The Chicago Tribute reports that a Chicago Public School Bans Home-Packed Lunches in an attempt to improve students' diets. Kids are chanting in defense of their homemade meals:
"Who thinks the lunch is not good enough?" the seventh-grader [Fernando Dominguez] shouted to his lunch mates in Spanish and English.
Dozens of hands flew in the air and fellow students shouted along: "We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch! We should bring our own lunch!"
But the principal says she wants to "protect students from their own unhealthful food choices." A side effect will be more money for the school lunch provider, Chartwells-Thompson, and a mandated cost of $2.25 per meal for the parents.
This gives the Cook for Good Lady a headache. More below the fold.
Look at the price. $2.25 a meal? My Cook for Good program averages $5 a day per person using mostly organic, kindly raised, and local food. My thrifty plan averages only $3.21 a day, or less than $1.10 a meal. A day includes three meals and a snack. That's without a vegetable garden, coupons, stocking up on sales, and other super-thrifty behavior. $2.25 is a lot to spend every day for a child's lunch.
Look at the ingredients. Is the school providing fresh, organic food? What does a student have to do to get vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, etc. etc. food that his or her parent might provide?
Look at the money flow. I buy local food when possible from local farmers. Chartwells-Thompson, which supplies the Chicago schools, is part of the Compass Group, based in Charlotte North Carolina. According to its website, Compass has some fine qualifications, including using eggs only from cage-free hens, supporting North Carolina's 10%-local campaign for food, and more. But if I were a Chicago parent, I'd be asking why I was being forced to spend more money on less local food that I had less control over.
What do you think?