Nasty, Rotty Stuff' (LA School District Wasting Thousands of Healthy Food. Students Reject Them)

Wall Street Journal ^ | 12/22/2011

[SeekAndFind]

"Nasty, Rotty Stuff"

That's the verdict from student Mayra Gutierrez on the new healthful menu introduced this year by the Los Angeles Unified School District. And she's not alone, according to the L.A. Times.

"At Van Nuys High School," reports the paper, "complaints about the food were so widespread that Principal Judith Vanderbok wrote to [food services director Dennis] Barrett with the plea: 'Please help! Bring back better food!'"

Readers might wonder how, with all of the challenges in reading, writing and arithmetic, school administrators decided that reducing fat and sodium at the cafeteria was a top priority for L.A. schools. And it turns out that the city's decision to ban chocolate milk and chicken nuggets in favor of quinoa salads and pad Thai noodles has created a full-blown crisis.

"Many of the meals are being rejected en masse. Participation in the school lunch program has dropped by thousands of students," reports the Times. "Students are ditching lunch, and some say they're suffering from headaches, stomach pains and even anemia. At many campuses, an underground market for chips, candy, fast-food burgers and other taboo fare is thriving."

So the healthy food is so bad that kids are literally starving themselves rather than tucking into vegetarian curries, or else engaging in a black market. Apparently even an art teacher has been among those caught selling illicit candy, chips and instant noodles. Andre Jahchan, a high-school sophomore, tells the Times, "No matter how healthy it is, if it's not appetizing, people won't eat it."

No one is against healthy eating, and obesity is a growing youth problem, but L.A.'s education whizzes forgot the law of unintended health-food consequences. You can't make a child eat vegetables without a little dessert to wash it down.

[Smokin' Joe]

It may well be excellent...(I don't know, I haven't tried it).

However, you still have to get past two things:

The fact is that if you tell a kid something is "good for them", they'll starve before they eat it.

If they give in and try it, the rest will be howling "Eeewwwwww!" or noises to that effect, and they'll likely not eat any more.

Pity to end up with that much food in the trash, but that is a predictable result.

Few will get any epicurean exposure at home beyond a new flavor of Chef Boy-ar-dee... and the unfamiliar rarely stands a chance.

One more thing: Kids and adults have different tastes insofar as what to eat, and kids have different nutritional needs. They are still building their bodies and as such will crave different foods at different times in that development. Adults are maintaining an existing structure, and they crave different foods.

[CSM]

I did not like your first reply on this thread, but I am glad I waited to reply until I read this one. Good post here and I wish I knew how to copy/paste on my new phone....if I did, then I would repost it. :-)

[CSM]

I just thought you may need a reminder that tastes do change over time. I enjoy some foods now that I couldn’t stand when I was younger. Just because you like these foods, does not mean that these youngins will. Unless, my assumption of there being an age difference is wrongheaded....

[A_perfect_lady]

I forget people don’t necessarily know where I’m coming from. I’m late 40s and was raised by a grandma who was born in 1902. She let me eat a certain amount of junk food (she’d raised 6 kids already, so she understood the young mind.) But we had at least two meals a day of the “Sit down as a family and you’ll eat what I put in front of you” variety. So I do think a certain amount of motherly coercion is acceptable, or kids will live on pure junk. Unfortunately, the population I’m tending to in inner-city Los Angeles either has parents too young or too indulgent to crack the whip when necessary, or the parents are all at work and the kids are raising themselves on a diet of Hot Cheetos and Youtube videos.

[Eric Blair 2084]

Rush was talking about this last week.

It really does get back to the disease of statism. Almost everything central planners and leftists do violates the law of human nature.

And American and European libs think it only failed because Stalin didn’t go to Harvard.

They are smarter.

[Eric Blair 2084]

You only know that if a liberal did it, it must be bad. It's a childish attitude.

perfect lady, you have been working as a teacher in a Mexican ghetto too long. I sort of know how you think. My mother in law and sister are also public school teachers so I hear their complaints.

But gubmint is NOT YO DADDY. Your Dad is your daddy. I guess these kids don't have a daddy so Gubmint is their daddy. They'll eat what Michele tells them. It sucks to be a ward of the State.