# Food police **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 15, 2012, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970 "2012-02-15T21:41:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![C3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/c3/32/3108_2.png) [@C3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C3)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/21 "2012-02-16T01:36:35Z")
As far as this happened, it didn’t happen in a regular NC classroom. The food guidelines are for the state’s More at Four program, which is a special public pre-k program for at-risk kids. I have kids in NC schools. Their lunches are not checked by anyone. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/22 "2012-02-16T02:04:04Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > That sounds really stupid, but the article says “lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home” and that can’t be right. I’m sure they can’t be quite stupid enough to force vegetarian or vegan kids to be served meat and dairy. I have to wonder how accurate this whole story is. Oh, I absolutely believe that schools/people could be that stupid. My sister was called several times from her daughter’s elementary school because her daughter absolutely REFUSED to touch anything dairy. Why? _She was severely allergic to cow’s milk_. This was documented left, right, and center. My sister had met with the principal and every teacher her daughter had. The kid had a medic alert bracelet. People STILL tried to force the kid to drink milk or eat cheese or whatever (cafeteria workers, substitute teachers, volunteering parents, etc.) I would expect vegetarian and vegan kids to get exposed to meat and/or meat products on a regular basis, Jewish and Muslim kids to be told to eat various pork products, and Hindu children to be presented with beef entrees during the course of every school year at some location or other. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/23 "2012-02-16T02:48:09Z")
[This blog](http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/02/15/a-north-carolina-non-troversy/) has an interesting rundown of the incident, with some links. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/24 "2012-02-16T03:02:13Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > [This blog](http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/02/15/a-north-carolina-non-troversy/) has an interesting rundown of the incident, with some links. From the usual totalitarian perspective, of course. > [@](#): > > Since this is also an opt-in program, there is no chance of this becoming some sort of generally applicable concern even to the extent there is some sort of nanny state concern here. If the mother has some sort of ethical problem with her child being provided with the option of drinking milk or eating vegetables at school, then she is surely free to send her child to an unsubsidized day care program. Where do I collect my prize when this program with “no chance” of becoming universal becomes universal? And hopefully we don’t need to dig any further into the logic about how vegetarians, Jews, Muslims are “free to opt out of” tax-funded programs that mandate eating certain foods into nonexistent alternatives. ---
**Author:** ![grude](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47774/32.png) [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/25 "2012-02-16T03:37:47Z")
First of all I am a US citizen, I was born in the USA and grew up there, I like the US in many respects, however… This doesn’t surprise me at all, this creeping totalitarianism permeates US culture. Things must be good or illegal, there is no middle ground. Its not good enough to say a lunch isn’t the healthiest but still good, there have to be regulations. You can’t leave something like that up to chance! Everything needs to be regulated and legislated, any other way is madness and chaos. Is there any other country where someone would be tackled by cops for walking on a sidewalk while smoking a cigarette that happened to be a college campus in the middle of an urban area. Its this overbearing law enforcement mentality that I hate most about the USA. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/26 "2012-02-16T03:45:45Z")
Neither of the two posters above me appear to have the least bit of knowledge about what actually happened in the incident in question, nor why it happened. ---
**Author:** ![IntelliQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e99b99/32.png) [@IntelliQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IntelliQ)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/27 "2012-02-16T04:15:34Z")
> [@Kolga](#): > > [This blog](http://ordinary-gentlemen.com/blog/2012/02/15/a-north-carolina-non-troversy/) has an interesting rundown of the incident, with some links. The blogger spent paragraphs trying to muddy up the issue by re-characterizing who did what and their job titles, claims it’s all bogus, blah blah parse-twist-spin, only to conclude that even if it did happen it’s justified anyway. That’s not interesting, it’s deranged. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/28 "2012-02-16T04:37:08Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Oh, I absolutely believe that schools/people could be that stupid. > > My sister was called several times from her daughter’s elementary school because her daughter absolutely REFUSED to touch anything dairy. Why? _She was severely allergic to cow’s milk_. This was documented left, right, and center. My sister had met with the principal and every teacher her daughter had. The kid had a medic alert bracelet. People STILL tried to force the kid to drink milk or eat cheese or whatever (cafeteria workers, substitute teachers, volunteering parents, etc.) > > I would expect vegetarian and vegan kids to get exposed to meat and/or meat products on a regular basis, Jewish and Muslim kids to be told to eat various pork products, and Hindu children to be presented with beef entrees during the course of every school year at some location or other. Okay, I can believe THAT, but I still don’t think they’d be stupid enough to make it an actual policy. And after reading the other article, yeah, the situation sounds about how I was imagining. The kid’s lunch wasn’t taken away (which both articles said), and they weren’t going to try to charge for the school lunch. I thought not, because this program sounds very much like Head Start, which my daughter participated in. All the kids got free meals there, and we were encouraged to have the kids eat those meals instead of sending our own (I used to drive my daughter too and they encouraged me to have her take the school bus, so I don’t know, that was just their thing). I can see where the mom would be annoyed, because the lunch she sent sounds perfectly fine, but it’s not that big of a deal. It sounds like one teacher made a silly decision, perhaps loosely based on a policy that may have been poorly written. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/29 "2012-02-16T04:44:27Z")
> [@IntelliQ](#): > > The blogger spent paragraphs trying to muddy up the issue by re-characterizing who did what and their job titles, claims it’s all bogus, blah blah parse-twist-spin, only to conclude that even if it did happen it’s justified anyway. > > That’s not interesting, it’s deranged. No, it’s called “good reporting”. _You’re_ deranged; you believe every word of an unsourced story in a publication by a group with an admitted agenda, without bothering to check any of the so-called information presented. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/30 "2012-02-16T04:54:00Z")
