Here is a disturbing article about a preschool child having to buy a lunch consisting of chicken nuggets because government officials didn’t think her lunch from home was healthy enough. You can read the article here at http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/homemade-lunch-replaced-with-cafeteria-nuggets.html
We know schools need overall guidelines for lunch programs, but how much regulation is over-regulation? Do government officials really need to inspect lunch box food from home? How much government interference, or meddling, is necessary before parents and school officials decide that enough is enough. If children were bringing candy and pop, certainly a chat with the parents would be in order. But if they are sending adequate food, then which is worse, making the child feel her food from home is not good enough, or she eating only 3 chicken nuggets, of questionable value, I might add, for her meal?
If parents didn’t send any food for the child, then it would be a different matter. But if parents are trying to send healthy lunches and they don’t get quite all the requirements in as issued by school standards, this is not enough to warrant a trip down the chicken nugget trail. Plus, having parents pay for the food when they send a lunch may be too much to bear.
You know from my previous posts that nutrition is an important subject with me, but this is absolutely ridiculous. We should not hand our power as parents in what we believe is the best for our children over to others, including the government.
How do you feel about this? How does your school handle this?
To your health and that of your family,
Lee Jackson
Child Nutrition Advocate, author
