School Sends Child's Lunch Home After Determining it Unhealthy 554
halfEvilTech writes "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. 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."
Well.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well.. (Score:4, Funny)
She could have gotten Brawndo from a drinking fountain.
No Chicken Nuggets. (Score:4, Funny)
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I suspect the lunch needed more vegetables. Like pizza or something.
conservative rag.. nothing to see here (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll wait for some investigation into this. Note the source, TheBlaze, is an inquirer-like conservative rag.
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Exactly, though there are much better write ups out there but letâ(TM)s go with a NBC channel in order to be more neutral.
http://www2.nbc17.com/news/2012/feb/16/hoke-county-school-lunch-issue-sparks-controversy-ar-1939456/ [nbc17.com]
More importantly, if anyone in the process of getting this on the front page had say .. googled it. We might have avoided this. Spin baby spin.
Re:conservative rag.. nothing to see here (Score:4, Informative)
The people behind Carolina Journal are the John Locke Foundation, not exactly an unbiased source.
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Article is BS. (Score:5, Informative)
Actual story:
- Lunch was not taken away from the girl; she was given extra food because they were worried she might not have enough.
- A standard form letter was sent to the parent, which said that she may be charged for the food - in fact, since the child was enrolled in the right program, she was not actually charged for the food
- The food given was milk and vegetables, not chicken nuggets.
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/02/15/a-north-carolina-non-troversy/
Re:Article is BS. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Article is BS. (Score:4, Interesting)
Nor does the story say lunch was taken away from her. In fact, since she brought it home, it implies otherwise.
This is also not at odds with the story, which said "which could result in a fee".
Milk, a vegetable, a fruit, and chicken nuggets. Of which the girl, being a typical American 4-year-old, only ate the nuggets.
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Nutrition is a complex subject though. Very complex. So complex that pretty much everyone with any sort of system of nutrition they've worked out is wrong. Some things are actual poison, sure, but for most things the right balance for the individual is important and what constitutes the right balance for a given individual varies. It also varies just for that individual during their lifetime. For example, some of those "bad" fats you're worried about can actually be great for developing brains.
Re:Article is BS. (Score:5, Informative)
They're filling and only have around 100 calories, plus a decent amount of fiber, potassium, and vitamin C. All in all, a pretty healthy choice for a snack.
This has already been debunked. (Score:4, Informative)
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/02/15/a-north-carolina-non-troversy/
And I must say, it is rather embarrassing for this site to be spreading such sensationalist garbage around, especially when no one's done the background research to verify it. We all love knee-jerk reactions induced by rantings from a personal blog, but come on.
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Oh, come on, Slashdot! (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, all of our rights are in danger! This is not an isolated incident, not just some person out there who's having a bad day, it's a slippery slope!!! WE ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO NIP THIS IN THE BUD!
OK, I'll get my breath back now.
I think it's a much bigger problem that anyone on Slashdot would think this story is worth posting.
Re:Oh, come on, Slashdot! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Oh, come on, Slashdot! (Score:5, Informative)
The ICC would not be at issue in this case, because such a bulb would be exempted from the law. There are a tremendous number of exceptions in the law, the most significant probably being "rough service bulbs", which can be manufactured and sold legally. In addition, anything not in a right-handed thread Edison base, any appliance lamp, essentially any specialized lamp.
I see this as similar to the ban on DDT. It pushes you to make a choice that is good for society in general. It is at times inconvenient, it has exceptions.
I'm not for "Libertarian Totalitarianism", in which every person would be a soverign. We need to have a balance between everybody's freedom to live in a healthy society together and your freedom to do what you wish. Unfortunately, we don't have convenient planets for Libertarians to live alone upon, and the sad reality is that things you do do sometimes effect me at a distance, like profligate use of energy.
If you're really the sort of person who would "un-respect" me over this, you would not be the sort of person who I would want to be respected by.
No, seriously. (Score:5, Funny)
It sounds like the inspector just wanted a turkey sandwich.
Someone made a mistake... (Score:5, Insightful)
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 school denied knowledge of the incident and said it’s looking into it.
