LAWRENCE CO. FEEDING PROGRAM FOR SCHOOLS DURING VIRUS SCARE

How about doing away with the Michelle Obama school menu change that literally destroyed school lunches across the nation? The drastic changes that she spearheaded led to the highest number of students packing their lunches in school history. A lot of students simply will not eat lunch now and choose to do without until they get home in the evening. For the ones who do eat the school lunches, a large number of them eat only certain items and the rest goes into the trash. There is record food waste in public schools across the nation as a direct result of the menu guidelines and the rules governing the way the food is now prepared. Most schools have eliminated any type of frying with everything being baked or steamed. Many of the food items that are baked are inedible by the time the students get their trays due to being dry and hard after resting under heat lamps for an extended period of , and in many cases cold. Deserts have been taken away at most schools and replaced with an Apple or orange. (good luck getting a kid to eat an apple for lunch) Homemade cakes and cookies for desert were a staple of every school system for decades until the food police took over. I’m not against some healthier alternatives, but to change everything across the board without leaving any choices or allowing input from parents and forcing student to either eat it or do without is not the proper way to healthier eating. At the end of the day you can’t police what people put in their belly. You may try, but rest assured these kids will be more determined than ever to grab a candy bar and a soda after school because they have (in their mind) been forced to go hungry all day. Most of these kids get home in the evenings and they gorge themselves on food that they like because they have gone hungry all day at school. There needs to at least be a compromise on some of the food items to gives students a choice, because when all is said and done one needs to ask how much healthier is it for these kids if they’re not even eating it? Any news reporter or parent can go to any school across the nation during lunchtime and see for themselves how well Michelle Obama’s lunch menu is working out, and to the parents….when your child comes home starving at the end of the day ask them why. The answer might surprise you.