When this surfaced on another forum I frequent, it came under the title, “Beware! The Food Nazis Are Coming!”. The OP made a quite frankly disgusting rant about how big government was destroying us and how bad the debt is and how the government is overstepping its bounds. I didn’t get goaded into an angry response until he claimed he wanted to “civilly discuss it”. This is slightly less hyperbolic, but no less undersourced and questionable. Just sayin’. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/31 "2012-02-16T05:16:33Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > No, it’s called “good reporting”. _You’re_ deranged; you believe every word of an unsourced story in a publication by a group with an admitted agenda, without bothering to check any of the so-called information presented. Some guy on a blog explaining why he thinks inspecting children’s lunches for “compliance with US Department of Agriculture guidelines” is, in fact, a good thing is neither good nor bad “reporting,” it’s just some guy with a blog giving his stupid opinion. ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/32 "2012-02-16T05:35:10Z")
I actually think this is a fantastic idea, as it exists in reality and not in the right-winger persecution fantasy world. If the kid’s lunch is inadequate, the school provides whatever is missing. Since this is a voluntary program, they can charge the parents a little bit for the missing components–not enough to amount to anything, but enough to educate the parents on what a good lunch should be. It’s a reasonable solution to a very real problem. “I know how to feed MY child better than the government does!” you’re saying. I don’t doubt that you and maybe even most parents know how. But plenty of parents out there really, really don’t. Just yesterday in our clinic we saw a 12-year-old who weighed 200 pounds whose mom couldn’t understand why he keeps gaining weight. Turns out that his diet mostly consists of pizza and Mountain Dew. “He just won’t eat anything else,” she said. We see kids all the time who have never eaten a green vegetable or a piece of fresh fruit _in their entire lives_. I don’t have a problem when the school wants to give those kids something nutritious. And they should let the parents know about it. If that makes me a communist, then paint my ass red and pass the wodka. At worst, this seems like an erroneous implementation of a decent policy. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/33 "2012-02-16T05:39:15Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > Some guy on a blog explaining why he thinks inspecting children’s lunches for “compliance with US Department of Agriculture guidelines” is, in fact, a good thing is neither good nor bad “reporting,” it’s just some guy with a blog giving his stupid opinion. Part of what is explained, which you’d know if you had read the article or had even an ounce of working brain cells, is that no one inspected anyone’s lunch for compliance or any other reason. You are upset about _a fiction_. ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/34 "2012-02-16T05:39:26Z")
Well, it might be, if that were what he did. Maybe you should try setting aside your ‘bias-colored’ glasses, then reading it again. Looking for information rather than confirmation this time. ---
**Author:** ![Condescending\_Robot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a183cd/32.png) [@Condescending\_Robot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Condescending_Robot)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/35 "2012-02-16T05:56:18Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Part of what is explained, which you’d know if you had read the article or had even an ounce of working brain cells, is that no one inspected anyone’s lunch for compliance or any other reason. > > You are upset about _a fiction_. You’re convinced it was a fiction because someone on a blog said so. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/36 "2012-02-16T06:09:09Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > You’re convinced it was a fiction because someone on a blog said so. Now’s the time to whip out some incontrovertible evidence that it actually happened. ---
**Author:** ![Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimmy_Gibbler)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/37 "2012-02-16T06:35:16Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > Now’s the time to whip out some incontrovertible evidence that it actually happened. I remember [an episode of this show I hated](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=604369&page=2) that had this very same plot. As far as who has put forth the greater quantum of evidence, I’ll note that on the one hand we have a news outlet that contacted the school at issue for comment and was not met with a denial. On the other hand, we have some posters on a message board who are pretty sure that it actually didn’t happen (for no better reason than that such an eventuality would be ideologically embarrassing) but have yet to explain why the school they’re defending is itself not so confident of that position. Your position, frankly, is like [Miss Whitney’s request for receipts](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdyaLWMt6qA) when Diane Sawyer asked her about her drug purchases. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/38 "2012-02-16T13:37:36Z")
> [@Kimmy\_Gibbler](#): > > I’ll note that on the one hand we have a news outlet “news outlet”? Where has there ever been a news outlet involved in this? Are you calling the Carolina Journal a news outlet? If so, how is the blog cited by **Kolga** not also a news outlet? After all, they research and write stories, and reprint stuff from newspapers and the AP, etc. Hell, by that standard, the SDMB could be described as a “news outlet”. ---
**Author:** ![Southern\_Yankee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/southern_yankee/32/2800_2.png) [@Southern\_Yankee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Southern_Yankee)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/39 "2012-02-16T13:53:06Z")
I’m in NC and I heard this story on the radio this morning. They were interviewing an official from the school and he _claimed_ that they sent the child to get in line to purchase a carton of milk, as that was the only thing “missing” from her home lunch. Apparently while on line she wound up with a full lunch. Whether she asked for it or not was not made clear. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2012, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970/40 "2012-02-16T14:00:10Z")
> [@Condescending\_Robot](#): > > You’re convinced it was a fiction because someone on a blog said so. No, I’m convinced it’s a fiction because the law doesn’t support any lunch inspections, nor give anyone the right to take food away from any child, nor demand that the child eat anything, nor charge a parent for the food. The objective facts don’t match up with the unsourced, anonymous unverified “complaint”. If you have some factual information to impart, bring it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/food-police/612970.md?page=3)