The real funny thing is at the bottom of TFA, people are posting rants against the Gov'ment and Michelle Obama, but it's a North Carolina rule, so people should be upset with their elected officials instead and, by proxy, themselves for voting for them...
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Potato chips (Score:3)
Our school district doesn't allow most potato chips either. Sun Chips are okay, but Doritos or any type of potato chips you cannot have. They will take it away from your kids.
For Some Truly Dumbass Shit (Score:5, Informative)
Check out other great stories with the nottrue tag: http://slashdot.org/tag/nottrue [slashdot.org]
My favorite is "Michigan Teen Creates Fusion Device."
News for Nerds? (Score:4, Insightful)
Vote up the correction! (Score:3)
Yes, this is news (Score:5, Informative)
I just read through all the comments scored 3 or higher. Several of you said, sometimes in exactly these words, "Nothing to see here, move along."
Shame on you!
You are prepared to dismiss this story as being lies made up by a 4-year-old, or lies made up by crazy right-wing biased news sources? You can't be bothered to research it a little bit?
Put the words "West Hoke Elementary School" into Google News. Ignore Fox et. al. and look for local sources. Oh wow, looks like Google has started categorizing the links, and there is a link labelled "Local:" right near the top:
http://www.wcti12.com/news/30472198/detail.html [wcti12.com]
Or, if you can disdainfully read that horribly biased right-wing nutty web site The Blaze for a little bit, you can find their own link to the local newspaper story on the incident:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/homemade-lunch-replaced-with-cafeteria-nuggets.html [carolinajournal.com]
So unless you are now going to tell me that the local news outlets are part of a vast right-wing conspiracy, I think it's clear there is indeed something to see here.
Now it does look like there is some backpedaling going on. This has embarrassed the authorities and they are downplaying it. But here are the facts as I understand them:
Now, as it happens, I heard the mother being interviewed on the radio yesterday. Her comment was that she can't afford to buy vegetables that won't be eaten and will be thrown away, and she can't afford to have the school charging her extra if the school doesn't like a lunch brought by the child.
She was also furious that the state officials implied that she is doing a poor job of looking after her child, and extra furious that they are confusing her 4-year-old daughter into thinking she packed bad food: "You're telling a 4-year-old. 'Oh, your lunch isn't right,' and she's thinking there's something wrong with her food."
Tell me, honestly. If you saw a news story on the Huffington Post that some right-wing outrage had been perpetrated in Alabama or something (I don't know, maybe paddling a child for not reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or something) would you immediately assume it was all lies because Huffington Post is a biased left-wing site? "Nothing to see here, move along"?
Don't blindly accept or blindly reject any news based on where you saw it. It has never been easier to check for alternative sources to corroborate a news story.
steveha
Re:Yes, this is news (Score:4, Informative)
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Carolina Journal is not the local newspaper. They are based in a different city as the story, do not publish a daily newspaper, and only report on politically motivated topics like this one.
Fair enough. Thank you for the clarification.
Carolina Journal is based in Raleigh, NC and is run by the John Locke Foundation. I just looked up the John Locke Foundation and based on what they claim are their core principles, it is not surprising they would report disapprovingly about a news story like this. Just as i
The USDA guidelines??? What a joke. (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to weight 420 lbs. I had type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, severe sleep apnea (which could have literally killed me dead any night I forgot the CPAP), asthma, high cholesterol, IBS, and was diagnosed with type 2 bipolar disorder. I now weigh 194, have "the best cholesterol numbers [my doctor] has seen in a long time", energy to exercise, no breathing problems, I only poop when I want to now, and most of all I'm happy and stable without medication.
How did I do it, you ask? I realized that the USDA's purpose is to promote American grain-based agriculture (everything but corn, soybeans, and to a lesser degree wheat are considered "specialty crops") and not the health of Americans, and I quit following their stupid, lame, ineffective food pyramid. I save almost $10,000 in medications alone -- forget about all the other medical costs -- and I LOVE my tasty home-made bacon. That nasty corn, and wheat, and high-fructose-corn-syrup, and soybeans? Keep 'em the hell away from ME! I'd rather SMOKE than eat a school lunch -- it's better for me.
