Who owns the children?...

Raisins, peanuts and chocolate, oh my!

I came across this article: No Homemade Lunches allowed in Chicago Public School,. 

At  Little Village Academy on Chicago's West Side [a public school], students are not allowed to pack lunches from home. Unless they have a medical excuse, they must eat the food served in the cafeteria.
Principal Elsa Carmona said her intention is to protect students from their own unhealthful food choices.
"Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school," Carmona said. "It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception."

This took me back to 1989, the year Scotty was born.

My three oldest boys were in an elementary school in Rochester Hills, Michigan. [We] began homeschooling the next year]. At any rate, it was mandated that they bring in a "healthy snack" to eat about 10:00 each morning. At that time I was expecting our 5th child and, like so many large families, money was tight--only one paycheck, lots of kids, yada, yada, yada.

So, I made up a big batch of gorp. I bought bulk peanuts [peanuts weren't villains back then-we never heard of peanut allergies] and raisins and threw in a few chocolate chips. I packed them in environmentally friendly re-usable Tupperware snack cups and congratulated myself on what a great mom I was.

My kids came home and told me that was not an acceptable snack. All three of their teachers said that it was not allowed. I said, "So what do the other kids bring?"

"Fruit roll-ups*** and purchased granola bars!"

BANNED!!

You tell me what is healthy about corn syrup laden fruit roll-ups and sugary granola bars? Plus, they were way, way more expensive than my homemade, high energy gorp. So, we picked all the chocolate chips out of the gorp and they took it every day after. [In case you wonder, I did mention it to one of the teachers to verify, and what they said was true.]

They only attended that school from March-June but if it would have been longer, and if I was not so tired with the 5th pregnancy, I would have really raised a stink. Don't granola bars have chocolate chips and tons of sugar/corn syrup???

I think the Gorp Incident is a lot like the Chicago schools policy. It is a case of the "professionals" thinking they own our children and it just makes me mad. If I was a parent of one of those kids in that school I would be making a LOT of noise. Who owns the kids? I think that is the real question.

Take care,
Jill

***Note: In a Cherry Orange Fruit Roll Up you'll find pears from concentrate, corn syrup (Corn syrup is not considered a good food by the nutritionists I know.), dried corn syrup, sugar, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil (Anything hydrogenated is also not considered something you want to put in your child's body.), a few other ingredients and then we have a variety of artificial colors. The nutritional analysis and ingredient have been provided by www.generalmills.com.

Jill