Chicago School Bans Brown Bag Lunches from Home

[PopsicleToze]

Seriously, this is not about nutrition, but about money. It's the same in colleges: you have to pay for the food service (at Harvard that was about $8K/yr), even if you don't want/never eat the food and have to buy your food elsewhere, as my son did (he is congenitally averse to institutional food). The difference here is that the kids are not allowed to leave school to eat what they want.

And the other difference is that the government is not ordering you to send your child to school at Harvard.

The government does not order anyone to send their children to public school. A parent may opt for home-school or private schools.

I know private schools have limits on lunches brought from home, but they're not banned. Still, that policy is their option and they have the option to change that so that brown bag lunches are banned. Why shouldn't the public school have the same option?

[threestars]

If I'm a kid and the school won't allow me to bring my own lunch and own choice of food, I'll cry all day until they bring back the policy.

[jesteinf]

I'll make a leap of faith here that the Chicago school district that is mandating that the little cherubs eat only school provided lunches are not being bribed with candy rewards for doing their lessons as many school districts do. Because that would be wrong.

The city of Chicago has only one school district. What this one principal is mandating did not come from CPS. This was a decision by one person at one school.

[Jaymes]

Seriously, this is not about nutrition, but about money. It's the same in colleges: you have to pay for the food service (at Harvard that was about $8K/yr), even if you don't want/never eat the food and have to buy your food elsewhere, as my son did (he is congenitally averse to institutional food). The difference here is that the kids are not allowed to leave school to eat what they want.

And the other difference is that the government is not ordering you to send your child to school at Harvard.

The government does not order anyone to send their children to public school. A parent may opt for home-school or private schools.

Really? Oh golly, you're so right. Why didn't I think of that? It's so obvious to me now. And you didn't mention the other obvious solution - just buy a new house in a better school district!

Somehow I'm reminded of the story about Marie Antoinette who supposedly, upon being told that the French people were starving and didn't even have any bread to eat, said, "I don't understand. No bread? Why don't they just eat cake."

I don't know you at all, so perhaps in your world it's an easy matter to send your children to private school, or have one parent quit his or her job and stay home and teach the kids (and beyond not needing that parent's income, that's assuming the parent has the knowledge, temperament, skill-set, aptitude, ability and desire to do it). But in the real world, for most families anyway, those options are not a reasonable possibility. If the government says you're in that district, and that's where you will send your children, under penalty of law, of course you do have options but, basically, that's what the average family is going to have to do.

Your suggestions, while as obvious as the sky above, are not really practical or helpful for the average family's situation if they don't like something about the school to which they've been assigned.

A better solution is to wait for the next school board election and vote the bastards out. And try to install a school board that will figure out a way to stop whatever policies you don't like.

But until and unless that happens, the average family is pretty-much at the mercy of the whims of (in this case) this one particular principal.

Edited April 13, 2011 by Jaymes (log)

[SobaAddict70]

Why is a McD's breakfast being described as devoid of nutrition?

Egg, meat, grain-based starch, possibly cheese and potato.

Its high in fat and therefore calories, but not devoid of nutritional value.

Its probably no higher in fat than the much beloved egg-in-a-nest of many pages of eg discussion.

Are you advocating that people should regularly consume McD's? And I question the nutritional value of their offerings.

My breakfast today consisted of scrambled eggs w/cheddar, homefries and a dash of Tabasco; large orange; orange juice and a tall glass of milk. Slightly over 1,150 calories, 49g protein, 56g fat and 119g carbs. More important for my purposes are the total g of protein than the calories or fat.

I eat like this almost every day.

I'd be hard pressed to find an equivalent meal at Mc'D's that provided a similar macronutrient breakdown.

Are you advocating that people should regularly consume McD's?

How did you get there from what I posted?

I question the nutritional value of their offerings.

Feel free: McD's nutrition breakdown

Not having the exact preferred nutritional breakdown of a specific adult male does not change the fact that the food from McD's does have reasonable, if high on fat, macro nutritional content. Most folks I know dont eat > 1000 calories at breakfast. They live somewhere in the 2000 cal a day range (2000-<3000) and split their calories between at least 3 meals (sometimes to include snacks).

Nevertheless, yours is the example given, so lets look at it:

Your meal ~ 1:1:2 protein grams: fat grams: carb grams

Ex from life (not cherrypicked for the results I want)

Sausage McMuffin w egg:

Calories 450

protein (g) 21

fat (g) 27

carbs (g) 30

It also has reportable amounts of Vit A, calcium and iron.