Want to lose weight? Grass-fed meats, vegetables (corn is not a vegetable -- except in school lunches!), fruit in moderation as a "treat". No added sugars of any kind. No wheat, corn, or god-help-us-soybeans-that-you-can't-even-eat-without-fermenting-them-because-they're-literally-inevitable-best-suited-for-feeding-pigs, ever.
Since the government started setting "preventative" nutritional guidelines, based on the then-unproven "low fat" theory from Dr. Ancel Keys, in 1977, have Americans gotten thinner or fatter? When the USDA publicly acknowledges that there is no "one true diet" for all humans, regardless of their ethnic background (and how recently that area developed agriculture) I MIGHT listen to them again. Until then, I think it would be insane to listen to them -- insanity being doing the same thing again and again and somehow expecting a different result.
It annoys me that the schools keep trying to tell my children that a low-fat diet is good for them. I can't imagine what I'd do if they started trying to force their hog-feed down my children's throats, but it would not be pretty.
really? (Score:3)
Why are you all feeding the machine? Why can't we trust that the local people in that area will take care of the situation? If you want to be outraged over nonsense go to your own townhall meetings. Instead of offering up what you would do, why not spend that time being a part of the community and actually do it?
And you, Slashdot. The only way this could be construed as news for nerds is if there was a statistician whose specialty is school lunch programs, and even only then as a humorous aberration. If the day is this slow at least go for some speculative articles vaguely resembling something techy. Most other sites just made stuff up about the upcoming Android 5.0, at least show some effort.
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Re:Despicable (Score:5, Funny)
He wasn't referring to the student, he meant the Conservative blogger.
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And they really did neither if you check into facts of the story. Probably the girl was asked to get some additional food, the girl got confused, and at the end of the day the mother asked why she still had her uneaten lunch. The mother then was worried that she'd have to pay for the lunch. Then the story blew out of proportion, with some conservative pundits saying "lunch nazis" or "federal program" or "inspecting every lunch box".
Re:Despicable (Score:4, Informative)
The parent states she received a note and bill, where exactly is someone taking the 4 yr old's word on anything?
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Informative)
However did the parent actually say this? So far the school has said no one is being charged for the food. Original pseudo-journalist probably just making a bunch of stuff up, the mother is angry and shouting about having to pay (there is a hint in the rules of the voluntary program that they might have to pay for extra food the child takes).
The story has been corroborated by the Hoke County Assistant Superintendent.
http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/childs-lunch-allegedly-taken-by-teacher-told-it-wasnt-healthy-enough [wxyz.com]
It appears that it wasn't the "pseudo-journalist" just making a bunch of stuff up. I can't say the same for you.
Re:Despicable (Score:4, Informative)
I presume the letter the school sent home with the child, explaining their reasoning and charging the parents $1.25 for the chicken nuggets - which was provided to the original reporter - was enough for the original and more reputable news source to go ahead and print the story.
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Informative)
The mother was NOT charged. She received a form letter, sent to all parents, that the school might start charging for extra food given to students at some point in the future. However, since she is voluntarily enrolled in a program for poor parents, she would be exempted from paying regardless.
Please stop repeating these right-wing, scaremongering lies.
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Insightful)
Please stop repeating these right-wing, scaremongering lies.
What right-wing, scaremongering lies? Okay, so the school didn't go through with charging this particular parent the $1.25.
But still.... Turkey sandwich with cheese and lettuce = BAD
Ground up chicken slime nuggets = GOOD ?
Sure, right-wing blogs could be wrongly blaming Obama, but if the above is truly what being a left-winger means, then I'm going to have to turn in my socialist card.
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Insightful)
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The USDA has been setting guidelines for decades. Those % of your recommended daily intake charts on everything in the store: USDA. Food pyramid and whatever it's been replaced with now: USDA. The program in question: State 9NOT FEDERAL) program which is using the USDA guidelines to assist in making healthy meals.
