It's apparently not bad enough that the tomato sauce on a slice of pizza counts as a vegetable. It's not bad enough that we've now got people who grew up without eating vegetables having children who will never eat vegetables because their parents don't eat them.
No, now, a North Carolina 4-year-old's home-packed lunch was taken away for not meeting USDA nutritional guidelines and replaced with . . . wait for it . . . fried chicken nuggets.
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The home-packed lunch had a turkey-and-cheese sandwich, a banana, potato chips, and apple juice. It was replaced with chicken nuggets by a state inspector at the West Hoke Elementary School who was policing children's lunchboxes in response to a state law that says that all lunches, whether school-made or homemade, are required to conform to the USDA's guidelines.
The girl's mother was charged $1.25 for this oh-so-healthy lunch.
And people say we're the nanny state?
Incidentally, my preschooler went to school today with a lunch I packed her that contains a turkey-and-mustard sandwich with pickles on baguette, a small handful of popcorn, a bag of sliced bell peppers, a bag of blueberries, and a box of apple juice–and the only time her lunch has ever been replaced with a school-made lunch was the time I accidentally packed her almond butter to dip celery sticks into.
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