Posted on 02/14/2012 2:09:37 PM PST by Mountain Bike Vomit Carnage
A North Carolina mom is irate after her four-year-old daughter returned home late last month with an uneaten lunch the mother had packed for the girl earlier that day. But she wasn’t mad because the daughter decided to go on a hunger strike. Instead, the reason the daughter didn‘t eat her lunch is because someone at the school determined the lunch wasn’t healthy enough and sent it back home.
Yes, you read that right.
The incident happened in Raeford, N.C. at West Hoke Elementary School. What was wrong with the lunch? That’s still a head-scratcher because it didn’t contain anything egregious: a turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice. But for the inspector on hand that day, it didn’t meet the healthy requirements.
See, in North Carolina, all pre-Kindergarten programs are required to evaluate the lunches being provided and determine if they meet USDA nutrition guidelines. If not, they must provide an alternative.
But that’s not the worst of it. Instead of being given a salad or something really healthy, the girl was given chicken nuggets instead. On top of it, her mother was then sent a bill for the cafeteria food.
Sara Burrows from the Carolina Journal explains:
The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day.
The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.
When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.
The girl’s mother — who said she wishes to remain anonymous to protect her daughter from retaliation — said she received a note from the school stating that students who did not bring a “healthy lunch” would be offered the missing portions, which could result in a fee from the cafeteria, in her case $1.25.
North Carolina Girls Lunch Sent Home for Not Being Healthy Enough“I don’t feel that I should pay for a cafeteria lunch when I provide lunch for her from home,” the mother wrote in a complaint to her state representative, Republican G.L. Pridgen of Robeson County, reports the Journal.
“What got me so mad is, number one, don’t tell my kid I’m not packing her lunch box properly,” the girl’s mother told the Journal. “I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats. It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesn’t really care for vegetables.”
The Journal provides a copy of the state regulation:
“Sites must provide breakfast and/or snacks and lunch meeting USDA requirements during the regular school day. The partial/full cost of meals may be charged when families do not qualify for free/reduced price meals.
“When children bring their own food for meals and snacks to the center, if the food does not meet the specified nutritional requirements, the center must provide additional food necessary to meet those requirements.”
But what was so wrong with the lunch the mother provided? Nothing apparently. A spokesowman for the Division of Child Development explained that the mother’s meal should have been okay.
“With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy,” Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division, told the Journal. “It sounds like the lunch itself would’ve met all of the standard.”
It‘s unclear from reports who determined the lunch wasn’t healthy enough. The Carolina Journal refers to the person as a “state agent,” while the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls the persona “state inspector” who was checking lunches that day. In an email to The Blaze, Caroline Journal reporter said the inspector was “an employee of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Child Development and Early Education.”
The school denied knowledge of the incident and said it’s looking into it.
“While I share concerns about childhood obesity, I still remain uncertain of the right role for schools,” writes the Journal-Constitution’s Maureen Downey. “This story clearly exemplifies the wrong role.”
Read the full story at the Carolina Journal.
Searching lunches with no warrant i a violation.
Each and every lunch searched requires a warrant baed on probable cause.
Americans are protected from search by the bill of rights
Not that the policy is correct but they couldn’t even enforce it correctly.
The missing item was milk.
Seriously, these people are insane. Our world is so screwed up, I’ll be surprised we last another 100 years without returning to the stone age.
They will continue to get away with this because at most people will complain and nothing more. Parents need to take their children back from the state. This food Nazi should be fired immediately, the state law/regulation repealed and every communist who voted for it removed in the very next election.
But no, none of that will happen so keep complaining and the ruling class will continue their assault on every aspect of your lives.
This is a microcosm of the kind of abuse the Founders did their damn best to protect us from. Hint, the 2nd Amendment is still available but not for long. Just in the last couple of weeks the boy who would be president showed everyone of us that the first amendment is no longer being observed by our Kenyan dictator.
Not that the policy is correct but they couldn’t even enforce it correctly.
The missing item was milk.
Yes. Seriously. Get your kids out of public schools.
Yes, the schools need to be reformed, and maybe over the next decade or two we'll do it. But your kids only have now.
The Government prescibed drugs are in the Soylent Pink, not the milk.
Yeup,
That would be the last damn day my kid went to public school.
Every mother should send their kid to school tomorrow with a lunch box full of twinkies. When the food nazies come around demanding they supplement from the cafeteria that kid should immediately call home, be picked up and signed out of school for the day.
I agree with you. It may not have been a perfect meal but was absolutely a healthy one.
Too much power/
These people have way too much power.
I share everyone’s disgust at this affront to personal freedom, but one thing most people are missing is that the state of North Carolina is actually paying someone (and I expect providing them with great benefits and a lavish pension) to inspect kids’ lunch boxes.
The lousy state governments are always pissing and moaning about how they need more revenue - well I’m sorry, but any state that has money to spend on a lunch box inspector doesn’t need any more fund no matter how much they’re whining.
Don't worry soon they will expand the program so that the nice Lunch Nazi will visit your home to make sure you are providing a healthy enviroment for your child, well I mean the State's child...
Orwell was a fricking genius!
"Big Brother" is here in full force!
Don't worry soon they will expand the program so that the nice Lunch Nazi will visit your home to make sure you are providing a healthy environment for your child, well I mean the State's child...
Orwell was a fricking genius!
"Big Brother" is here in full force!
The mom needs to call in every favor she has ever done and get people to the school to stage a sh**ting riot on the lawn. Scream bloody murder. And get the press there. “Occupy” would do this in a heart beat and get results. A chicken nugget is not food.
When I was in Kindergarten (’58-’59), we had a snack each day: milk and Oreo cookies. They were provided by the school which obviously wanted us all to die.
McDonald’s agree to stop using 15% of a goop made from cast off meet and fat which was steralized by amonia to clean the fecal material. It is also in the nuggets. What is in a nugget? S***, feathers, skin, feet, fat, feces, and dirty chicken wash water. Yeah, eat that.
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