Source: http://eatdrinkbetter.com/2012/02/16/school-lunch-uproar-in-north-carolina-preschool/ [eatdrinkbetter.com]
Re:Despicable (Score:4, Informative)
The USDA has been setting guidelines for decades.
An activity which is not at all inconsistent with the prior poster's assertions.
Re:Despicable (Score:4, Informative)
But the USDA isn't involved. Even the original scare mongering story didn't mention the USDA. It was a North Carolina program, open only to volunteers who opt in, and only to poor at-risk children.
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The mother was NOT charged. She received a form letter, sent to all parents, that the school might start charging for extra food given to students at some point in the future. However, since she is voluntarily enrolled in a program for poor parents, she would be exempted from paying regardless.
Please stop repeating these right-wing, scaremongering lies.
Um, stop calling the truth "right-wing, scaremongering lies."
The story is legit. It really happened. Do a little research before you go off the handle accusing others of lying or else you might find out that you are one lying.
http://www.wxyz.com/dpp/news/childs-lunch-allegedly-taken-by-teacher-told-it-wasnt-healthy-enough [wxyz.com]
Oh, and those chicken nuggets were provided because the meal was missing milk. That's right! All it was missing was milk. There is no milk in chicken nuggets. The is milk in cheese, h
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Interesting)
No, that would only be the message if they do start charging and charge everyone no matter how nutritious the packed lunch is. The far more likely scenario is that they either will continue their current policy of providing the food for free, or they will only charge in cases where the lunch is clearly inadequate.
Stop listening to demagogues. They're making you paranoid. Your kid's lunch lady isn't out to get you, I promise.
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First, I see no reason to think this is a federal policy. However, the moment you say "at our option we may charge you for things you did not request" you set up all sorts of nasty incentives.
That's a horrible policy. If the parent didn't ask for the food, there is no way they should be charged.
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Insightful)
However, the moment you say "at our option we may charge you for things you did not request" you set up all sorts of nasty incentives.
Right. Just look at the phone company.
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Look, a lot of kids don't eat their l
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Re:Despicable (Score:4, Insightful)
I am no fan of Obama but I can't see how such a school district policy can remotely be tied to the federal government.
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...and you should really just RTFA instead of taking the word of a /. summary and your overactive imagination ;)
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.
The glaring problem has nothing to do with a four year old kid,
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The real story is at Carolina Journal [carolinajournal.com]
And I can't see how this storm is a teacup is news for anyone, let alone "News for nerds".
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Insightful)
taking the word of a four year old kid
In what way, exactly? The girl's mother says she received a note from the school regarding the incident. Are you claiming the 4 year old kid faked the note?
No, I am not claiming the note to be fake.
Go back and re-RTFA. They did not say that the note was specifically in response to this lunch, only that it came from the school - time not specified. While the receipt was from the same day, the note could have been a school policy that was handed out when preschool first started.
Even more so, people are taking the girl's word that the school somehow ordered her to not heat her own lunch and have only three chicken nuggets. I'm not accusing her of lying, rather I am inclined to believe she did not understand what she was told.
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. Obviously conservatives are taking the kids word for it. Not the physical evidence, like the note, or demands to pay, or anything else.
As I've already said in other replies, the note is questionable as to when it was sent home. The article linked to from this story did not specify that the note regarding the school checking lunches was received the same day; it could have been a policy note that was sent home earlier.
The receipt for the chicken nuggets only shows that the girl bought chicken nuggets. It does not, however, support the allegations that she was ordered to not eat her own lunch and have instead only the chicken nuggets as many "news" sites want us to believe. It does not support in any way her being separated from her lunch at any time during the lunch hour, for that matter.
How the hell your post got to +5 boggles my mind.
Maybe because it was a more reasonable evaluation of the facts provided than the summaries that are flying all over the conservative blogosphere?
Don't worry, though. The drugedot conservatives will have it down to (-1, flamebait) soon enoiugh.
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As I've already said in other replies, the note is questionable as to when it was sent home. The article linked to from this story did not specify that the note regarding the school checking lunches was received the same day; it could have been a policy note that was sent home earlier.
