Michelle Obama is starving our kids

amother

Thu, Dec 04 2014, 6:20 pm

I'm the first amother who is a preschool teacher. I haven't read through the whole thread but I want to say that the whole wheat bread the kids eat. The ww pasta NOBoDY touches. "Morah I don't like brown pasta". It's a huge waste.
It's even more ridiculous because we teachers are not allowed to eat, yet according to headstart family style meals we must eat the kids food with them at the table and can't have anything of our own. Explain that one. Don't know how that's going to work out at the next inspection.
My husband teaches in a different school and the teachers were told that if a child is hungry for more they need to explain to them that's not healthy to eat too many calories. I think Obama is creating a generation with eating disorders. Since when do children need to hear and be told about having too many calories. It makes all of us so upset.
End of rant for now. Exploding anger

Barbara

Thu, Dec 04 2014, 6:29 pm

amother wrote:

Maybe your husband's school requires teachers to tell students that.

The government doesn't.

In fact, hungry kids are more than welcome to buy seconds if they'd like. And even to buy other foods, which the school is allowed to make available, albeit not as part of the subsidized lunch.

Quote:

The regulations for the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program do not prohibit the sale of foods in competition with reimbursable meals as long as those foods are not considered to be foods of minimal nutritional value (see below). Foods that may be sold in the cafeteria during the meal service include items that are part of the reimbursable meal but are purchased separately (seconds, for example) or items such as ice cream that are not credited as a component of a reimbursable meal but are not considered to be a food of minimal nutritional value. Competitive foods could also include foods sold in the cafeteria by school organizations as long as the revenues from these sales go to the food service, the school or an approved student organization.

The program regulations prohibit the sale of certain categories of foods of minimal nutritional value in the food service area during the breakfast and lunch periods. These categories (which include carbonated beverages and certain candies) are so designated because they do not provide at least 5 percent of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI) for any one of several key nutrients. For a complete discussion of the categories of foods of minimal nutritional value, including the criteria for making this designation, click here.

Federal regulations do not prohibit the sale of foods of minimal nutritional value elsewhere on the school grounds. However, States and local schools have the authority to do so, and many have adopted such restrictions.

I completely understand how upset you must be at your husband's school for making him say this. Has he approached the administration to complain?

By the way, I found this interesting:

Quote:

In November 2011, an agriculture appropriations bill passed by Congress garnered controversy for blocking a proposed change by the Obama administration to school lunch regulations, whereby 1/8 of a cup of tomato paste would no longer have been considered as having the nutritional equivalent of 1/2 a cup of vegetables, but instead only as having the nutritional equivalent of 1/8 of a cup of vegetables (I.e., schools can only credit a volume of vegetables as equivalent to its actual size). Critics of this move by Congress claim that pressure was placed upon officials voting on the bill by lobbyists representing pizza manufacturers and cheese producers, as it was seen to threaten the ability of schools to serve pizza and credit it with the same level of nutritional value as they heretofore had.[citation needed] Many critics have sardonically summarized the situation as "Pizza is now a vegetable" or "Congress decides pizza is a vegetable".[citation needed] However, others have pointed out that 1/8 of a cup of tomato paste stacks up remarkably well against a 1/2 cup of vegetables nutritionally, albeit with an excessive amount of sodium that could be argued to reduce its nutritional value

spring13

Thu, Dec 04 2014, 6:53 pm

HindaRochel wrote:

It isn't a matter of the child being picky, it is a matter of the food being improperly prepared, distasteful, repulsive, insufficient etc.

Schools are dumping the program because it isn't working.

The problem is that food is served locally (duh) and national standards aren't going to work on a local level. Reagan tried this as well for money saving reasons. Also a very bad idea.

The community in which the school operates should set up standards that match the community using dietitians and taking into account the population of the school, the foods they are accustomed to eating, the access of the general population to other food sources, etc. etc. etc.

My post was in response to people claiming that their kids flat refuse to eat whole grain bread, etc. - healthy foods that are reasonably common and easy for most kids to manage. People seemed to be saying that their kids' pickiness would extend to ANY form of healthy lunch options, regardless of how they're prepared, implying that there's just no point in the schools trying at all. I've said a couple of times in this thread that the OP school clearly has catering and guideline-application issues, and I'm sure that's not uncommon.

I work in a school with private catering, and they do a good job of providing a range of healthy options at each meal, and mixing up "fun" stuff with more distinctly healthy options. The parents who use the program pay for it. If a school is using government funds to provide meals for it's students, then it has to be able to deal with the regulations in an intelligent manner.

And we've already got droves of kids with eating disorders and obesity issues: we as a society owe it to our kids to at least TRY to figure out how to fix things.

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, Dec 04 2014, 9:09 pm

amother wrote:

I work for the YMCA which has an afterschool program and provides a meal to the kids. I'm pretty sure it is government funded, and the meal is prodived by the same provider as the lunches in the public school that the program is hosted in.

Today's menu: hambergers or cheesebergers (I think that the buns were WW, but I'm not sure as I obviously don't eat it) as protein. Pineapple as fruit. And here is what got to me FRENCH FRIES as a veggie! (yes with Ketchup...)

