A website sponsored by the North Carolina Civitas Institute posted a story today about a Pre-K program in West Hoke Elementary School in Raeford where all of the students’ lunches were inspected by a government inspector for content.
One child was allowed to eat the lunch her mother had packed but was given cafeteria food because the lunch did not meet the inspector’s standard. The child’s lunch contained a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips. The nutrition standards for pre-K lunch require milk, two servings of fruit or vegetable, bread or grains and a meat or meat alternative.
The article explains:
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.
The mother says her daughter doesn’t like vegetables and – like most four year olds – will only eat them at home under close supervision.
The article reports:
The government inspector was from the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised program at the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The program gives schools a grade based on standards that include USDA meal guidelines enforced by the N.C. Division of Early Childhood Development.
The nutrition standards for pre-K lunch require milk, two servings of fruit or vegetable, bread or grains and a meat or meat alternative. The school didn’t receive a high grade from the January assessment because the home-made lunches didn’t meet those guidelines. The mother points out the only thing on that list her daughter’s home lunch didn’t have was milk, so she doesn’t understand why the girl was given a complete school meal as a supplement.
When did any state or federal government get the right to go through a four-year old’s lunch bag. What constitution gives this authority? This is obscene!
Who are they to tell the parents what they should give their child? Most children won’t eat what they are given anyway… I remember being a kid and trading lunches with my friends because they had something I wanted and I had something they wanted. So then you get the kids that love vegetables (not many) that get all of the baby carrots and celery sticks with peanut butter, and the kids who end up with twice the Lunchables than they had to start with. Another reason I don’t like this idea is that I am lactose intolerant, as are the children in my family, and I am the only one out of us that likes soymilk. So they all drink water or natural fruit juice, no soda or sugary juice is allowed in this house. And what if there are allergies, or the parents are trying to feed their children an organic diet? Do the cafeterias have an entirely organic section? Most likely not. And with the allergies, who is to say the cafeteria food hasn’t been in the same area as peanuts, so that kid that is allergic to peanuts could get really sick for the simple reason that he didn’t have enough baby carrots. This is insanity.