<p>
That’s exactly what I’m saying. The consumer of the product should have that choice and it would be obnoxious to ban traditional pasta from food stamp purchases.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>To be consistent, you’d have to allow cigarettes, alcohol and any other legal products.</p>
<p>
That’s ridiculous. Dogmatic in the extreme to compare pasta and break to alcohol or cigarettes. And alcohol and cigarettes are not legal to minors.</p>
<p>It is not surprising that the depicted meal does not look “disgusting” (as I described it), and in fact probably looks appealing to many Americans. We are accustomed to thinking that a meal composed of pizza, a sugar drink, a processed packaged dessert, and a spoonful of ice berg lettuce (to cancel out the possibility of the “junk food meal” label) is a healthy, complete meal.</p>
<p>The fact that poor families cannot find healthy foods in their neighborhoods is all the more reason to provide it to them at school lunch. All of us parents know that children are picky eaters, but by now we also know that even when our children refuse to eat a given meal, they do not starve themselves and continue to grow and thrive.</p>
<p>We have an obesity crisis in this country. Providing high-calorie, high-fat, high-sugar meals in the context of a learning environment is the ultimate irony.</p>
<p>Re: 100% whole wheat, whole grain pastas and bread provide natural nutrients and protein that are not found in white pastas and bread, because the grain is stripped of these nutrients to make it white, and must be added back in chemical form. Studies have shown that unlike whole grains, white carbs are processed and stored in the body like sugar. It is not that hard to wean kids off of white carbs. I did it with all three of my kids.</p>
<p>So you want to provide choice in products but not choice in products.</p>
<p>
I want to follow the law, use common sense and be respectful. Perhaps you support a forced tap water and whole grain bread diet?</p>
<p>Bay, while he was in a POW camp in Germany during WW II, my dad and the group of men in his barracks room were down to 400 calories a day near the end of the war. He raided the garbage dumps, together with a group of the men from his barracks room, and they brought back armloads of turnip pieces that were mostly black, but still had some “good” in them, to share around. My dad and the other men had the slogan: “I’ll eat anything that doesn’t eat me first.” After his stories, it takes a lot to disgust me, in the category of food.</p>
<p>I think it would be great if Chez Panisse catered the meals for the Detroit Public School Children. But I doubt that the people on this thread who are concerned about the possibility that the taxpayers might pay the full bill for people who only qualify for reduced price lunch, rather than free lunch, would go for that. </p>
<p>I thought about Alice Waters’ experiment in helping students (in Oakland, was it?) to grow their own food in a garden. Then I thought about translating that to Detroit, where you can’t plant until mid to late April.</p>
<p>I’m old enough that I’ve started to see people felled by unhealthy choices they’ve made. But I’ve also seen people who made quite similar unhealthy choices who are doing well, even in old age. And one of my old high school friends, who made many of the very healthiest choices among the group, is having health problems.</p>
<p>I think food choice is one of the more recent outlets of the American impulse toward Puritanism.</p>
<p>
That should be your choice. I am fortunate to live near a great bakery and get my family’s choice of fresh rye bread a couple of times a week, but even poor people deserve to enjoy their meals. Do you really think it’s better to infantilize adults by choosing their bread and pasta for them?</p>
<p>zoosermom, make it black bread that is moldy around the edges, add a few turnips, and you’ll have the POW food allocation–although I think they had some sort of barley water as ersatz coffee.</p>
<p>Also, I thought that was chocolate milk in the pictured lunch in the article–will have to go back and take a look at it.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Well, adults can certainly buy alcohol and tobacco and I don’t think that kids get EBT cards to shop with at grocery stores. The problem with common sense is that it can’t be codified in law.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I gave up soft drinks and juices some time ago. I gave up tea and coffee because it causes problems with my running. So I just drink tap water now. Sometimes bottled or canned but only rarely.</p>
<p>I’m a low-carb proponent so I don’t push bread, white or whole wheat. The only bread that I eat on a regular basis is Trader Joes Low Calorie Bread - it provides five grams of fiber per forty calories. I have not run into another bread that has a higher ratio of fiber to calories - I haven’t found anything that even comes close.</p>
