Preschooler's homemade lunch replaced with nuggets

Well THIS is certainly interesting.


A Hoke County preschooler was fed chicken nuggets for lunch because a state worker felt that her homemade lunch did not have enough nutritional value, according to a report by the Carolina Journal.

The West Hoke Elementary School student was in her More at Four classroom when a state agent who was inspecting lunch boxes decided that her packed lunch — which consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich, a banana, apple juice and potato chips — “did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines,” the Journal reports.

The decision was made under consideration of a regulation put in place by the the Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services, which requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs to meet USDA guidelines.

“When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones,” the Journal reports.

The student’s mother told the Journal she received a note from the school about the incident and was charged $1.25 for the cafeteria tray, from which her daughter only ate three chicken nuggets.

The note explained how students who did not bring “healthy lunches” would be offered the missing portions and that parents could be charged for the cost of the cafeteria food, the Journal reports.

The mother, who was not identified in the report, expressed concern about school officials telling her daughter that she wasn’t “packing her lunch box properly.”


http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/14/pr ... h-nuggets/

I can't help but feel that the point of this story is to elicit a "Obama won't even let me pack my own childs lunch!" response.

I can't help but feel that the point of this story is to elicit a "Obama won't even let me pack my own childs lunch!" response.

.....Don't shoot the messenger. I sure as hell wasn't trying to make any such point from this end. The "news" source on the other hand ....God only knows.

Sounds like a fine lunch to me.

Here is an article with more details.


http://www.digtriad.com/news/article/21 ... th-Nuggets

Elwood: Lunchroom Nazis
Jake: I HATE lunchroom Nazis

I think my head would have exploded. And I would have removed my child from that school. I'm not kidding.

In any case, if a guideline is not being fulfilled, wouldn't it be a vegetable guideline and not a protein guideline? Take away the chips and replace them with carrot sticks. Done. Fixed. Unless overly processed pink slime fried up to look appetizing is a vegetable now.

[Robin Garr]

I think the replacement of a home-made lunch with relatively unhealthy industrial food is the elephant in the living room here, not that I would expect Fox News to bring that up.

Here's the current USDA Meal Pattern requirement:

http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/care/Progra ... /Lunch.htm

All she seemed to be missing was her milk which is required to be available for purchase ala carte. JCPS charges 35 cents for milk. I think someone got a little over zeaolus myself.

I'm sure this is the President and First Lady's fault somehow....

I thought the dairy requirement was being filled by the cheese on the sandwich. I agree that it looks like she was only missing a vegetable. But since french fries fill the vegetable requirement, why not the potato chips?

It's not the lunch *I* would have fixed, but so what? Frankly, the school is really lucky. What if the girl had a soy allergy? I'd be surprised if there wasn't soy in that fried breaded "pink slime" as someone up thread said.

This makes my blood boil.

We need to get on the phone and call in a specialist...

http://www.fakeposters.com/posters/chuck-norris/

I thought the dairy requirement was being filled by the cheese on the sandwich. I agree that it looks like she was only missing a vegetable. But since french fries fill the vegetable requirement, why not the potato chips?

It's not the lunch *I* would have fixed, but so what? Frankly, the school is really lucky. What if the girl had a soy allergy? I'd be surprised if there wasn't soy in that fried breaded "pink slime" as someone up thread said.

This makes my blood boil.

Before everyone calls out the lynch mob, this didn't happen here.

This is how it looks to me,

The turkey and cheese on the sandwich counts as a meat or meat alternative which the required portion is 1 oz. total.
The banana covers the fruit or vegetable requirement and her mother said she used the bleached whole wheat bread for her sandwich so that works too.
The chips don't count for anything unless they are baked, whole grain (Sun Chips).

There HAS to be 1/2 cup fluid milk, but like I said before, she should have been able to purchase the milk seperate of the whole lunch that was served that day that she was chaged for.

If I was her parent I would be pretty angry too.

I can't help but feel that the point of this story is to elicit a "Obama won't even let me pack my own childs lunch!" response.

.....Don't shoot the messenger. I sure as hell wasn't trying to make any such point from this end. The "news" source on the other hand ....God only knows.

Haha no worries, not my intent! I would go ballistic if this happened to my own child. I'm just saying a lot of detail was left out of the story. Is this a case that is just an isolated incident? Are there rules determining what you must pack for you child now in school? I'm actually curious.

What if the girl had a soy allergy?
This makes my blood boil.

Wow...Good point. I hadn't thought of that angle. My very own daughter is (very) allergic to chicken but can eat turkey with no problem. Kinda hard for a 4 y.o. to communicate such things to adults.

Dan,

Does the same rule apply for JCPS for home-provided lunches? We always pack Aiden's lunch ( he doesn't like the cafeteria food- "likes Mom's better" ). I frequently include cheese/yogurt as a "dairy" for his lunch- we don't send milk because he doesn't eat lunch until 1:20. Our lunches are pretty healthy, but we wouldn't have passed this test...
Deb