School bans lunches from home ( Archived) (15)

In response to: Cafeteria chaos: School bans lunches from home
By Kavita Varma-White

Packing school lunches for kids every day is no doubt a chore. But what if you weren’t allowed to?

One Chicago school has banned lunches brought from home, the Chicago Tribune reports. Administrators at Little Village Academy, a public school, say the policy is all in the name of good health. Principal Elsa Carmona told the Tribune she created the policy after watching students bring "bottles of soda and flaming hot chips" for their lunch.

"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,” Carmona said.

Some kids and parents at the school beg to differ about the food quality, saying it doesn't taste good, and the Tribune reported that dozens of kids threw food in the garbage, uneaten. We don't know what's on the menu at Little Village, but these photos of "an enchilada dish" are less than appealing. And really, when is the last time you sampled delicious fare in a school cafeteria? (I am forever haunted by the glue-like yellowish thing my elementary school called lemon pudding.)

Recipes aside, the policy leaves a bad taste in the mouth for plenty of other reasons.

Unless a student has a medical excuse to bring food from home, the only option other than eating cafeteria food is to eat nothing. (Think those kids will ace a quiz on an empty stomach?) And does something like glucose intolerance merit a medical excuse? What about vegetarianism?

Cost is another matter. What if parents don't want to spend money on school lunch because they can send less expensive food from home?

Related story: What is school lunch really like? One woman ate it every day, and blogged about it

Little Village Academy has good intentions of nutritional tough love. But have they gone too far?

What do you think? Should schools be able to ban homemade lunches?

mousencat: when i went to school we ate dirt...those were the days

serene56: I thought this thread was going to be about homemade lunches being banned for another reason ..

Here it would be more likely due to children sharing their lunches with others who have allergies - nut, gluten, lactose etc.

Many kindergartens and daycare centres have already ruled out treats being prepared and brought in by parents, for the children to share on special occasions such as birthdays etc.

Sad really

As far as the thread topic is concerned though, I do think the idea of healthy canteen lunches has merit

Many Australian canteens have long eliminated junk food and fizzy drinks which can only be a good thing.

But as far as forcing this option on parents, nope, I think that's going too far.

serene56: Hi Merri

Agree totally

I was just thinking on this subject and really, it is do-able here.

But it does need to be done well, government funded as you said, and with trained dieticians involved, producing interesting and varied menus that are appealing to children.

We are way up there in the world obesity ranking - what happened to our healthy, outdoor way of life

Plus the fact that we have access to an endless variety of fresh affordable produce, all year round means that we have no excuse but to feed our children healthy meals at home, let alone at school.