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

Eating on Vacation with kids...

I have memories of traveling to Alaska, south Mexico, California and many more places [by car] with my family when I was a child. Now, granted, there were not the fast food choices that there are today, but in all our travels I think I can count on one hand the lunches we ate at a restaurant.

Mom always made sandwiches.

She kept the sandwich ingredients in an old blue steel case. I suppose it was an old draftsman case, but I am not sure. She kept bread, peanut butter, mustard, ketchup and lunch meat in there. What? Lunch meat?

Yes, that was back in the days where you weren't allowed to get food poisoning. Everyone at tuna sandwiches that had been in steel lunchboxes for hours and no one thought anything of it. We did not have frozen packs or insulated lunch kits--I guess we were made a stronger stuff back then.

I think she took the meat out of the fridge in the Airstream trailer we pulled in the morning and put it in the blue lunch case for later. I think she did this so that they wouldn't have to open the fridge when we were on the road because that would let out all the cold and since it wasn't plugged in while we drove, we didn't want that to happen.

At any rate, I hate bologna to this day because of being forced to eat a bologna sandwich with ketchup [I am not too crazy about ketchup either] for lunch on one of our trips. Maybe I was whiny, I don't know, but I wanted a PB&J instead, but I had to eat the bologna because Mom already made it for me and I shouldn't be so fussy. As a parent I understand that, but I never liked bologna and could eat PB&J every day for my whole life, so why did she make it for me?

When Bob and I traveled with young kids I vowed NEVER to have salmonella-in-a-box and to eat either peanut butter and crackers, cheese sticks [from a cooler], granola bars and that type of thing--or just stop at fast food. But, that can get expensive. So we found a solution that might help any of you who travel with children.

I would get a LOT of dollar bills and then when we stopped at a fast food place I would give each child $2.00 or if I had 5 dollar bills, I would give one to every two children. Then, they had to order for themselves and spend wisely. Since they always had some vacation money saved up they could spend over that amount if they wanted to supplement with their money, or if they ate cheap they could pocket the excess. The rule being, you must get full and eat something healthy--and no complaining about being hungry later.

It worked great. Basically everyone got water to drink, ordered off the cheap menu, shared fries and so on. Some splurged and got a shake occasionally, some pocketed spare change after every meal. It kept our costs down to a manageable amount and taught smart shopping and thriftiness as well. Plus, I didn't have to remember 7 different orders and then have to pray that the teen workers got it all right.

So, if you travel, you may want to use the suitcase method, or the $2.00 method [maybe up it to $3.00 now], or maybe stop at a rest stop and do some cooking [we have done that too]--but at least you have some options.

And, if I ever come to your house, please don't make me a bologna sandwich. UGH!

Take care,
Jill