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Michelle Obamas healthy lunches going to the pigs literally
2015 Apr 1, 7:26am 9,460 views 24 comments
by zzyzzx follow (9)
Comments 1 - 24 of 24 Search these comments
Shaman
2015 Apr 1, 8:34am
That's what kids do. Most have to be taught to eat their vegetables, introducing them early and often. My kids will eat theirs, most of the time, but we were diligent about exposing them to healthy food. Unfortunately most parents are not, instead buying sugary snacks and starchy foods exclusively for their kids. The kids grow up to be teenaged diabetics and lose their first limb at thirty, dead at 35 or 40.
Yah that's good parenting...
Really really sad that pigs eat healthier than America's children.
If these kids are fed to the hogs and the pigs develop heart disease and cholesterol, would that be poetic justice?
3.5 million a day x 180 days = 650 million per year. There's bigger fish to fry, and its a worthwhile gesture
It's actually well worth the money, even if it's the price to pay for kids to eat nothing for lunch, which is healthier than eating the crap schools usually make, that kids do eat.
turtledove
2015 Apr 1, 6:46pm
The food they are serving kids at public schools is truly despicable. Supposedly it's healthy, but I'm not sure how you can tell. All I hear from my kids about what they had at lunch are things like "pizza," "floppy chicken [whatever that might be]," "cheese sticks," "muffins" "cookies" "rice krispy treats"... They make the kids take a fruit or vegetable, but, of course, they take a bite or two and then throw them away. Part of the problem is that the food is disgusting. It's pre-packaged, microwave crap that no one would consider a "yummy" meal. On the menu they publish each month, they show all the nutritional facts of all the meals. They are high in fat and carbs. An apple, banana, or serving of canned green beans just doesn't change that. I'm not exactly sure what Michelle is taking credit for? The food is STILL crap!
I think if they went back to actually cooking food in school cafeterias, you could improve the health content considerably. On what planet would anyone consider TV dinners to be the staple of a healthy diet? Yet, that is what we have.
Unfortunately, it isn't cool for kids to bring lunches at our school. So my kids eat the crap, sort of. They come home awfully hungry for kids who just ate lunch two hours before. Fortunately, my kids are extremely active. So they're thin as rails. But their little systems really don't need this daily assault that comes from frequenting their school cafeteria.
curious2
2015 Apr 1, 7:06pm
School lunches have a limited budget that forces them to buy subsidized foods, which tend to be the worst, including corn products including corn-fed beef and dairy and pork and chicken. If you look at the frozen pizza aisle, you can see the cheapest per pound are always the "pepperoni", made from the worst cuts of subsidized beef and pork mashed together, followed by the subsidized chicken. If the corn subsidies were given instead to the school lunch program, you'd see much healthier school meals and a healthier population.
If schools cannot afford fresh produce, perhaps they should consider growing more of their own, as an educational exercise. Fresh fruits and vegetables don't usually need to be cooked. Even if kids with new braces can't eat raw carrots, they might have fun throwing everything into a juicing machine and destroying it all into a beverage.
lostand confused
2015 Apr 1, 7:08pm
So if we eat pork chops/loins or bacon from pigs fed with Micehelle Obama's leftovers, are we eating healthy food now??
turtledove
2015 Apr 1, 7:17pm
School lunches have a limited budget that forces them to buy subsidized foods, which tend to be the worst, including corn products including corn-fed beef and dairy and pork and chicken.
Yet, they charge us for these lunches. You'd think that would have some effect on their budget! Our lunches are $2.50/day. A bargain, for sure, but I'd pay more for better food. Perhaps this is a lowest common denominator kind of thing... where the cost of lunches is limited by what the poorest area can afford.
Indiana Jones
2015 Apr 1, 7:30pm
We pay 5.70 for daily lunch. Most of it gets thrown away. Mostly inedible. And the lunch company writes on their website that savvy parents know better than to think organic foods are always better for your children than conventional. So patronizing.
Inedible,my big old butt!
Global Economic Cataclysm will force spoiled brats to eat what's on their plate. I'm not talking about the children.I'm talking about Entitled American Adults.
