If This Don't Beat All

In our latest example of a government gone wild: it seems we now have sack lunch police.

From an article in the Carolina Journal:


RAEFORD - A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.

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.

If it isn't bad enough that the government presumes to tell us that we must serve meat and dairy to our children, even if we don't believe that's appropriate, here we have the case of their not even following their own rules. Notice the "rules:" One meat, one dairy, one grain, two fruit or vegetable. Turkey (meat) and cheese (dairy) sandwich, presumably using bread (grain), a banana and apple juice (two fruits), and then potato chips (not really a vegetable, but the USDA uses french fries as a vegetable for school lunch counting, so why not?)

And notice what they served the kid to make her nutrition 'better.' Chicken nuggets. You ever see how chicken nuggets are made? (Ditto processed chicken patties and McRibs and the like). They are literally made of all the garbage they're left over with when they've taken out all the parts people will knowingly eat. Veins. Tendons and ligaments. Et cetera. Really. Don't believe it? Check out the article and video here, or lots of other places on the web.

Aren't you happy we have the USDA on the job to make sure four year olds don't miss out on their required servings of chicken veins? God Bless America.