Update on ‘Candy for Breakfast’

Yes, there’ve been more updates on the “Twix bars for breakfast” saga, but I’m warning you.  You WON’T be impressed.

Yesterday, I had to send a note with my kindergartener so that his teacher would know that he wouldn’t be eating breakfast in the classroom anymore.  The note went something like this:

Because of the Twix bar incident, my husband and I have decided to feed Kevin at home.  If you’d like to discuss this with us, feel free to contact me.

Then I listed my contact information.

Then, at about 9:00am, I called to school and asked to speak with someone in the cafeteria.  The first gal that I spoke with didn’t know a thing about the Twix bar incident, so she passed me off to someone who seemed to have a better idea of what had happened.  She claimed to be the head cook or the kitchen manager or something, and she was all too glad to talk to me.

I tried not to be aggressive.  I just said, “Last Thursday, my kids came home and told me that they ate Twix bars for breakfast.  Did that really happen?”

The woman said that yes, it did actually happen.  She said they hadn’t gotten the graham crackers that they were supposed to offer, and since Twix bars are a part of their lunch menu and they had to offer SOMETHING with the string cheese, they offered Twix bars rather than offering nothing.  Here’s the real kicker though.  She went on to justify it.  “And we’re allowed to do that because there’s a cookie INSIDE the Twix bar, so it counts as a bread serving.”

Yep! That’s right.  She wasn’t apologetic.  No, “We were caught in a pinch so we did our best in a bad situation,”, or, “It shouldn’t be that way, but it is.” She just wanted to justify a terrible choice.

She then went on to say that if I wanted to discuss it further with the food service director, she’d be happy to pass along my information.  Of COURSE I want to discuss it with the food service director, but she has yet to return my call.

My husband thinks they shouldn’t even have Twix bars at school as ANY part of the menu.  I feel a little differently.  I don’t like it, but at least a Twix bar (or some other dessert) once a week as part of the lunch menu doesn’t seem abnormal to most Americans.  Candy as “bread” for breakfast though — that’s entirely unacceptable.  As my husband wondered, “What’s next? Ice cream cones for breakfast because that’s a dairy and a grain.”

Interestingly enough, as I was hanging up the phone with the school, I received an e-mail from Kevin’s teacher.  She was grateful that I’d made a stand, and I knew that she would be because of the importance she placed on breakfast for the kindergarteners.  Too bad the school didn’t seem to get the memo.

When I finally get to talk to the food service director, I’ll have several things to address with her.

  1. Backup plans — I understand that there might be snags in food provisioning when you’re dealing with outside vendors.  The school should have a better backup plan than “just give the kids candy for breakfast”.  They could have held the string cheese back and offered it on another day when they were just going to offer cereal.  I know they have plenty of cereal, since the offer it every day, so if they couldn’t offer something acceptable, they should have just withheld it altogether.
  2. Parent notification — If they make such a drastic change to the menu, parents should know.  Even if it’s done after the fact, parents should be made aware that their kids didn’t get what was on the menu.  It was only by accident that we found out about the candy.  I’d like to think that other parents would be pretty upset if they knew, so maybe that’s why they didn’t want to share what happened.

I’ll likely by making a visit to the next school board meeting.  I really can’t abide this sort of thing, and I truly believe that more people would care like I do if they actually KNEW what happened.  Yes, I’m not longer letting my kids have breakfast at school, but that doesn’t mean that it’s time for me to sit back and shut up.  I don’t expect the school to uphold the same kinds of nutritional views that we have here at home, but darn it, I expect a minimum standard that is NOT being met by candy.

It’ll certainly be interesting to see how this all unfolds.  One thing is certain though.  It’s definitely going to get interesting!

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5 Responses to Update on ‘Candy for Breakfast’

  1. Pingback: 89: Brian Beaven Asks Parents What’s In Their Kid’s School Lunch | Low-Carb Conversations

  2. Joe Citizen says:

    You should be feeding your kids at home and/or making them their lunch. Money
    can’t possibly be the issue. How much do you think it costs to feed a little kid? And the lunch at school is not inexpensive….SOMEONE is paying for it you know! Sorry if thatl’s politically incorrect….but sounds like laziness or sy
    stem gaming to me. I’m also sorry that now you “have to” make meals for your kids. Bummer huh?

    • Laziness? System gaming?

      I’m really trying not to be defensive here, but wow. That’s really judgemental.

      As a blind person, almost everything I do has to be done the hard way. If I wanted to be lazy, I wouldn’t be able to feed and care for myself let alone three children and my husband. It’s HARD work to PLAN to run a household on one income. One can’t afford to be lazy at all. Almost everything is harder for us, but we persevere through it despite the negativity.

      Do you realize that the unemployment rate amongst blind folks is something like 80%? We have the highest unemployment rate out of any group, and it’s not for an unwillingness to work (at least on my part.) I was willing to shoevel dog crap if someone would have paid me to do it, but time and time again, potential employers were more concerned with how they might have to accomodate me rather than my ability to do a job. So yeah, I’m aware that my kids’ reduced lunch costs SOMEONE money, but so does EVERY kid’s lunch in the US. Do you honestly think those meals cost $1.75 (including labor cost and food cost)?

      And do you honestly think that the school lunch program would change just because I started spending $2 or $3 dollars per kid per day to feed them instead of spending $.40 per kid per day on school lunch? Of course that’s not changing a thing (other than taking more money out of our budget than we can afford at the moment)? Eight ounces of milk costs me almost as much as their entire tray costs them at school. Now sure, I could let them take water in a reusable bottle, but the produce, meat, and cheese that they’d get at school costs a LOT less than what I can do at home. I make as much food as I can (including bread for the kids), I shop at a wholesale club and discount grocery stores, I buy on significant sales, and I use coupons whenever possible. I even make our own laundry detergent to save money. I’m sorry that you don’t believe that we’re doing the best we can with the hand we’re dealt, but we’re gaming nobody.

  3. Wenchypoo says:

    This sort of thing is pretty much what you’ve got to expect when you leave the care and feeding of your kids to the government. Now what do you think’s gonna happen when Obamacare gets fully implemented? You guessed it–CATASTROPHE OF LIFE AND DEATH PROPORTIONS!

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