[reaganaut1]

Nobody is telling the NYC kids, most of whom are getting free or reduced-price lunches, that they ought to feel guilty over wasting the taxpayer's hard-earned money. Instead the message is that throwing away food is cool as long as it's done in the environmentally correct way. If kids are throwing away food, that's a sign they don't need a free lunch. Famished kids eat when they can.

Michelle Obama will pat herself on the back for requiring healthier lunches to be served, but how many of them are being eaten?

[envisio]

I have four dogs that “recycle” any leftovers I may have.

[Oberon]

If kids are throwing away food, that's a sign they don't need a free lunch. Famished kids eat when they can.

Amen. Hungry kids aren't real picky.

[Vigilanteman]

When I was a pup, the rule on school lunches was no dessert until you ate the real food.

You took your empty tray to the lunch ladies to exchange it for dessert.

A lot of us learned the little trick of stuffing unwanted leftover into our empty milk carton, but enough of the lunch ladies were on to that gig it didn't always work.

I learned that once when one fished my milk carton out of the trash can, emptied it on my tray and asked if dessert was worth finishing it.

I opted to skip dessert that time.

[autumnraine]

Wouldn’t a homeless shelter enjoy unpeeled bananas ?

[Nervous Tick]

>> Michelle Obama will pat herself on the back for requiring healthier lunches to be served, but how many of them are being eaten?

Michelle’s not done yet. With her husband’s iPad and a phone call, there will soon be an executive order authorizing sedation and force-feeding of pureed vegetables and fruits to school children.

It’s for their own good.

[Mercat]

unripened bananas do taste funny. Yellow green is unripened. Most kids love bananas if they are ripe. Epic fail.

[I still care]

This is such a classic example of liberal spin.

You don’t notice it unless you are looking for it and know the NYT is a master at it. What could be more innocuous than a story about how wasted school food is composted?

But it’s all part of making people feel that even though the forcefeeding of kids through Michelle O’s programs is a failure, and waste is incredible, the foolishness rampant, that’s ok, because good is coming of it - it’s being used for compost!

Libs leave the story without ever having their curiousity picqued as to reach into the heart of the matter - the important questions are never asked, the problems are smoothed over. The subtler modes of bias.

[puppypusher]

From the description of the bananas in the story it seems that the food service is serving unripened fruit .

If they gave me an unripened banana,I would also throw it away.They’re flavorless.They may as well feed those kids cardboard.

[cableguymn]

Or allowing them to simply leave the fruit on the food line so someone else can have it.

The story should not be about what the kids are doing with what they won’t eat.

it should be about the fact that they are forced to take the food in the first place.

[Madam Theophilus]

Not agreeing with the method of changing school lunches, but I think it is true that the traditional cafeteria food in elementary schools has not been very nutritional. For children in the inner cities, this IS a real serious problem as the food in school is the only proper food they eat in a day. The error of the Obama administration is to treat all American children as if they were inner city children.

Children will eat what they are trained to eat. BUT you cannot train kids to eat new foods unless they TASTE GOOD. Green bananas are NOT in this category, as any adult can testify, too! If the school had planned them to be eaten several days after their purchase, I think the children would not have protested as much.

Just a note about hungry children eating (I’ve lived in Nepal) - even starving children cannot tolerate good food because their systems have been so compromised. Many inner city children do eat starvation diets (soda pop and potato chips for dinner) and therefore in order to get them to eat better foods, it has to be done carefully. Again, an unripe banana will cause stomach problems in a child who hasn’t eaten other good foods. Common sense (of which the government is devoid) tells you can’t just change diets overnight or even in a one term and expect the change to be accepted. Dictating from on high is not the right method to achieve the goal the administration desires.

Again, just to be clear. I do not think planning school lunches should be a policy of the federal government. Local schools should be given the freedom to manage their own food budgets and plan menus acceptable to local tastes.

[jeffc]

What a way to spin the failure of Ms. obammy's school nutrition program:

"Look! There's an upside to this mess!

What? The kids are still going hungry?

Well, at least we tried ! (Cuz we're liberals and we care, even if it doesn't work)"

[dangerdoc]

That rumbling coming from the belly of your child is the sound of Mrs. Obama feeling smug.

[lwd]

Way back when, they would have the kids dump their leftovers (being careful not to dump the utensils) and then would give the leftovers to the local pig farmers to use as slop.

[BykrBayb]

I wouldn’t eat a green banana either. Of course it wouldn’t taste good, and it would make your stomach hurt.

We’ve raised at least a couple generations of people who don’t know what real food is, and wouldn’t know what to do with it if they had any. Sometimes I feel like the old guy in Soylent Green. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kQQ6wNfkcmc

[RightField]

“There’s a lot of carbon in that banana that’s going to end up growing something else in your garden at home,”

Whaaaaatttt? Now carbon is a good thing?
I am so confused.

[A_perfect_lady]

Starting in October here in Los Angeles, we have to serve the little darlings Breakfast In the Classroom, which they will also throw away.