Cafeteria chaos: School bans lunches from home

By Kavita Varma-White

Packing school lunches for kids every day is no doubt a chore. But what if you weren’t allowed to?

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Mmm, mystery meat. This delicious cafeteria dish was served at a Chicago-area public school, but not Little Village Academy, which recently banned homemade lunches.

One Chicago school has banned lunches brought from home, the Chicago Tribune reports. Administrators at Little Village Academy, a public school, say the policy is all in the name of good health. Principal Elsa Carmona told the Tribune she created the policy after watching students bring "bottles of soda and flaming hot chips" for their lunch.

"It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke,” Carmona said.

Some kids and parents at the school beg to differ about the food quality, saying it doesn't taste good, and the Tribune reported that dozens of kids threw food in the garbage, uneaten. We don't know what's on the menu at Little Village, but these photos of "an enchilada dish" are less than appealing. And really, when is the last time you sampled delicious fare in a school cafeteria? (I am forever haunted by the glue-like yellowish thing my elementary school called lemon pudding.)

Recipes aside, the policy leaves a bad taste in the mouth for plenty of other reasons.

Unless a student has a medical excuse to bring food from home, the only option other than eating cafeteria food is to eat nothing. (Think those kids will ace a quiz on an empty stomach?) And does something like glucose intolerance merit a medical excuse? What about vegetarianism?

Cost is another matter. What if parents don't want to spend money on school lunch because they can send less expensive food from home?

Related story: What is school lunch really like? One woman ate it every day, and blogged about it

Little Village Academy has good intentions of nutritional tough love. But have they gone too far?

What do you think? Should schools be able to ban homemade lunches?

Comment:

Alright, this may seem a little trivial, but it's a matter of principle. The school is telling parents that kids can no longer bring lunches? That parents have to PAY for cafeteria food, which is nothing short of swill. Many families qualify for free lunch. But what about the working poor? They don't quite qualify, but paying would be a strain. They have no choice. This is just not right. Besides, what business is it of the school's anyway? If I allow my kids to eat chips and soda for lunch, that's my business, not theirs.

Cafeteria food has not changed since I was a kid. Some of it is alright, but a lot is just nauseating. I remember seeing kid after kid pass by a trash can, and dump the whole tray in. They save the cookie or apple, and chuck the rest because it's disgusting.

I know for a fact, that school lunches meet the lowest standards the law allows to save money. Must responsible parents be penalised because of a few irresponsible ones? I say no! If I had kids in school, this would be the straw that broke the camel's back. Time for home schooling. Believe me, your kids will be better off, and not just about the lunch thing. Comrades, I recommend that every one of you pull your kids out of those conveyor belts to liberality and home school them before it's too late.