While we're on the topic of regulations and food...

This happened in the county where I teach.  From the Carolina Journal:

Preschooler’s Homemade Lunch Replaced with Cafeteria “Nuggets” State agent inspects sack lunches, forces preschoolers to purchase cafeteria food instead By Sara Burrows Feb. 14th, 2012 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. “I don't feel that I should pay for a cafeteria lunch when I provide lunch for her from home,” the mother wrote in a complaint to her state representative, Republican G.L. Pridgen of Robeson County. The girl’s grandmother, who sometimes helps pack her lunch, told Carolina Journal that she is a petite, picky 4-year-old who eats white whole wheat bread and is not big on vegetables. “What got me so mad is, number one, don’t tell my kid I’m not packing her lunch box properly,” the girl’s mother told CJ. “I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats. It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesn’t really care for vegetables.” When the girl came home with her lunch untouched, her mother wanted to know what she ate instead. Three chicken nuggets, the girl answered. Everything else on her cafeteria tray went to waste. “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. “You’re telling a 4-year-old. ‘oh. you’re lunch isn’t right,’ and she’s thinking there’s something wrong with her food.” While the mother and grandmother thought the potato chips and lack of vegetable were what disqualified the lunch, a spokeswoman for the Division of Child Development said that should not have been a problem. “With a turkey sandwich, that covers your protein, your grain, and if it had cheese on it, that’s the dairy,” said Jani Kozlowski, the fiscal and statutory policy manager for the division. “It sounds like the lunch itself would’ve met all of the standard.” The lunch has to include a fruit or vegetable, but not both, she said. There are no clear restrictions about what additional items — like potato chips — can be included in preschoolers’ lunch boxes. “If a parent sends their child with a Coke and a Twinkie, the child care provider is going to need to provide a balanced lunch for the child,” Kozlowski said. Ultimately, the child care provider can’t take the Coke and Twinkie away from the child, but Kozlowski said she “would think the Pre-K provider would talk with the parent about that not being a healthy choice for their child.” It is unclear whether the school was allowed to charge for the cafeteria lunches they gave to every preschooler in the class that day. The state regulation reads: “Sites must provide breakfast and/or snacks and lunch meeting USDA requirements during the regular school day. The partial/full cost of meals may be charged when families do not qualify for free/reduced price meals. “When children bring their own food for meals and snacks to the center, if the food does not meet the specified nutritional requirements, the center must provide additional food necessary to meet those requirements.” Still, Kozlowski said, the parents shouldn’t have been charged. “The school may have interpreted [the rule] to mean they felt like the lunch wasn’t meeting the nutritional requirements and so they wanted the child to have the school lunch and then charged the parent,” she said. “It sounds like maybe a technical assistance need for that school.” The school principal, Jackie Samuels, said he didn’t “know anything about” parents being charged for the meals that day. “I know they eat in the cafeteria. Whether they pay or not, they eat in the cafeteria.” Pridgen’s office is looking into the issue. Carolina Journal.

Gamemako wrote: Equality 7-2521 wrote: A stupid keyword search in google scholar brought this up as the first result: Abstract appears to be at least marginally relevant. Is there really much scientific dispute anymore that feeding animals trash and then pumping them with antibiotics to compensate produces inferior products when compared to feeding animals a healthy diet? First, that abstract concerns organic, not raw, milk. Second, yes, there is a huge amount of dispute regarding the benefits of organic products, with the bulk of the evidence saying that there is no advantage whatsoever (any benefits are typically found to be linked to other practices). Third, if there is any benefit to the use of unpasteurized milk (not organic), the benefit is extremely unlikely to outweigh the additional risk of infection from the milk. Most people go for raw milk out of an abundance of magical thinking.

Epignosis wrote: While we're on the topic of regulations and food... This happened in the county where I teach.  From the Carolina Journal:

That's just tyranny and a big fat subsidy to food service providers dressed up in altruistic sounding words.

Fox News is just too stupid... Too much.

So is CNN . And every other news network.

All hail The Food Network.

^The only clear thing is that tv nowadays suck... One has to watch one minute of the once-decent History Channel to realize that...

Slartibartfast wrote: Give me The Travel Channel with that guy that eats disgusting stuff, the guy that eats stuff way too big, and the guy that travels around a lot and doesn't eat too much disgusting stuff. Bonus points if you can name those guys.

 

Edited by manofmystery - February 14 2012 at 23:53

^ Is this a Rx Doc? You know according to the gubment life is a controlled substance.

Report: Obama mulls cuttings 80% of nuclear arsenal.

IF he does it, then I'll give him credit.

^And, by the way (and related to the subject), if he does it he will have that to show to the people who are still in doubt but are usually scared of the war-mongerers like 3 out of the 4 republicans.

^Japas was almost ready to surrender. All they wanted is to keep Hirohito as emperor. They kept him anyway even after the unconditional surrender after Nagasaki. An invasion to the main island, Honshu, would have caused thousands of American deaths but it wasn't necessary: Japan was done for, economically its ability to wage war was almost extinguished, and even their mighty morale was wearing down. A war of attrition wouldn't have lasted more than a few more months. The US never needed Hiroshima, and even less so Nagasaki, to win the war. It needed them for different reasons. When Stalin declared war on Japan the ending of the war was even closer. But the US needed the mighty bomb to try to somewhat stop Stalin from getting too hungry in Europe. And of course the generals were eager and crazy to try their new toy in a real war.

The bomb might have stopped other wars from occuring but it wasn't necessary in 1945.