The note was specific about the charge "in her case". It's hard to imagine that a note sent home two months ago would tell a mother that her child would not bring a sufficiently healthy lunch and thus be required to pay $1.25 on Jan. 30 of the next year. That makes the argument that is was a "form letter" sent home "earlier" hard to accept.
We are talking about two different "notes" that are mentioned in the article. I am talking about the note brought up that children need to bring healthy lunches. You are talking about what is effectively a receipt for the chicken nuggets. I do not doubt that the receipt was written the same day, but the general note could have been from the start of the preschool term.
That said, the whole thing has been debunked already, and the excessive conservative spin exposed for the crap that it is:
North Carol [ordinary-gentlemen.com]
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Didn't the parents have to opt-in to this program to begin with?
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Informative)
rather I doubt that a four-year-old girl is capable of giving a completely accurate account of what happened
OK. I've give you that.
It's refreshing to see someone approaching this from a reasonable standpoint. Most people thus far who have disagreed with me have not wanted to meet anywhere in the middle. I thank you for not being one of them.
But if start with that as an assumption, then I think that you also have to accept that a 4 year old is NOT capable of understanding when teacher / other school official says (with dramatic license) "That lunch does not meet the appropriate nutritional guidelines. We are not replacing your lunch that you brought from home, but merely supplementing it in order to ensure you have the proper diet of a child of your age."
That is pretty much where I was going with it. I'm not trying to accuse the girl of lying or trying to pull one off on someone. I figured she was probably told to get something (maybe something specific) from the line - or given something from the line by an adult - and misinterpreted what she was said.
Someone else pointed out that the whole story has already pretty well been debunked:
a north carolina non-troversy [ordinary-gentlemen.com]
If a teacher / school official really believed the child's lunch was inadequate, was it absolutely essential that action be taken immediately / that day?
As I read it, apparently the girl was instructed to get some milk from the line, and - I would wager through confusion and nothing more - grabbed chicken nuggets, milk, and some other items.
So basically, someone felt she either didn't have enough dairy in her lunch, or not enough to drink in her lunch, and suggested she get some milk. I don't think that is any kind of grave or sweeping action being taken.
I'm assuming these people at the school are themselves educated past the high school level, but perhaps I am wrong.
It's a North Carolina pre-school program. I have no idea what kind of qualifications the people there do or do not have. One would hope they at least graduated high school though we certainly know that is not a prerequisite for having children...
Given the description of what the kid brought from home, though, if I were the parent I would probably tell them to pound sand.
I could understand the frustration, if the incident actually occurred as suggested by the article that slashdot posted to.
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The linked to debunking was certainly interesting but not entirely sure what it debunks.
I haven't read the statute in question. It isn't clear to me who to believe in terms of which child care facilities fall under its domain. I would suggest that were there is doubt, ordinary citizens tend to assume for good reason that the statute covers even if it gets interpreted not to.
But school employees who are tasked with enforcing school rules are typically understood to be, legally, agents of the state. They a
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Re:INspector is Right (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when is apple juice healthy?
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As opposed too?
Milk? Lactose intolerant? High fructose laden shit that is everywhere? Vegetable juice blends? Water?
Since when is natural apple juice not healthy for a developing child in moderation?
Re:INspector is Right (Score:5, Informative)
It's about as un-healthy (or healthy, as it may be) as eating the equivalent amount of sugar and washing it down with water. I'd take the water without the sugar, please.
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Re:INspector is Right (Score:5, Insightful)
The mother voluntarily enrolled in a program to give her kid extra food, since she was unable to provide full meals every day. She received a note from the school that she may be charged for such extra portions in the future, but not a single parent has been charged to date.
So please, enlighten us as to how this is "the nanny state gone mad", and not just a case of morons being fooled into thinking that a mole hill is a mountain?
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Did you read the article?
It's based on the word of the four year old.
The "note" in question was a general guideline announcement, not a bill for that day's lunch.
All we know for sure is that (1) the kid didn't eat the provided lunch, (2) the kid did have the McNuggets and (3) the kid said she had the horrible burden of having the McNuggets because the school made her.