While I wouldnt want to serve it day in and day out, as breakfast go, its basically nutritious.

Add a glass of orange juice: (complete with Vitamin C)

150 calories

0 fat

30 g carbs

2 g protein

now the "hashbrown" is definitely a luxury item:

150 calories

9 gm fat - about 1/2 calories are from fat. No surprise there - its all deepfried crust.

1 g protein

15 gm carbs

We're looking at a total of

calories 750 = 450 + 150 + 150

protein (g) 24 g

fat (g) 36 g

carbs (g) 75 g

which is 1 : 1.5 : 3 which is not awful. High on fat as noted in my original post.

Noted.

I guess I should also have mentioned that I regularly consume between 3,750 and 4,000 calories a day. 2,000 calories a day only happens when I'm running a caloric deficit, which doesn't happen very often (nor is it particularly pleasant).

I'd have to eat twice that many Mc'D's for the protein to fit my needs at the expense of high amounts of carbs and fat, and a lack of fiber. Also, a calorie is not just a calorie, otherwise I'd simply consume cheesecake and hamburgers regularly (hint: I don't).

[Florida]

A better solution is to wait for the next school board election and vote the bastards out. And try to install a school board that will figure out a way to stop whatever policies you don't like.

Doesn't work that way here.

Furthermore, no one is going to win or lose an election based off of one principal's decision to ban lunches from home.

[annabelle]

I'll make a leap of faith here that the Chicago school district that is mandating that the little cherubs eat only school provided lunches are not being bribed with candy rewards for doing their lessons as many school districts do. Because that would be wrong.

The city of Chicago has only one school district. What this one principal is mandating did not come from CPS. This was a decision by one person at one school.

Oh, I was being sarcastic. I'm really glad I only have one child left in school, and he is going to high school next year. My three children are spread out over 14 years, so I have had a child in public or private school for over 20 years. Schools like to talk a good game about teaching the kid's about nutrition, but I have found that they speak with forked tongues. There is the untouched salad bar and bowls of apples and oranges in the cafeteria (which make great throwing objects)and the fried meats and starchy sides on the steam tables. This has been my experience across these United States in California, Pennsylvania and Oklahoma. The flip side to talking about eating more healthfully, is to reward the little buggers with candy and pizza when they do well. This starts in grade school and continues through high school. A particularly special treat for the lower elementary school kids is a trip to McDonald's with their teacher at lunch. My boys are slim as greyhounds so this never bothered me.

All that said, I would raise hell if my kids were told they couldn't bring thier own lunch because of some random policy change.

[PopsicleToze]

Really? Oh golly, you're so right. Why didn't I think of that? It's so obvious to me now. And you didn't mention the other obvious solution - just buy a new house in a better school district!

Somehow I'm reminded of the story about Marie Antoinette who supposedly, upon being told that the French people were starving and didn't even have any bread to eat, said, "I don't understand. No bread? Why don't they just eat cake."

I don't know you at all, so perhaps in your world it's an easy matter to send your children to private school, or have one parent quit his or her job and stay home and teach the kids (and beyond not needing that parent's income, that's assuming the parent has the knowledge, temperament, skill-set, aptitude, ability and desire to do it). But in the real world, for most families anyway, those options are not a reasonable possibility. If the government says you're in that district, and that's where you will send your children, under penalty of law, of course you do have options but, basically, that's what the average family is going to have to do.

Your suggestions, while as obvious as the sky above, are not really practical or helpful for the average family's situation if they don't like something about the school to which they've been assigned.

Whoa! I wasn't making any suggestions at all, nor was I advocating home-schooling OR private schools, and you are way off base thinking I live in a different world. However, if you want a suggestion, and if I lived in Chicago and was as outraged and emotional about the situation as some appear to be, then my suggestion would be to march right down to that school and have a little chat with the powers that be.

That being said, I don't disagree with the policy.

[Marmish]

The school in question is 100% low income, so I doubt any increase in kickbacks is forthcoming to the vendor. All the students qualify for free lunch already. The other school mentioned in the article, Nettelhorst, is worlds away from Little Village. I tried to find the lunch menu for Little Village and couldn't.

Also, here are the income requiremnents to qualify for free lunch:

$28,665 for a family of 4

Edited April 13, 2011 by Marmish (log)