Posted by Tina
Everyone is aware of the heavy hand of government these days. Light bulbs come to mind…health care Insurance…green energy…and more recently, contraceptives. You might also remember the story last summer about officials shutting down a lemonade stand because the kids didn’t have a permit! The latest example, inspired by First Lady Obama’s healthy lunch project, finds a local food cop making a really dumb decision:
A mother is outraged after school officials told her 4-year-old daughter that her home-packed lunch was not healthy enough to eat. What was so unhealthy about her lunch? Trace Gallagher reported that a lunch inspector at the school told the girl she couldn’t eat her turkey sandwich, banana, potato chips and apple juice. Instead, providing the girl with a USDA-approved lunch with the following guidelines: one serving of meat, one serving of grains, and two servings of fruit or vegetables.
When the girl returned home from school, her unopened lunch contained a note from the school saying that her lunch didn’t meet the guidelines and a $1.25 bill for the replacement lunch. The mom was outraged and anonymously wrote to the local newspaper and called a state representative. The North Carolina representative called the school which apologized, because in fact the lunch did meet all the USDA requirements.
Our governments are definitely going too far when a healthy meal provided and paid for by a parent is deemed unacceptable, replaced without permission, and sent home with a bill for that replacement lunch.
By the way…a food inspector? Is this the way this government brings it’s jobs numbers up? How many publicly funded schools are there in America and are we paying for food inspectors in all of them?
Freedom people…we are fighting for even the most basic of our freedoms!
UNREAL- as a school nurse I see every day what kids eat- there is a huge movement trying to ban lunches from home! Guess what? Most of the obese kids at school eat school lunch and breakfast! I see great parents take the time to pack a lunch and if they throw a cookie in it doesn’t mean they are malnourished! This is why I advocate private education-the regulations increase and the scores decrease-must be the home packed lunches!
Government is overreaching, and there are way too many arm-chair dictator liberals who are going along with it.
This creates multiple problems: A lazy and dependent citizenry, power-mad government agencies, and flat-out public employee sloppiness as they arbitrarily make new standards to enforce.
People should be far more outraged than they are.
Well, actually, yes. The turkey sandwich and banana were sufficient unto themselves. The chips and apple juice is where we get childhood obesity from. And I really don’t see what is so appalling about pointing this out to the woman.
Libby, once again you completely miss the point of this story and I think you must do this deliberately to bait us, because you’re a pretty smart girl.
There was nothing “appalling about suggestions”. What was appalling was this kid had her lunch box opened up by a snooping bureaucrat and was denied her lunch and forced to eat the government option of chicken nuggets. Now that’s insane and it’s appalling!
Libs m’dear…How could you minimize this as a government bureaucrat only making a suggestion? It wasn’t a suggestion, it was an invasion of privacy and it was an order by Big Brother! That’s appalling.
How far would I get if I came to your work place as a food cop and ordered you to open your brown bag and submit to my search, and then I tossed out what I felt didn’t meet my guidelines?
Libby: ” The chips and apple juice is where we get childhood obesity from.”
I disagree. Obesity results from excessive eating habits not only of these foods but all foods. I had chips, PBJ, cookies and an apple in every single lunch in HS and I was not obese. As usual attempts by liberal progressives to manage our lives ends up in a tyranical fix that oppresses freedoms and choice and will not solve the underlying problem.
“And I really don’t see what is so appalling about pointing this out to the woman.”
A note or phone call would suffice if “pointing it out” was the aim.
The substitute lunch, chicken nuggets, was probably inferior nutritionally.
This is just another example of the degree to which this administration believes it should have complete control over our lives.
Sheila, Thank you for taking the time to comment on this subject. Your opinion as a nurse is particularly valuable. We always enjoy hearing from those who are on the front lines and serving our children every day.
I hope you will join in our discussions again; a variety of opinion is always welcome.
“I had chips, PBJ, cookies and an apple …”
The PBJ and apple (not apple juice) are all good. The cookies and chips? If you’ve not gone atherosclerotic, you’ve got good genes, and are damned lucky.
But you’re right. I skimmed, and did not take in the bit about the toady bureaucrat/school employee.
But what are you going to do? I keep telling you that any enterprise run by human beings is fraught with this sort of thing.
You keep up your fantastical assertions about private enterprises not being thus fraught.
And I keep reminding you why these decidedly human failings resulted in such services being taken up by the public sector.
And around and around we go.
Libby I did get good genes in that department. My mother prepared good food and a balanced diet. Moderation was a way of life; hers was the depression era.
The problem today isn’t the food. The problem is lack of exercise and excess with respect to sugars and fats. Top down boot thuggery won’t change that, food will be wasted, and it will cost a lot of money. It is a stupid approach. (The President and his misses should be community organizing at the local level, in church or a boys and girls club, where their ideas are more appropriate).
Yes, we do keep going around and around. But don’t try to pretend you have to inform me of mankinds failings. The biggest failing of all is in pandering to weaknesses, feeding them, acting as savior, lending agreement and offering excuses, joining in placing blame for failings on others. These are all leftists social tendencies that grow ever larger populations of failed lives and an excuse for big government programs.
The difference that matters, as I said many moons ago, is that under your preferred system (government as the solution) everyone ends up in misery…the very life is sucked fromm all of society.
In my preferred system (small government and personal excellence and responsibility) mysery still plagues the few; the poor will always be with us just as the wealthy will always be with us. High expectations managed through good educational systems, a vibrant private sector, charity, and social principles that keep the numbers of productive people up works much better. It’s not perfect but it is still the best system ever devised.
So I shall continue to fight for higher levels of achievement and a stronger moral fiber in this land. I shall continue to fight for freedom and small government. I shall continue to speak out for a society grounded in personal responsibility and respect for the law and each other.
“It’s not perfect but it is still the best system ever devised.”
If it were, we’d still be running it … but we’re not, are we? And we’re not because you’re Camelot was long ago determined to be insufficient. And we commenced to tax out of your hands the means to run an enlighted society. This, only this, is what gripes your … I can’t … can I? … I’ll get censored again.
“we’re not because you’re Camelot…”
Camelot was a Kennedy era illusion drummed up by the fawning celebrity press. It has nothing to do with freedom, property, the rule of law.
“…was long ago determined to be insufficient.”
A poor excuse for the theft, redistribution, and power mongering of the Marxist left. An idiots dream of utopia is nothing more than everyone in misery except the elite few…and we are well on our way to reaching that “dream” thanks to the designs of the one who would be savior and the others on whose shoulders he stands.
“And we commenced to tax out of your hands the means to run an enlighted society.”
Enlightened my…dare I say it? I won’t! But honestly Libby! You can’t possibly look at the effects of this Marxist utopian dream in other countries and still believe it creates an enlightened society. You can’t be that stupid. It creates misery and death, suppression of creativity, and as with chemical drugs, it kills the spirit. Gone is any urge to accomplish or succeed, to invent, to be productive or to give and to serve others.
Societies are not enlightened through government tyranny. Free individuals can seek the truth and become enlightened, but theft and redistribution from the top will not produce enlightenment in the masses.
Utopia is the dream of an egotist. What gripes my XXX is that you are so thick as to not see it. What gripes my XXX is that enlightenment for you is a few managers in charge of a slavery class. Disgusting.