Saturday, April 3, 2010

which is the healthier meal for your child


OK, you are presented with two meals: one is a processed chicken-like patty, deep fried on a white bun and big stack of processed French fries; the other is a 7 vegetable, pasta stir fry, real cooked chicken and fruit cup. Pick the healthiest meal, the one you would want your high school child to be eating in school. Give up??

You lose, the meal designated most healthy and reimbursable by the US Federal government is the chicken mystery meat and fat soaked French fries. Why you ask, how can that be??

Well the veggie meal according to the dietitian employed by the Huntingtown WVA school district says so. She says the veggie meal does not have 1 1/4 cup vegetables. Again, how can this be? Well it sure DOES BE, the French fries count as 1 1/4 cup veggies, so the dietitian says the veggie meal is not reimbursable, whatever the heck that means. I don't know if the Federal government sends the schools so much set monies for reimbursable meals. I have no clue.

But seriously, the dietitian, with a straight face, bad mouthed the healthy veggie meal and preferred the French fry, chicken mush meal. I swear, the school cafeteria could have piled "doggie do" on the plate and put French fries next to it and the dietitian would have been just as happy.

She has lost her ability to think. She follows ridiculous Federal guidelines and come hell or high water, she is meeting those guidelines. Her degree in nutrition is a waste of money. She is not using it. All she is doing is following guidelines. We could hire Bonzo, the monkey, to perform her job. She is complaining that there is not enough money to retrain the lunch ladies to cook from scratch.

Hey, I got a wild idea, why not fire the dietitian, cuz from I can see, she is worthless. Her brain has gone to mush. She reminded me of the postal worker I met the other day. I was mailing an envelope that needed to be weighed. With a straight face, the postal worker recites the mantra, "is there anything perishable, flammable, liquid or explosive in that envelope?" Just doing and saying what the Federal government tells them to say regardless of whether it even makes sense.

The public school system is not able to function anymore. The employees cannot think anymore. No one can evaluate anything anymore. There is a show right now on ABC called the Food Revolution. Not only is the TV show a sad portrait of the school cafeteria, it is a sad portrait of just how bad entrenched government workers have become.

I can excuse the postal worker, his incompetence is not really hurting anyone but the incompetence of the the school employees, including the lunch ladies and dietitian IS hurting our children. Watch the show, trust me, not only will you be enlightened about how America is brainwashing our kids to eat processed food but you will see "stuck in cement" school administrators unable to think without their guidelines rule books attached to them at the hip.

Sorry for rant.

2 comments:

Kathy said...

I saw the show and had the same reaction. Schools do get paid for serving that food. I know when I taught and we had to close schools for snow, we had to serve the kids lunch before they could go home even if it was 10:00 in the morning.

I just wish we could package and sell the enthusiasm of Jamie Oliver. What he did for those 5 high school kids in 2 days the schools could not do in 10 years.

Seems to me kids want to learn just not the crap they are being feed in schools, both literally and figuratively.

k.

Libby Maxim said...

agree, Jamie's sincerity is what the kids respond to, they can recognize respect when they see it, and they do not see respect from their teachers, plain and simple