Hmmmm.
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There was also the apple juice and a banana. It sure sounds better than the chicken nuggets the school gave the kid as a replacement.
But don't let the facts get in the way!
So, which one do you hate, fat people or parents? You seem to have unresolved issues somewhere.
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Apple juice is terrible for you. It's just flavored sugar water. See for yourself [self.com]. The fact that it comes from a fruit doesn't automagically make it healthy.
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The lunch contained (what passes for ) two fruit portions. (A banana and an apple juice) A grain portion (The bread) A vegetable portion (OK potato crisps are possibly pushing the envelope, but are vegetables all the same ) and a protein portion. (Turkey)
This lunch met the criteria of a "Healthy lunch" Chicken nuggets (on their own) only tick 2 boxes. (grain and protein)
Fail by some bureaucrat. Not fail by parent who seemed to provide a fairly sane lunch.
Re:INspector is Right (Score:5, Informative)
From the article:
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
Sandwhich was turkey and cheese and was made of bread, so that's the meat, the dairy and the grain, and the banana covers the "fruit or vegetables". A reasonable quantity of potato chips isn't unhealthy, and neither is apple juice. Also, the alternate meal that the girl was given apparently consisted of chicken nuggets.
The USDA requirements are a bit of a joke anyway. They're not really based on particularly good dietary science, they mostly conform to politics rather than real nutritional standards. Meat, vegetables and fruit sure, but dairy and grains? They're not necessarily bad for you, but they're also not requirements. Calcium is important, but you can get it in other ways than dairy, and you can certainly get better sugars, proteins and fats from other sources once you're no longer an infant. Pretty much anything you could get from "grains" (which covers a range of things that are mostly nutritionally just carbohydrates) you can get from a larger vegetable serving.
There are certainly meals that can be put together that aren't healthy, but you probably have to put a lot of effort into doing worse than the typical school lunch in the first place. If the mother in the story had sent her child to school with a big cube of liver, a raw brussels sprout and a bottle of beet juice it would have been a lot healthier than the USDA requirements or the school lunch. Her child would probably beg to be taken away by social services, but the meal would be healthy.
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The thing about milk is that it's a nutritional formulation specifically intended by nature for infants. Production of milk for infants is pretty much _the_ defining characteristic of mammals. We get our name from the milk producing organs, after all. However, virtually all mammals lose the ability to properly digest some of the principal components of milk as they age. This might actually be an evolutionary feedback effect to wean young and prevent females from being stuck nursing for their entire lives. I
BOGUS STORY (Score:4, Informative)
Just twisted to support the usual right-wing scare agenda.
By and large, what this story boils down to is that a low-income child whose tuition is fully subsidized by the state under a program her mother opted into was offered some additional food to supplement the boxed lunch she brought from home. This option was provided not because of some overarching, generally applicable law or regulation, but because the program in which her mother and school voluntarily participate requires such an option be available.
http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/02/15/a-north-carolina-non-troversy/ [ordinary-gentlemen.com]
Hey! But don't let that bit of reality disturb the rest of your enjoying the fine entertainment provided on Fox News!
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Just a twisted reply by the usual leftwing knee jerks who think that School Personnel are always right and parents are always idiots.
I read the whole story, both the school and the mother's response, and that is NOT what happened. The School Person REPLACED the whole lunch with an ALTERNATE version, not just "supplemented". AND even if you wanted to Supplement the kids lunch what was lacking (please answer) that fried nuggets was needed???????
If you can't answer the question, then you're just as ill informe
Re:BOGUS STORY (Score:5, Informative)
It's bad enough that a demagoging article like this would be posted in the first place, but that can be written off as the editors making a mistake and being tricked.
But you... either you lied about reading the article or you lied about its contents. From the first article [carolinajournal.com]:
'She came home with her whole sandwich I had packed, because she chose to eat the nuggets on the lunch tray, because they put it in front of her,' her mother said.
the other article:
While the four-year-old was still allowed to eat her home lunch, the girl was forced to take a helping of chicken nuggets, milk, a fruit and a vegetable to supplement her sack lunch. The mother says the girl was so intimidated by the inspection process that she was too scared to eat all of her homemade lunch.
