Chicken Nuggets Food Police Update: Another NC Parent Steps Forward on Government Official Rejecting Daughter’s Lunch for Not Being “Healthy”
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on February 19, 2012
The food intolerance and tyranny of this administration continues…
As the Team Obama/HHS food police is engaging in damage control for rejecting a child’s homemade turkey and cheese sandwich, replacing it with chicken nuggets, another mother of a preschooler at the same North Carolina elementary school has stepped forward with a similar story.
Diane Zambrano daughter’s lunch was inspected by a government official who deemed it “unhealthy.”
The child’s parent-packed lunch consisted of a cheese and salami sandwich on a wheat bun with apple juice. The lunch that the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services agent made the four-year-old eat instead was that of cafeteria chicken nuggets (what’s with the government obsession with pushing chicken nuggets on kids?), a sweet potato, bread, and milk. No word on what kind of bread replaced the child’s wheat bun.
Here’s the latest update in an exclusive posted at The Blaze — 2nd N.C. Mother Says Daughter’s School Lunch Replaced for Not Being Healthy Enough:
North Carolina officials have said there was a misunderstanding when a preschooler’s homemade lunch was sent home for not meeting certain nutritional requirements, but now a second mother from the same school has come forward exclusively to The Blaze to say the same thing happened to her daughter.
Diane Zambrano says her 4-year-old daughter, Jazlyn, is in the same West Hoke Elementary School class as the little girl whose lunch gained national attention earlier this week. When Zambrano picked Jazlyn up from school late last month, she was told by Jazlyn’s teacher that the lunch she had packed that day did not meet the necessary guidelines and that Jazlyn had been sent to the cafeteria.
The lunch Zambrano packed for her daughter? A cheese and salami sandwich on a wheat bun with apple juice. The lunch she got in the cafeteria? Chicken nuggets, a sweet potato, bread and milk.
“She never eats breakfast or lunch at the school,” Zambrano said of her daughter during an interview with The Blaze. “We always wake up early and make her lunch.”
[...]
When Jazlyn said she didn’t eat what her mother had made her, Zambrano went to her teacher and demanded to know what happened. She said the teacher told her an official had come through that day to inspect students’ lunches and that those who were lacking certain food groups were sent to the cafeteria. After she received her cafeteria food, the teacher told Zambrano, Jazlyn was told to put her homemade lunch back in her lunchbox and set it on the floor.
Zambrano said the teacher told her it was not the first time student lunches have been inspected, and that officials come “every so often.”
The policing of children’s food at West Hoke has been portrayed as an isolated incident, but a curious memo Jazlyn brought home to her mother seems to point to something more.
The memo Jazlyn brought from the school outlines the necessary nutritional requirements students’ homemade lunches must contain: two servings of fruit or vegetables, one serving of dairy, one serving of grain and one serving of meat or meat substitute. Included with the memo was a separate sheet, this one a bill for the cafeteria food Jazlyn was served.
The memo, dated Jan. 27 with the subject line “RE: Healthy Lunches,” was signed by school principal Jackie Samuels and said, while “we welcome students to bring lunches from home … it must be a nutritious, balanced meal with the above requirements. Students, who do not bring a healthy lunch, will be offered the missing portions which may result in a fee from the cafeteria.”
Zambrano, who’s volunteered at the school in the past, said she was never told about any such nutritional requirements before her daughter’s lunch was replaced.
“That‘s not really the school’s responsibility,” she said, adding she’s extremely health-conscious and doesn’t feed her daughter junk food or let her drink soda — or even eat the tater tots or other fried foods often served in the cafeteria.
“They give the choice of pizza and hot donuts…none of that is healthy,” Zambrano said.
[...]
Reached Friday morning, a representative from the Hoke County School Superintendent‘s office denied knowing anything about what happened with Jazlyn’s lunch and said they had no record of a complaint. Reached again, a different representative said they had “no information at this time” about the situation. A West Hoke Elementary official similarly denied any knowledge and referred all questions to the school district.