As far as I'm concerned, potatos, especially processed ones, are carbs not veggies!

Anon to protect my identity.

I just started reading this thread...

While I agree with your horror at how that was supposed to be healthful, I disagree with your statement about potatoes.
ALL potatoes we eat are processed. No one eats them raw. French fries are only worse than baked potatoes because of the oil that they are soaked in. If they are baked, they are basically like cut up potatoes sans skin (skin would add fiber which would be better). Yes, they are starchy and have carbohydrates. Many vegetables do. But they do have some nutrients (although without the skin, it's kind of stripped bare) and they are ha'adama after all. They are not a grain.

Volunteer

Fri, Dec 05 2014, 1:23 am

HindaRochel wrote:

Part of the problem is they are forcing the children to take certain items, rather than offering and encouraging.

Other problems: apparently is that the staff workload has increased, which could impact on the quality of food.
Expensive changes in serving utensils and equipment to meet the new, exact standards.
Obtaining food that met the standards.

Quote:

As SFAs began implementing the new lunch requirements in school year
2012-2013, they faced several challenges implementing the lunch
changes. For example, most states reported that their SFAs faced
challenges with plate waste—or foods thrown away rather than consumed
by students—and food costs, as well as planning menus and obtaining
foods that complied with the new portion size and calorie requirements.
(See fig. 8.) The majority of states also reported that food service staff
workload and food storage or kitchen equipment were challenges for their
SFAs while implementing the new lunch requirements. The eight SFAs
we visited also experienced these challenges although at the same
time, all eight expressed support for the goal of improving the nutritional
quality of lunches and felt the new requirements were moving in that
direction.

Some of those challenges should be one time issues, some may continue to be a problem.

Yup. Here's the real elephant in the room: Labor costs.
I look at it this way: Meals can be nutritious, cheap, tasty, and convenient. Just not all those things at the same time.
Many people think that healthy food is expensive. It's not, necessarily. Cheap, healthy food is inconvenient. It requires preparation. That's what schools don't have. I think that's the real issue here. You can prepare healthy, delicious, budget-friendly meals at home much more easily than a factory-like school cafeteria can.

It reminds me of the article posted by someone in the "junk food on food stamps" thread. The author made a great point. I will be the first one to school y'all on the virtues of dried beans, homemade whole grain bread, and cheap produce. But when you don't have a real kitchen to cook in, and you don't have staff to cook, and you don't have time to fill hundreds of styrofoam trays in under an hour, 600 cheap hot dogs in a steam pan starts to sound like a good option.

HindaRochel

Fri, Dec 05 2014, 2:53 am

Volunteer wrote:

As I posted on that other thread this program (non-school) is successful:
Prescribing Vegetables Not Pills

One of my friends grew up on McDs for dinner because at $.99 a meal you had some nutrition and you didn't go to bed hungry.

Fresh produce in large institutions isn't necessarily the way to go either. Canned/frozen foods are nutritious, and some vegetables provide more nourishment if they are cooked, as long as they are served in their liquid. Which is why soups and stews are so good.

But if you have to peel, grate, cut up tons of potatoes, carrots, onions, etc. then you don't have the time to cook them properly.

Some of the complaints are food not cooked well enough. (Besides not being enough, and no, that wasn't a complaint of just 300lb football players. It was the complaint of slight young women as well.)

Smaller schools would have less problems because less children to feed all at once. Smaller generally indicates a wealthier population.

Which is why I think having these stringent federal standards don't work. Instead communities should be invested with the funds to develop a program using local nutritionist, that takes into consideration the population they are dealing with, including how much access that population has to food after school hours.

Hashem_Yaazor

Fri, Dec 05 2014, 9:23 am

mummiedearest wrote:

I know labor cost is a problem. I think having the kids do the catering could solve that issue. a mandatory cooking/nutrition class can be made part of the curriculum. there would have to be a teacher with a background in nutrition to teach the kids. the kids would learn how to cook, how to plan menus based on nutritional needs, and how to manage time. and they could do all the prep-work during class time. meals do not have to be pre-packed onto trays. having a few lunch lines is fine. and if the school has staggered meal times, the kids can even do the serving. I really don't see a downside to this idea, unless people complain that it takes away from other studies. I suspect it can be worked in, though.

I cannot possibly see how this would work.

Let's take an elementary school with middle school in a separate location.
So you have the highest grade being 10 year old 5th graders.
Let's say there are 100 kids in a class.
But you can only fit maybe 1 class of 20 at a time in the kitchen.
And let's say generously that lunch starts at 12.
But the food needs to be in by 10;30.
For 500 kids!! (Grades 1-5)
Let's say only half are on school lunch, so 250.
You're going to have 20 10 year olds cook lunch for 250 kids in an hour long cooking class first thing in the morning?

Rubber Ducky

Fri, Dec 05 2014, 9:33 am

mummiedearest wrote:

Interesting idea. Back in the ancient days when I went to a public Jr High, girls had to take "Food" and "Sewing" home economics classes (as I recall, boys took Woodworking and Metalshop). Nowadays I would be worried about possible liability issues.