>>>>>A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.
>>>>>
>>>>>The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day.
>>>>>
>>>>>Can you guess why this lunch was rejected?
>>>>>
>>>>>http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/homemade-lunch-replaced-with-cafeteria-nuggets.html
>>>>>
>>>>>If you answered because the State knows better than you how to feed your children, you are correct.
>>>>
>>>>If you read the whole article, you see that the state official they talked to said the school went overboard (and that this particular bag lunch sounded good). The regulation seems to be that if a kid comes in with a meal that doesn't meet the USDA guidelines, they're to offer the missing pieces, not take the lunch away. That seems like a reasonable approach.
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>and by "offer" they mean to make the parents pay for those "missing" pieces. Forced commerce is becoming quite a trend these days. How did children ever survive without the heavy hand of the state making sure they had a vegetable (that's what was "wrong" with this particular lunch) serving with one of their daily meals?
>>>
>>>A reasonable appraoch would be for the do-gooder elitist nanny state to mind their own business.
>>
>>Let's leave the payment piece aside since the article was rather confused on that point.
>>
>>Let's reframe the question a little.
>>
>>Suppose a kid comes to school day after day with a lunch consisting of, say, donuts and candy. Should the school intervene? If so, how?
>>
>>Suppose a kid comes to school day after day with no lunch and no lunch money? Should the school intervene? If so, how?
>>
>>Tamar
>
>How about go back to the original topic rather than trying to change the subject. The kid comes to school with a Turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice. Should the school force her to eat nice healthy deep fried chicken nuggets instead of the lunch she brought?

No, of course not, and I said that in my original reply. I assumed we were actually discussing the deeper question of whether the rule, if properly applied, was appropriate.

Tamar