Our View: When school lunches finally go green

PROSELYTIZING about poor eating habits that cause the dangerous paunches of childhood obesity - and about rising unhealthy adult fatness as well - from the bully pulpit that is the White House has a checkered history.

[clear]

One good thing from this White House.

[RaidersIn09]

There's a simple solution, so simple that that's probably why politicians and other do-gooders don't see it. Have the parents actually PACK A LUNCH for their kids instead of sending them off for a free government (I mean taxpayer) sponsored lunch at school. This will solve two problems.. first, the parents can put healthier foods in the lunches as they see fit, and second... it gets the do-gooders out of the business of redistributing my income and yours in the name of free lunches and then turning around and blaming the big food companies or other phony hobgoblin for deciding to put junk food on the cafeteria menu.

[mimi]

RaidersIn09 wrote:

There's a simple solution, so simple that that's probably why politicians and other do-gooders don't see it. Have the parents actually PACK A LUNCH for their kids instead of sending them off for a free government (I mean taxpayer) sponsored lunch at school. This will solve two problems.. first, the parents can put healthier foods in the lunches as they see fit, and second... it gets the do-gooders out of the business of redistributing my income and yours in the name of free lunches and then turning around and blaming the big food companies or other phony hobgoblin for deciding to put junk food on the cafeteria menu.

Excellent. Just how many minutes does it take to pack a sack lunch for a kid? Not very many. But the parent DOES need to keep food in the home, expend enough energy to make a sandwich and stuff it into a paper bag, and see that there's fruit and vegetables. It isn't difficult. I took my lunch to school for years; in 5th and 6th grade it was "the thing to do" because the cafeteria was not considered cool; in high school the cafeteria food smelled so weird most kids didn't want to eat it, and we had meetings during lunch anyway - so sack lunches worked for the majority in a 3000-student LA school. I had fruit every day, celery and carrot sticks, and a sandwich with some sort of protein in it. Of course there were a few cookies and occasional chips. No big production, but it worked.