And yet you claim that "The School Person REPLACED the whole lunch with an ALTERNATE version, not just 'supplemented'," and then go off on a rant about the evil leftwing nanny state. You should be ashamed of spreading these hateful lies.
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Re:BOGUS STORY (Score:4, Informative)
Re:BOGUS STORY (Score:4, Informative)
Re:BOGUS STORY (Score:5, Funny)
Re:BOGUS STORY (Score:4, Insightful)
They told a four year old kid that her lunch was "bad". What four year old would eat it after that? You obviously never had a four year old kid.
Second, you never answered the questions, what were the fried nuggets supplementing in the lunch? Yeah .. I thought so.
Re:BOGUS STORY (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny you put quotes around "bad". How do you know they said such a thing? Maybe they said, "Wow, Sally, that lunch sure looks tasty. Would you like some chicken nuggets to go with it?" And maybe "Sally" happily took the nuggets and decided that she didn't feel like eating the other parts of her meal.
As for what they were supplementing, I'd assume it was to give her some extra protein. Maybe the nuggets were unnecessary, but if you're backpedaling from "evil leftist nanny state stole her lunch" to "they gave her a bit of free, extra food that wasn't strictly necessary", well, you might just want to find something else to get angry about.
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Re:BOGUS STORY (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, maybe they didn't use the word "bad", but apparently close enough [wxyz.com]:
According to the child's grandmother, a state agent took away the girl's homemade lunch and replaced it with school cafeteria chicken nuggets. The girl later told her family that she only ate three of the nuggets. When asked to explain, the agent reportedly told the child that her lunch wasn't "nutritious" and "didn't meet USDA guidelines."
Re:BOGUS STORY (Score:5, Informative)
No, they did not. They sent out a form letter to all parents, on a completely different day, telling them that they might start charging for this sort of thing in the future. No parent has received a bill to date.
Disagree with your interpretation (Score:3, Interesting)
Sounds like they gave her an additional lunch and told her that her mother didn't pack something healthy enough. That they might have called it a supplement doesn't change the fact that it was functionally a replacement. That would be reasonable if the USDA provided object
Re:Disagree with your interpretation (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like they gave her an additional lunch and told her that her mother didn't pack something healthy enough. That they might have called it a supplement doesn't change the fact that it was functionally a replacement. That would be reasonable if the USDA provided objectively good nutritional standards, but instead we have an organization which has been legally required to recognize the tomato sauce on pizza as a serving of a vegetable having their standards used to second-guess a good wholesome lunch sent by the parent.
My suspicion is that this is a way for the school to bring in additional revenue. If I were the parent, I would send the school a letter saying that you had not agreed to the transaction and that you will not pay it. If they send it to collections you send a letter of dispute. If they persist, threaten to organize a class action law suit.
I don't advocate this sort of thing but in response to how bureaucratic and legalistic we're becoming as a society, I just want to remind everyone of how things were once done.
There was a time when the father would have a personal one-on-one chitchat with a government agent who, under color of authority, decided that intimidating a little girl and decided that he is better able than her parents to decide how she should live. This may involve a discussion, a shouting match, or it may also involve said government agent getting the living shit beaten out of him in a fistfight. That would depend solely on whether he admits fault and changes his policies. Of course, this was a time when two men could have a fistfight so long as it was understood that when the man stays down, he's had enough. One way or another, this kind of overreach was not tolerated and being that kind of a jackass became increasingly painful.
Was the result more people getting yelled at and beaten up? Not at all, because everyone knew there was a line that you did not cross without consequence. The result was that the school officials tried at least to appear to be reasonable. The message was, you can screw with my taxes, you can screw with my vote, maybe you can even screw with my car, and I'll go through the bullshit motions of working with the system and seeking redress etc, but if you screw with my family you're going to have a war.
We've become so pussified that we think that's somehow savage or too extreme. The truth is, when you're not going to take this kind of shit no matter what, people recognize it and they rarely if ever try it. The result is better for everyone. Why should decent people be frustrated by this kind of soft tyranny? Those who would inflict it should be frustrated at how afraid they are to try it.
