State regulation of USDA guidelines leads to govt scrutiny of homemade lunches

State regulation of USDA nutrition-compliance policies leads to government scrutiny of homemade lunches

January 30, 2012, a West Hoke Elementary School 4-year-old pre-schooler in Raeford, North Carolina was pressured into eating a cafeteria lunch of chicken nuggets because, as she was told, her homemade lunch consisting of a turkey and cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread, banana, chips, and apple juice was not good enough. According to whoever inspected her lunch, it failed to comply with the current United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) dietary guidelines introduced in 2010.

The state-funded NC pre-Kindergarten school program is assessed using an Early Environment Rating Scale based in part on compliance with federal USDA nutrition guidelines, a state regulation.

The North Carolina regulation, based on USDA guidelines, requires that all lunches in pre-K programs include one serving each of meat, milk, and grain, plus two servings of fruit or vegetables. This includes lunches brought from home.

Schools are not authorized to confiscate home-packed lunches deemed inadequate, but they are required to supplement lunches to meet USDA requirements.

At West Hoke Elementary, the unnamed student’s lunch was “supplemented” with a full cafeteria tray. With two complete meals from which to choose and the suggestion that mom doesn’t know what’s best for her, the child, confused and intimidated, ate only three chicken nuggets. Although the mother was never charged for the cost of the school lunch, the child brought home a note that students without a “healthy lunch” would be offered missing items and perhaps charged.

But in fact, the student’s lunch from home seems to have met the USDA requirements. An inspector who decides otherwise has no business inspecting school lunches.

Even if it hadn’t met the USDA guidelines to the letter of the law, so what? The same government agency defines food security to be

"affordable, nutritious, culturally appropriate food for all people at all times."

Culturally appropriate implies that this definition should be interpreted by the individual (or mom), not by the government or by others. Speaking for myself, food security includes the freedom to feed our families as we see fit. The freedom to choose the food we eat is as fundamental as our rights to life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.

I find inspection of home-packed lunches to be intrusive and offensive.

Kudos to the mother who is standing up against the system to ensure the food security of her family.

Sally Fallon Morell, the President of the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF), a nonprofit nutrition education foundation, agrees with the mother that the best way for children to get a decent lunch is for parents to make their own child’s lunch with natural whole foods and send it to school.

The WAPF reviewed the 2010 government guidelines and concluded they provide inadequate nutrition for growing children, particularly for neurological development. According to the WAPF, the high carbohydrate, low fat, and low salt USDA guidelines fail to provide sufficient vitamins A, D, K, B-12 and the nutrient choline.

At a WAPF press release regarding the USDA guidelines, Morton Satin, the Vice President of Science and Research from the SALT Institute, stated that

“the USDA dietary guidelines are no longer a product of science, they are a product of ideology.”

The WAPF has issued an alternative set of guidelines, called Healthy 4 Life, which it believes will help improve the mental health and physical well-being of our nation’s children.

It is still not clear (to the public) who is the person to blame for the recent West Hoke Elementary School mishap. It smells like a cover-up to me. He or she should be fired.

Following the initial Carolina Journal report of the incident, it made national news with coverage by CNN. A followup article by Carolina Journal indicates the lunch inspector was neither an employee of nor contractor for the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ Division of Child Development and Early Education, although there have been other reports to the contrary and an agent was at the school on the day of the event. The USDA suggests it was a state education employee. Still in the running is an inspector affiliated with the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina.

More Information

PreSchooler’s Homemade Lunch Replaced with Cafeteria “Nuggets” reported February 14, 2012 by Sara Burrows, Carolina Journal News Reports

Who Is the Mystery Food Monitor? reported February 17, 2012 by Rick Henderson, Carolina Journal News Reports

Nutrition Experts Critique of the 2010 USDA Dietary Guidelines video conference press release by Weston A. Price Foundation

Healthy 4 Life, alternative nutrition guidelines, by the Weston A. Price Foundation.

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You might also be interested in Donna’s other work as National Food Security Examiner, National Science News Examiner, Long Beach Urban Agriculture Examiner, and founder and executive director of Long Beach Grows.