Through Jamie Oliver’s urging, a grade school in Virgina has taken Chocolate Milk and Strawberry Milk off the menu. Healthier kids, everybody is happy, right?
Since Strawberry Milk is one of nature’s purest gifts, angry moms have taken to the media with their grievances, telling the Washington Post, “Let me decide if my kids should be drinking chocolate milk. Not the school… Me and some other moms, we’re on Facebook, we’re writing letters, we’re making calls.”
That got me thinking: If she wants her kid to drink chocolate milk, why doesn’t she buy some and give it to them to take to school? Then, that got me thinking: why do we have school lunches in the first place? When did schools become restaurants? If we need to save money why not send Jamie Oliver back to England and just close the cafeteria?
If you have the time to start a Facebook page and chat with the Washington Post, you have enough time to make a sack lunch. And, don’t give me that “I pay taxes, my kid should get to drink what they want.” I pay property taxes too and don’t have a kid in the school system.
I say, show me a Strawberry cow and I’ll be a fan of it’s milk. Until then…
Brilliantly said!
I did some looking into this when my son began kinder in AISD a few weeks back. AISD’s justification for keeping chocolate milk as an option is “well, it’s better than them drinking no milk at all.” For reals.
I bend over backwards to prepare a nutritious lunch for my son every single day. Sometimes that means I’m throwing together something sort of ridiculous in the waning moments before we leave in the morning, but anything in my fridge beats the sludge they serve at his school. But at least I take the time to put something together. And THEN bitch about it! 🙂
Well said… school cafeterias are breeding grounds for bad eating habits. If parents are worried about what they should and should not eat, then every public school system should enforce a communal kitchen which would require parents or the neighborhood to volunteer and cook for our kids, that way we are responsible for what our kids eat. India does this in order for kids to get something to eat, and it is working really well.
I understand their point. The chocolate milk is to help the most destitute kids. The ones who get nearly all the meals they get in a week from school and can use the extra calories.
That said, perhaps we should have better anti-poverty programs and take out the chocolate milk.
Great post. If school lunches are provided, shouldn’t the educational system take it as an opportunity to educate the students on healthy eating? I can’t really buy in to the idea that junk food is cheaper than providing natural, healthy foods. If you spend just a bit of time to know where to get good food, they’d find its not that hard or expensive. I will be packing my son’s lunch when he starts Kindergarten next year (or my chef husband will) but it will definitely be strawberry milk free.