While it's sad that food quality has become a political issue, you can find joy when liberals and conservatives agree on a food issue.
In this instance, both liberals and conservatives disagreed with the decision to supplement a 4-year-old home-packed lunch with chicken nuggets.
Conservatives felt the decision smacked of the nanny state and government intruding in the role of parents.
Liberals hated the idea of a reasonably healthy lunch supplemented with "nutritious" processed chicken.
They were both right in that the decision was wrong. And perhaps, this could be a teaching moment to prove that the sides of the school lunch battle can agree on something.
The school lunch battle has been intense enough without dealing in home-packed lunches. Conservatives wouldn't want interference with home-packed lunches. Liberals have bigger problems to consider.
After all, this is what the small child had in her lunch box: turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice. Sounds better than most school lunches.
Adults eat unbalanced meals and mostly do okay. Children need more balanced meals, but the difficulty stems from another element where liberals and conservatives can agree, though for different reasons: the USDA guidelines aren't a good way to determine whether a meal is nutritious.
Conservatives don't think the government should set standards. Liberals hate that French fries, tater tots, pizza, and ketchup become "vegetables."
From what we've heard, the 4-year-old child was missing milk from her meal (though cheese could have counted) and somehow ended up with chicken nuggets. And it's not like this happens on a regular basis, even in day care centers and preschools in North Carolina.
Wouldn't it be nice … if parents packed lunches for their kids each and every day, and those lunches were reasonably nutritious, and the kids ate most if not all of those lunches. Conservatives and liberals would like that.
Wouldn't it be nice … if parents gave their kids a balanced breakfast in the morning and a good nutritious dinner at night. Liberals and conservatives would like that.
Wouldn't it be nice … if schools would have well-prepared food to supplement children's lunches on those days and times where close to perfect isn't even a remote possibility. Oh well, two out of three ain't bad.
Despite the "Leave It to Beaver" mentality of some of the GOP presidential contenders, if that world ever existed, we don't have that world now. Our school children are suffering not just in terms of food but also the energy to learn and play.
Even if liberals and conservatives disagree on the solutions, do they agree on the problems? Until they agree on the problems, very little will get solved … even with chicken nuggets.
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