vegetable each day. Meal providers also must reduce sodium content by 5 percent annually. About 86 percent of the district's students qualify for free or reduced price school lunches because their families live close to the poverty line.
Change in Chicago's school cafeterias feeds into a larger effort to combat the country's childhood obesity epidemic. About a third of America's kids are overweight or obese, and since children consume at least 30 percent of their calories while in school, making lunches healthier is seen as one way to counter that problem. Poorer kids are also more likely to be obese or overweight than middle class kids, and to consume a bigger proportion of their calories while at school. Forty-four percent of American kids living below the poverty line are obese or overweight, according to a 2010 study published in Health Affairs.
While we haven't been able to track down another school that bans homemade lunches outright, many smaller food battles have been playing out in cafeterias across the country. As principals try to counter obesity in their schools, healthy intentions can come across as overreach, occasionally sparking parent and student anger.
Alabama parents protested a school's rule that barred students from bringing any drinks from home, as ice water was provided at lunch. East Syracuse, New York schools have outlawed cupcakes and other desserts. And schools around the country have kicked out chocolate milk and soda vending machines. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin even showed up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, with dozens of cookies to express her disdain for a debate in the state about recommending teachers limit the number of times per month the sugary treats are eaten in classroom birthday celebrations.
Tucson, Arizona's Children's Success Academy allows home-packed lunches--but only if nothing in them contains white flour, refined sugar, or other "processed" foods, the Arizona Republic reported in a story last year. The school has no cafeteria, so some parents told the paper they struggled to find foods to pack that meet the restrictions. Many schools ban fast food or other take-out meals.
Soon, cafeteria offerings across the country will all be healthier, whether students like it or not. Last year's Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, championed by First Lady Michelle Obama, calls for higher nutritional standards to serve the 32 million kids who eat lunch every day at school (most of whom qualify for free or reduced price lunches through a federal government program). For the first time, the USDA will set calorie limits for school lunches, and will recommend they contain more vegetables and whole grains, and less salt, USA Today reports. French fries should be replaced by vegetables and fruit, the guidelines say.
The bill also calls for stricter food safety checks on cafeteria food.

This is just too much! Not surprised it's happening in Chicago though. What is happening there?

more control

Originally Posted by working4change

more control

EXACTLY!!

Checking at www.greatschools.com I found that:

Little Village Elementary School has 778 students PK-8

The number of students that receive free lunch is 100%

It appears as though there is NO DIVERSITY in this school, no blacks, no whites, it is 100% Hispanic.

I can't get the site to copy this is the link to the Little Village Elementary School.

http://www.greatschools.org/cgi-bin/il/ ... 3#students

Originally Posted by Newmexican

Checking at www.greatschools.com I found that:

Little Village Elementary School has 778 students PK-8

The number of students that receive free lunch is 100%

It appears as though there is NO DIVERSITY in this school, no blacks, no whites, it is 100% Hispanic.

I can't get the site to copy this is the link to the Little Village Elementary School.

http://www.greatschools.org/cgi-bin/il/ ... 3#students

WOW-I'll bet if the school were all white, all black, or all Asian they'd be sued!!

Eat what the government tells you to eat or go hungry

April 11, 2011

Chicago public school forbids kids from bringing their lunch from home

Rick Moran
37 Comments

No doubt, children will bring all sorts of stuff from home for lunch that fails to meet Michelle Obama's standards for "healthy" eating.

But what the hell business is it of school authorities to play mommy and prevent kids from bringing a meal from home?

Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/educ ... 7867.story

Fernando Dominguez cut the figure of a young revolutionary leader during a recent lunch period at his elementary school.
"Who thinks the lunch is not good enough?" the seventh-grader shouted to his lunch mates in Spanish and English.

Dozens of hands flew in the air and fellow students shouted along: "We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!"

Fernando waved his hand over the crowd and asked a visiting reporter: "Do you see the situation?"

At his public school, Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side, students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.

And that food is universally believed to be awful:

At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry or both. During a recent visit to the school, dozens of students took the lunch but threw most of it in the garbage uneaten. Though CPS has improved the nutritional quality of its meals this year, it also has seen a drop-off in meal participation among students, many of whom say the food tastes bad.

"Some of the kids don't like the food they give at our school for lunch or breakfast," said Little Village parent Erica Martinez. "So it would be a good idea if they could bring their lunch so they could at least eat something."

Sorry, nanny has other ideas:

"Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school," Carmona said. "It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception."

Carmona said she created the policy six years ago after watching students bring "bottles of soda and flaming hot chips" on field trips for their lunch. Although she would not name any other schools that employ such practices, she said it was fairly common.

A couple of kids bring soda and chips on a field trip - not to school - and she institutes this authoritarian policy? Why?

Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money in the pockets of the district's food provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch.

A school system spokesperson said she didn't know how many other schools have adopted this draconian policy. Given that we almost certainly would have heard about it elsewhere, it is likely that Little Village is the only school that employs it.

Eat what the government tells you to eat or go hungry. Some choice, eh?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... rbids.html