Christina LeBeau of Spoonfed recently published a thought-provoking post entitled, “Orthorexia vs. chocolate milk: Will the real eating disorder please stand up?” In it, she argues strongly for a flavored milk ban in public schools and she cites my recent post, “My Problem With Jamie Oliver’s War on Flavored Milk,” among many other pieces, as advancing the opposing point of view.
In truth, my post was not actually pro-flavored milk, but rather took issue with Jamie Oliver’s unrelenting focus on flavored milk as his pet issue of the moment, to the exclusion of other more pressing school food issues — in my opinion, and that of others involved in school food reform (see, e.g., the quote from Justin Gagnon, CEO of Choicelunch, in my post, as well as this article from San Francisco school food reformer Dana Woldow). I also raised the possibility of a middle ground solution, already instituted by some school districts, of lowering the sugar content and removing objectionable ingredients from flavored milk before banning it altogether, to the extent many parents and nutritional experts still want to see it in school lunch rooms.
But because my post was linked in Spoonfed’s piece, I felt I ought to leave a comment on the blog. I did so, and Christina responded, and then I followed up . . . and well, you get the idea. I feel like it’s been a really interesting exchange but, at Christina’s request, I won’t reprint it here as I’d originally intended. She would rather TLT readers first read her post in full, and then the back-and-forth between us (as well as comments by other readers), which is certainly understandable.
So for those of you who just haven’t had your fill of chocolate milk 🙂 . . . the Spoonfed link is here, and our dialogue is found at comments #27-30.
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C. Sand says
The choice of what to feed a child belongs to the parent, who has the primary responsibility for feeding the child. If a parent wants to give a child chocolate milk or a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, that’s no one else’s business. I’m really tired of the food police deciding what I can and can not feed my child. Butt out. If the parent pays for it, it’s the parent’s choice. Period. Of course, some school districts realize this, so they’re completely banning brown bag lunches. Excuse me? Schools need to be in the business of education, which in my estimation they are doing a pretty poor job at, instead of minding everyone else’s business but their own.
damaged justice says
C. Sand: He who pays the bills, makes the rules. Those who foot the bill for your child’s day care are assumed to have every right to inject their say-so as to how your child ought to be fed. If you don’t want other people to have that degree of control over your children, you should remove them from the government “schools”. Of course, you’ll still be forced to pay for everyone else’s choices, good or bad. Hm, if only there were a solution to *that* problem…perhaps we could stop forcing everyone to pay for everyone else’s choices? Nah, that’s crazy talk!
EdT. says
In all fairness, when my son was in the public school system, he didn’t qualify for the “free/reduced price” (read: taxpayer-subsidized) lunches (despite numerous attempts by the schools to make him so – but that is the subject of another rant), so I guess in that case I would have/should have a say in what was offered, right?
(Of course, as a taxpayer, I also think I should have a say in how my tax dollar$ are spent.)
~EdT.