Principal Samuels previously told the Carolina Journal he “didn’t know anything about” parents being charged for cafeteria meals after the first preschooler’s mother — who has not been identified — came forward.
Bob Barnes, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, told the McClatchy News Service Thursday that the first preschooler to make headlines just misunderstood her teacher when she thought she was told to ditch her homemade lunch for one from the cafeteria: the cafeteria items were only meant to supplement the food groups missing from the homemade lunch.
“We are not the lunch bag police,” Barnes told McClatchy. “We would never put a child in any type of embarrassing situation. But we are responsible to see that every child gets a nutritious meal.”
Barnes confirmed there was an agent from Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child Development and Early Education at the school Jan. 30 who examined six student lunches and determined one did not make the nutritional cut — presumably the first little girl whose story made news.
Hopenchange Nanny State menu — who knew chicken nuggets were so healthy?
About the author
Ms. Davidson, I must respectfully disagree with you. Your assertions above that this “food policing” was somehow mandated by the Obamas is flat out wrong. Here’s why.
FIRST, the departmental agency in question — the Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child Development and Early Education — is a state-level department, not a federal-level department. Other articles make it clearer than the one you’ve quoted from above, but the proof is easily verified by looking at the federal Dept of HHS’ agency listings, where there is no such division or agency called the “Division of Child Development and Early Education”. The agency listings for NC’s DHHS does have such an agency. Here are the relevant links:
Federal HHS: http://www.hhs.gov/open/contacts/index.html#od
NC State’s HHS: http://www.ncdhhs.gov/contacts/division.htm (follow the “Child Development” link to see that the full name of that agency is, indeed, the “Division of Child Development and Early Education”)
SECOND, the program that NC is following is a state program, not a federal one. The program is called the “NC Pre-K program”. Here’s a link to a PDF that outlines the program.
http://ncchildcare.dhhs.state.nc.us/pdf_forms/NCPre-KProgramReq8242011.pdf
The nutrition requirements of this program are located on page 4-1 and state: “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.”
I’ll simply note that the program requires schools to “provide” food items/meals. It says nothing about taking food items or meals away from kids, under any fair reading of the document.
THIRD, while the program does refer to “USDA requirements”, that’s a loose characterization of the USDA rules. The USDA does in fact administer the National School Lunch Program (NSLP). And the NSLP does in fact lay out a variety of nutritional requirements. Importantly, however, schools are not required to participate in the NSLP. Here’s the USDA’s Fact Sheet on the NSLP.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/lunch/aboutlunch/NSLPFactSheet.pdf
One only need visit page one of the fact sheet to see that it clearly says, in response to question 2, “Generally, public or nonprofit private schools of high school grade or under and public or nonprofit private residential child care institutions may participate in the school lunch program” . The key word in that sentence is “may”. The USDA “requirements” are commonly referred to as “guidelines”, and that’s a more accurate descriptor. They are also referred to as “meal patterns”.
FOURTH, while there are new USDA guidelines that were announced in a new final rule from the USDA regarding the NSLP, those rules aren’t even in effect yet. While it is true that school districts are working hard to get in front of the new rules by revising their school lunch programs, technically everyone is still governed by the old rules, which date back several years. The new rules don’t take effect until March 26 of this year, and their initial compliance date doesn’t start until July 1, 2012. In addition, the compliance requirements are phased in over several years. See this PDF to the final published rule from the Federal Register for the essential date info, conveniently located on the first page of this long & somewhat complex rule.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2012-01-26/pdf/2012-1010.pdf
Also see this implementation timeline: http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Governance/Legislation/implementation_timeline.pdf
FIFTH, even if these rules were in effect, the pre-K programs were generally omitted from the rule. Look on the second page of the link to the final rule for this quote: “Note: This final rule does not update the Pre-K school meal patterns. These are under review and will be updated in a future rulemaking amending regulations implementing the USDA’s Child and Adult Care Food Program.”