I know it can't be true, but sometimes it seems like nobody appreciates what you're actually teaching the next generation of children when you train them from a very young age to expect that authority is arbitrary and can come along and screw with you for any reason or no real reason at all, that even the relationship between mother and child is not too sacred for their interference. When they're all on antidepressants and antipsychotics long before they get driver's licenses, I guess you'll blame TV and video games, right? Never having the security of boundaries that will be respected has nothing to do with it, right?
Re:Disagree with your interpretation (Score:4, Insightful)
The thing is that back in the '30s most people viewed the government with a great deal of suspicion. Outlaws were held up as nobel freedom-fighters. Even the the Barrow gang was fine until they apparently shot a traffic patrolman in cold blood. If the government went to kick a family off their land, the nation was incensed by it.
These days, the balance of trust has shifted. People don't trust each other at all, and they often view the government as the lesser of two evils (even though they don't trust it either).
So standing up to officials is likely to get your children taken by social services, and it isn't likely to get you much sympathy. And getting in a fist fight over it will get you jail-time.
The problem isn't that we don't stand up for ourselves (the fact that 3 million people are in jail is a testament to that), but that we put our faith in the government to save us from each other, when the government is what we should be mainly worried about.
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From The Friendly Article, " On top of it, her mother was then sent a bill for the cafeteria food."
Even the Carolina Online article linked to in that one suggests strongly that she was charged, although it is somewhat ambiguous. FWIW, the state seems to say that charging the parent would be inappropriate in this case. But it isn't entirely clear one way or the other. I son't see the note. It could say "according to state law we can charge you for this. You owe us $1.25."
It's better to check the article
Knee jerk? You resemble your remark. (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude, she wasn't forced to eat anything. She was offered something else and took it. They may have not even known she had a home lunch with her. 4-year-olds aren't exactly the most forthcoming or entirely aware people in the world.
As for the political aspect, even if the lunch lady whacked her over the head with a yard stick and then force fed the girl cow shit, how the hell is it Obama's fault? What's next, Obama is to blame for all euthanized kittens?
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Except that the federal government had nothing to do with it. The "inspector" was an employee of the state of North Carolina and the healthy food program is a state run program. And what actually happened is up for debate anyway unless you believe a 4 year old is able to give extremely accurate version of events and knows what the word "intimidate" means. The mother opted into this program so there is no governmental coercion in any way, even by the state of North Carolina.
The original story is clearly a
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Sounds like they're pushing the kids to support some corporation that supplies unhealthy food. Not what I would call left wing
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Re:BOGUS STORY (Score:4, Insightful)
And once again, we see the difference between slashdot and a reasonably reliable news site.
How the hell does crap like this make it onto slashdot??? Is there some deep-seated desire to cultivate the image of this site being run by and for a bunch of undereducated dorks who have not clue one about how the world works? If so, congratulations -- you managed to keep that misperception alive for at least another month or two with this non-story.
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..and of course the left wing 'straight fact' campaign you've got going there acknowledges that this situation is a great example of socialized programs like this being truly optional and respectful of freedom of choice right? regardless as to whether they participate in a lunch program or not, if the parent sends the kid to school with a lunch he provided, that should take precedence over anything else. if anything, the state owes the tax payer (or whoever funds the program) reimbursement for the uneaten
Re:Bullshit, and yet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ding-ding-ding-ding... this, right here, is why we will never have socialized medicine in the US: because people like you see it as an excuse to start designating what is "right." It is exactly the reason there was such a fuss, and while largely unfounded, it obviously had some truth as long as this sort of nonsense gets spewed.
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Re:one more reason to homeschool (Score:4, Funny)
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Which is different from the current system of:
Poor Kids: Go to the public schools servicing the poorer areas they live in.
Middle Class Kids: Go to the public schools servicing the not so poor areas they live in.
Rich Kids: Go to a private school, unless the local public school happens to be very good in which case they might slum it with the middle class kids.