Vicente
2015 Apr 1, 10:32pm
At my son's public school, they get far more apples than they need. I mean not every kid wants an apple at lunch every single day, but they have enough for ALL of them and some left over. It's not because the school lunch menu people specified they wanted that many apples, it's someone far up the chain whose brother-in-law has an orchard..... For all the talk about Federal intervention in local schools, I don't really think Michelle Obama made much of a dent in the problem.
On the flip side of that, I mean the only way I get MY kids to eat right is to say "here's your plate, you'll eat what's on it or GO HUNGRY!". You think schools have the time to mess with food discipline of YOUR kids? No, they have trouble enough just getting them to sit still for cipherin'.
zzyzzx
2015 Apr 2, 6:43am
I think if they went back to actually cooking food in school cafeterias, you could improve the health content considerably. On what planet would anyone consider TV dinners to be the staple of a healthy diet? Yet, that is what we have.
I do think that's the real problem here. Some minority/woman/small business that makes big campaign contributions get the contract for overpriced packaged food.
zzyzzx
2015 Apr 2, 6:45am
Fresh fruits and vegetables don't usually need to be cooked.
Corrected:
Fresh fruits don't need to be cooked.
turtledove
2015 Apr 2, 8:35am
Even when they try to do the "fresh" steamed veggies, what they serve the kids is pretty scary. Limp, overcooked, falling apart. Don't they know that when you overcook veggies you take out all the vitamins? Then they just become carbs with no benefits or taste, and a bazaar consistency. Yumm!
My school (growing up) didn't bother with a separate serving of veggies. The veggies were just cooked inside the best lunches I've ever seen at a school. Our cafeteria was run by a bunch of Mexican and Central American nuns. Those gals knew how to cook. Complaints were rare and everyone left full. No rampant weight problems I can recall among my schoolmates. Perhaps it was still junk (I don't have the nutritional values to compare to today's options), but it was at least tasty junk. Have you had one of the pizzas they serve today? No problem, I can help. Take a piece of cardboard. Take a tablespoon of sauce from a can of Spaghetti Os and smear it onto the cardboard. Then, cover it with some tasteless, processed cheese-like substance. The cooking technique is critical here. You have to time it just right. You want it slightly burned on the edges and undercooked in the middle. Bon appetit!
zzyzzx
2015 Apr 2, 8:45am
Even when they try to do the "fresh" steamed veggies, what they serve the kids is pretty scary. Limp, overcooked, falling apart.
That's probably the biggest deterrent to eating vegetables; poor cooking (and seasoning). If people knew how to do that right, they would eat more vegetables. I usually microwave mine.
On the flip side of that, I mean the only way I get MY kids to eat right is to say "here's your plate, you'll eat what's on it or GO HUNGRY!". You think schools have the time to mess with food discipline of YOUR kids?
Okay, so I know this will qualify as 'child abuse' but I survived it and my parents passed long ago, so I'll share. We (there were three of us) had the food on the plate that we didn't like sitting on the plate and we were told, the timer will be set for 5 minutes for you to get it down; you get one glass of milk. When the timer goes off, if the food is not eaten you'll get a paddling with a wooden spoon, then another 5 minutes on the timer. Oh and no more milk. Only took a couple of times and we knew that they meant it and the vegetables disappeared. Gee, and I haven't done any mass murders from it ... imagine that.
turtledove
2015 Apr 2, 12:41pm
Okay, so I know this will qualify as 'child abuse' but I survived it and my parents passed long ago, so I'll share. We (there were three of us) had the food on the plate that we didn't like sitting on the plate and we were told, the timer will be set for 5 minutes for you to get it down; you get one glass of milk. When the timer goes off, if the food is not eaten you'll get a paddling with a wooden spoon, then another 5 minutes on the timer. Oh and no more milk. Only took a couple of times and we knew that they meant it and the vegetables disappeared. Gee, and I haven't done any mass murders from it ... imagine that.
LOL. My mom had made barbeque chicken one night. I wouldn't eat it. She said I had to sit at the table until I ate it. Guess who won that challenge.... By 11 p.m. she was done. Taking the meal away wouldn't have worked with me. I wasn't hungry (EVER) as a little kid (under 7). My mom says I refused chocolate until I was about six or seven.
turtledove
2015 Apr 2, 12:42pm
My grandma gave me a piece of chocolate when I was three and I cried until she thoroughly wiped out my mouth.
justme
2015 Apr 2, 2:22pm
April's menu:
http://www.healtheliving.net/instance/2023723/district/21/school/89/menu/2009841
Jeepers. Who the hell thinks Yogurt, Trail Mix & Muffin is an acceptable lunch entre?
