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White House to put up to 5,000 salad bars in schools

zimmer

Educating the Ignorant
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first lady michelle obama is expected to announce on monday a major new initiative that would place up to 5,000 salad bars in public schools nationwide, despite uncertainties over how local health inspectors might treat those salad bars and usda nutrition-tracking rules that could prove a major impediment.

white house to put up to 5,000 salad bars in schools | grist

m o r e w a s t e d m o n e y.

.
 
m o r e w a s t e d m o n e y.

.

Tell ya' what, I'd never eat at a salad bar frequented by a gaggle of 4th graders....no how, no way. Why a salad bar anyway? Salad bars aren't particularly healthy.

It seems to me that one could accomplish the very same thing by giving kids a crudite side with a choice of low-fat dressings for dipping. No dirty little hands....no sneezes...and a lot less waste.

As an aside, have you ever noticed when you're in an elevator in an office building at lunch time, that the largest person taking lunch back to his/her desk is often carrying an innocent salad? What's THAT about?

Long and short of it, I agree with OP. Money wasted.
 
They already have salad in schools and no one is eating it. Dumb idea.
 
first lady michelle obama is expected to announce on monday a major new initiative that would place up to 5,000 salad bars in public schools nationwide, despite uncertainties over how local health inspectors might treat those salad bars and usda nutrition-tracking rules that could prove a major impediment.

white house to put up to 5,000 salad bars in schools | grist

m o r e w a s t e d m o n e y.

.

Hell, they blasted Obamacare through without any forethought... why should they think ahead here?
 
School lunches in general need some SERIOUS re-vamping. I got through most of Jr High and High School eating nothing but crappy food. And while I do have fond memories of my own person drink creation, the Face Melter, I dont think that was the healthiest diet I could have been on. Two Double Bacon Western Burgers a day, five days a week, for four years is generally not the best lunch option.

We didnt have too many healthy options and the ones we did have tasted like crap.

I think this is a good idea, but it needs to be watched carefully.
 
we need to reposition more chairs on the USS titanic
think of all we could accomplish [/s]

this is yet another solution in search of a problem
 
In other news, 6 months from now 5,000 salad bars will be found virtually untouched by school chidren.

You're seriously underestimating how Health Concious some kids have become.

While on paper this looks like a really really dumb plan, there is sufficient evidence to suggest a students eating habits, can have a serious effect on their ability to learn. If it could catch on, which you never know, we might see some serious positive effects.

On the other hand, again personal responsbility has to come in somewhere. But since when has offering choice been deemed a terrible idea?
 
You're seriously underestimating how Health Concious some kids have become.

While on paper this looks like a really really dumb plan, there is sufficient evidence to suggest a students eating habits, can have a serious effect on their ability to learn. If it could catch on, which you never know, we might see some serious positive effects.

On the other hand, again personal responsbility has to come in somewhere. But since when has offering choice been deemed a terrible idea?

All this "personal responsibility" stuff from the right - I can't help but wonder how many of THEIR kids would choose a salad over a slice of pizza? ;)
 
You're seriously underestimating how Health Concious some kids have become.

While on paper this looks like a really really dumb plan, there is sufficient evidence to suggest a students eating habits, can have a serious effect on their ability to learn. If it could catch on, which you never know, we might see some serious positive effects.

On the other hand, again personal responsbility has to come in somewhere. But since when has offering choice been deemed a terrible idea?

Because this time it's liberals doing it. When liberals are offering you a choice, they're actually taking YOUR FREEDOMS!

Anyway, I don't think too many kids will choose the salad bar too regularly, but why not offer them more healthy choices? You can't expect kids to eat healthy if they aren't even offered the choice to do so.
 
You're seriously underestimating how Health Concious some kids have become.

I'd dare say the majority of kids.

Frankly I remember school lunch, especially in middle school and high school where along with whatever general meal was offered that day typically things like pizza and fries were always offered as well. That second line, which typically had nothing healthy like the normal one, was routinely filled up. In part, because really...there's only so many ways you can make pizza or fries taste any worse.

Which is really one of the big things here. School lunches are rarely gourmet type of things. "Chicken Nugget Day" and "Chicken Patty Day" were near celebrated holidays in my high school because they were one of the few meals that just didn't taste like ass. Remembering the few times Salad was a side of sorts for lunch and what it looked like, I doubt the Salad bar would be an incredibly tempting offer to the majority of people.

Would SOME kids use them? Probably. But I doubt it'd be many, and I highly doubt it'd be enough to warrant the amount of money it would take to stock them all. Which, at that point, is when you'll also see longer and longer attempts to keep things "Fresh" to stay on it again and again.

While on paper this looks like a really really dumb plan, there is sufficient evidence to suggest a students eating habits, can have a serious effect on their ability to learn. If it could catch on, which you never know, we might see some serious positive effects.

Here's the issue here. I think there's a HIGHLY likely scenario that this will fail, far far more likely to fail then succeed. And the sad fact with government ran programs is typically if they don't work once their implemented they're still amazingly hard to get rid of. At best I think you could hope that a small percentage of the student population would take to the Salad Bar as its primary meals during the week, and even then the cost of it will likely far outstrip any benefit.