<p>“Also, I thought that was chocolate milk in the pictured lunch in the article–will have to go back and take a look at it.” QM</p>
<p>As was explained earlier, the American Dairy Assoc. lobbies to keep chocolate in the schools whenever nutritionists attempt to remove it. To make it more addictive, they have added a lot more sugar.</p>
<p>^BCEagle91: Wait, you claim to run AND follow a low carb diet? Sorry to change the subject, but that’s really unhealthy for you lol. That’s one of the dumbest things you can do for your body.</p>
<p>Oh, I guess I see, parent1986: Was Bay labeling the chocolate milk a “sugar drink” because it contained a lot of sugar? I thought the package had been interpreted as some kind of pseudo-fruit-juice that really is colored sugar water.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I thought this discussion was about school children. Their bread and pasta and total nutrition is chosen for them everyday, and by the government if they eat school lunch and breakfast. Shouldn’t what they are served by the government be open to discussion?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Healthy food does not have to be expensive. The meal in the picture could easily and at no more expense be improved by substituting plain non-fat milk, a piece of fruit for the dessert, a piece of broccoli or other dark green veggie for the iceberg lettuce, and whole grain bread topped with no-sugar tomato sauce, non-processed meat and low fat cheese. </p>
<p>For some reason, people seem to get defensive when discussing food.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. </p>
<p>10 char</p>
<p>I would rather drink water than non-fat milk. 
I find non-fat milk to be utterly lacking in flavor. Unless chocolate is added to it. Just saying. </p>
<p>Then again, most of my friends who are anti-dairy will say milk is not the appropriate choice for any child for health reasons.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>Another issue is whether it should be the government’s job to make sure the food tastes good to kids. Or for that matter, whether we should be raising children to expect all of their food to taste to their liking, even if that means adding sugar and fat.</p>
<p>I think we don’t put enough emphasis on food just being considered a source of energy (like QuantMech’s soldier example), versus something that must be hedonistically delicious all the time.</p>
<p>But if the child doesn’t pick it up and drink it, or throws it away, what’s the point?</p>
<p>I work in a school. You can’t imagine how much stuff is tossed in the trash or never put on the tray to begin with. I honestly can’t blame the kids. I have eaten some of this, and with rare exception, it’s garbage. Overly processed, with little discernable nutritional content. Pressed chicken nuggets. Gross. </p>
<p>If we are going to make all students eat it, than you have to acknowledge there are some things they won’t eat. </p>
<p>I see kids pick up raw broccoli with ranch dressing (which kind of negates the nutritional point), but don’t see them eating cooked broccoli. Iceberg lettuce is nutritionally useless - I agree. </p>
<p>Most kids I know would be willing to eat spaghetti and meat or tomato/veggie sauce every day of the week. Or a Stir fry chicken with rice and veggies. Or PB and J. </p>
<p>Even kids get tired of pizza and chicken nuggets. </p>
<p>The best thing the cafeteria at my school serves is homemade turkey and mashed potatoes during the holidays. Amazing. Everything else…not so much</p>
<p>
You’re right, we had just gone off on a food stamps tangent!
I think the schools should offer only healthy food and I would be fine with limiting school lunches in that manner, but I’m not comfortable in saying (as I was responding to) that adults can’t use food stamps to purchase white bread, products with sugar or regular pasta. That goes too far for me.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Yeah, I guess it would have been a lot healthier to not lose those 30
pounds (total 55).</p>
<p>One of the mainstays on the diet/exercise/health thread is idad who quit
smoking cold-turkey and lost 90 pounds with a low-carb diet and exercise
in a relatively short period of time.</p>
<p>We do carbs in the 20% - 30% range. You might think of low-carb as in
the under 10% range as in Atkins induction.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I’d rather drink water than just about anything else.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>When I was a kid, if there was food on the table, the options would be
eat it or don’t eat it. If you didn’t want to eat it, you didn’t have
to.</p>