Blended nonfat yogurt served with a whole grain muffin and trail mix (peanut free)
Serving Weight 245.790 gm
Calories 569.000 kcal
Total Fat 21.900 gm
Carbohydrates 82.500 gm
Sugars 51.000 gm
Protein 10.800 gm
Super-overloaded with sugar. This is not lunch, this is dessert. Also note the tendency of "non-fat", which is compensated for by adding massive amounts of sugar.
"I’ve watched kids take their cup of vegetables or fruit they’re required to take and just throw it away.â€
Because this hasn't been happening since the first school lunch was served.
zzyzzx
2015 Apr 2, 5:39pm
Because this hasn't been happening since the first school lunch was served.
It's probably worse now. You know, since they now have two cups of vegetables to throw away now!
zzyzzx
2015 Apr 2, 5:41pm
Jeepers. Who the hell thinks Yogurt, Trail Mix & Muffin is an acceptable lunch entre?
The yogurt people have done a great job of advertising their dessert as a healthy entree!
curious2
2015 Apr 2, 6:08pm
Jeepers. Who the hell thinks Yogurt, Trail Mix & Muffin is an acceptable lunch entre?
The yogurt people have done a great job of advertising their dessert as a healthy entree!
They learned from the example of declaring ketchup a vegetable, even though tomatoes are a fruit and ketchup is a condiment.
http://eagnews.org/michelle-os-healthy-lunches-going-to-the-pigs-literally/
RIO RANCHO, N.M. – There's one group of young eaters who like Michelle Obama's school lunch program: pigs.
New Mexico's Galloping Grace Youth Ranch is accepting fruits and vegetables thrown away by students at several elementary schools in the Rio Rancho area and collects some five tons per week.
"It's really whatever they don't eat coming off of their trays, so when they get up to the trash cans they will scrape it into one of our buckets that we pick up on a daily basis,†ranch CEO Max Wade tells KRQE.
Speaking of the pigs, goats and chickens gobbling up the students' castaways, Wade says, "If you think about it, it's a fresh salad bar every day. Fruits and vegetables and they love it.â€
To underscore the point, he's talking about the farm animals, not the school children.
The goats prefer romaine lettuce, some pigs like grapes while others will eat "anything.†The chickens like the dinner rolls.
Earlier this year, a New York district estimated its students throw away 85 percent of their fruits and vegetables.
"We throw away a ton of food,†Canton Central School Food Service Director Ella Mae "Bluejay†Fenlong tells the Watertown Daily Times.
"If we cut up 20 pounds of cucumbers, we guess that 17 pounds get thrown away. I've watched kids take their cup of vegetables or fruit they're required to take and just throw it away.â€
American schools spend an estimated $3.5 million per day on food that ends up in the garbage can.
Interestingly, the Rio Rancho "healthy†school lunch repurposing program isn't unique.
The Nebraska Farmers Union was working to partner with Lincoln-area schools to collect discarded food to fuel a worm farm, known as vermiculture.
"Composting gives them more hands-on experience. They can see how their waste is going to be turned into a useful product rather than going into a landfill,†says Brittney Albin, interim recycling coordinator at Lincoln Public Schools.
She says she isn't sure how much of the 11,600 pounds of food waste per month come from the cafeteria.
"However, food waste does make up a large portion of the school waste, so we would expect the vermicomposting program to make a big dent in that number,†Albin tells the Journal Star.
Some 3,000 pigs at a Rhode Island hog farm scarf up uneaten fruits and vegetables, too.
The pigs are enjoying "half-eaten tuna sandwiches and other food scraps students discard during their lunch periods†as part of a new recycling program established by the town of Cumberland, according to WoonsocketCall.com.
Two Rhode Island districts – North Smithfield and Burrillville – that are sending their scraps to My Blue Heaven Farm. Both districts are participants in the National School Lunch Program, which is implementing the hated federal lunch rules.
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