LASTLY, while it is true that Michelle Obama was the “face” of these new, not-yet-in-effect, not-applicable-to-pre-K’s, not-federally-mandatory USDA rules, neither she nor President Obama can credibly be attributed as the creators & architects of the new rules. The rules were created by the USDA. They were created in response to the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) of 2010, which was passed by Congress before being signed by the President. And the recommendations upon which the rulesare based were issued by the Food and Nutrition Board of the National Research Council of the National Academies of Science, which is part of the Institute of Medicine. Here’s a link to the Board’s web page.
http://www.iom.edu/About-IOM/Leadership-Staff/Boards/Food-and-Nutrition-Board.aspx
Predictably, these folks are academics and doctors, not politicians.
Your rules above state I can differ in opinion, in a civilized way. I hope that you find that I’ve abided by your rules and that you’ll do me the honor of posting this comment. Thanks.
You’re allowed to disagree. But the dots are being connected. As I’ve written before, just as Michelle Obama has met with major cereal manufacturers to change their recipes, her expectations for change aren’t yet mandatory, but suggested – for now. Just as Michelle Obama has met with restaurant owners, her expectations for change are not yet mandatory, but suggested – for now. The many details of compliance with the objectives of FLOTUS may be left up to the individual schools, but Michelle and HHS are the forces pushing the first big rock down the mountain, and thus, beginning the figurative avalanche to controlling and ultimately dictating what American children eat, whether at a state level or a federal level. The gradualism of the Nanny State marches forward.
As Michelle Obama declared in 2010, “We can’t just leave it up to the parents.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46340.html
http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/first-lady-michelle-obama-secretary-arne-duncan-and-us-agriculture-secretary-tom
http://michellemalkin.com/2011/12/21/michelle-obamas-unsavory-school-lunch-flop/
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/us/politics/new-school-lunch-rules-aimed-at-reducing-obesity.html
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2012/01/25/michelle-obama-and-usda-reveal-new-school-lunch-nutrition-standards/
http://www.bet.com/news/national/2012/01/25/michelle-obama-announces-new-school-lunch-nutrition-guidelines.html
http://www.frugal-cafe.com/public_html/frugal-blog/frugal-cafe-blogzone/2011/12/15/christmas-cookie-police-edict-cakes-pies-cookies-other-sweet-treats-banned-for-students-at-school-holiday-parties-bring-on-the-raisins-veggies/
http://www.politicalnewsnow.com/2012/01/25/michelle-obama-school-lunches-to-get-healthy-revamp-cbs-news/
http://schoolnutrition.org/Blog.aspx?id=13585&blogid=564
http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2012/01/in-an-effort-to-lower/
As I’ve written before, in September 2011, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who is working closely with Michelle Obama on her dietary mission, told members of the National Restaurant Association that Americans need to “adjust” their tastes so that they like the kind of food the government believes they should eat—and “we have to make sure that what we do is create the appropriate transition.”
Where you see apparently sinister connected dots that somehow will become mandatory down the road, I see government actions at all levels that, for readily apparent reasons in this age of obesity and junk food and tooth-destroying soda, are taking an interest in having a healthier citizenry by putting some recommendations on how to be healthier in place. Clearly we’ll agree to disagree, but my reading of these same facts is that someone in NC who got a power-trip from playing the authority role then proceeded to overstep their authority. Until the right-wing can show that this is something other than the isolated, localized incidents they look to be from the outside, I’m sticking to a less attenuated explanation than you’re offering here. But I thank you for having the honesty to post my comments and to respond with reasons why you didn’t agree. That’s so much more than I’ve come to expect these days, sadly.
I understand totally. Rarely are my opposing views on liberal websites ever posted.
We’ll be hearing many more of these kind of horror stories if Obama is reelected. No couch potatoes for the election – all conservatives MUST vote in November. Obummer & Moochelle are not the rock star fantasies they were in 2008. The public is learning more about their hypocrisy and socialism by the day. We must not become lulled by the lamestream media.