You're gambling what is likely a decent amount of extra money on something that's highly likely to fail. Money that, theoretically if it HAS to be spent, could be going to far more needed areas of education.

In other words, I think there are likely a number of options that are far more likely to have a larger affect and be cost efficient than putting in salad bars.

On the other hand, again personal responsbility has to come in somewhere. But since when has offering choice been deemed a terrible idea?

Vegetable type sides are routinely offered in school lunches...perhaps a study of what percentage of kids actually partaking in them would be a good first step at figuring out how likely this would succeed. Personal responsibility does come into play, I agree, but so does cost effectiveness when you're talking about tax payer money. Offering a choice that is unlikely to be taken by the large majority of the population but will be somewhat costly relative to the overall budget for a school, when the money...if it must be spent...could be used in better venues of education to me is a poor way to offer a choice.
 
"All this 'personal responsibility' stuff from the right - I can't help but wonder how many of THEIR kids would choose a salad over a slice of pizza?" - Glinda

You should let "THEIR" parents worry about it and not spend another second wondering about it.
 
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Fresh salad is not necessarily good for you, especially in the winter time.
 
This reminds me of the midnight basketball leagues.
 
"All this 'personal responsibility' stuff from the right - I can't help but wonder how many of THEIR kids would choose a salad over a slice of pizza?" - Glinda

You should let "THEIR" parents worry about it and not spend another second wondering about it.

But their parents aren't worrying about it; they're too busy bitching that their tax dollars are being spent (a) to provide much needed food stamp benefits to the many millions currently without jobs, and (b) to offer their spoiled, non-personally responsible brats a healthy alternative for school lunch. God forbid their chunktastic rug-rats eat a 100% healthy meal from time to time. :doh

After the all-or-nothing hate fest witnessed here, I see no reason why I shouldn't insist that ALL pizza, and chicknuggets, and burgers 'n' fries, and any other sort of crap food offered in school cafeterias be completely eliminated from the menu. After all, my tax dollars are being wasted on all this **** food that the future leaders of my country are snarfing down in mass quantities, and I don't even have a kid.

You right wingers went on and ON about how completely unacceptable it is that a family feeling the devastation of the current economic downturn and in need of temporary food stamp assistance might bring home a few sodas every month for the kids; I have just as much right to bitch that your spoiled, whiny chunkettes are using my tax dollars to gobble up full-on garbage food every day at school.

Don't I?

To paraphrase someone else's eloquent prose:
Yeah, it's so ****ing heartless of me to forbid the gobbling of pizza and fries and soda with public funds. :roll: Oh the horror. Whatever will they eat??!

The answer? Have a salad or starve, fatty.

You whiners need to teach your kids some of that good ol' rightie "personal responsibility" and forbid them from eating ANY of that school cafeteria fast food **** that's provided courtesy of my tax dollars. Tell 'em it's salads or nothing.

And when they don't come down with the deadly 'diabeetus,' you can thank me. :thumbs:
 
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But their parents aren't worrying about it; they're too busy bitching that their tax dollars are being spent (a) to provide much needed food stamp benefits to the many millions currently without jobs, and (b) to offer their spoiled, non-personally responsible brats a healthy alternative for school lunch. God forbid their chunktastic rug-rats eat a 100% healthy meal from time to time. :doh

After the all-or-nothing hate fest witnessed here, I see no reason why I shouldn't insist that ALL pizza, and chicknuggets, and burgers 'n' fries, and any other sort of crap food offered in school cafeterias be completely eliminated from the menu. After all, my tax dollars are being wasted on all this **** food that the future leaders of my country are snarfing down in mass quantities, and I don't even have a kid.

You right wingers went on and ON about how completely unacceptable it is that a family feeling the devastation of the current economic downturn and in need of temporary food stamp assistance might bring home a few sodas every month for the kids; I have just as much right to bitch that your spoiled, whiny chunkettes are using my tax dollars to gobble up full-on garbage food every day at school.

Don't I?

To paraphrase someone else's eloquent prose:


The answer? Have a salad or starve, fatty.

You whiners need to teach your kids some of that good ol' rightie "personal responsibility" and forbid them from eating ANY of that school cafeteria fast food **** that's provided courtesy of my tax dollars. Tell 'em it's salads or nothing.

And when they don't come down with the deadly 'diabeetus,' you can thank me. :thumbs:

Nice rant.

I'm sure you have all the data to back up the notion that the people who "complain" are the ones with fat kids, right?
 
I'm sure you have all the data to back up the notion that the people who "complain" are the ones with fat kids, right?

1. It doesn't matter if the kids in question are fat or not. The underlying argument presented by the right-wingers in the Soda-buying thread is that "fast food and soda are BAD for kids and should not EVER be funded by taxpayers." Do you agree? If so, how can you condone taxpayer-funded school lunches that include any sort of unhealthy fast foods? You should be just as outraged as they were in the Soda-buying thread. Should we be surprised that you're not?

2. I have at least as much "data" that fast foods make kids fat as do the whiners in the Soda-buying thread that families on food stamps are putting their kids at serious health risk by bringing home the occasional soda. ;)

1) If you're feeding the kids with food stamps [and/or MY tax dollars], then it's absolutely washington's [and/or MY] business what you use those food stamps [and/or MY tax dollars] to buy.

2) I said that giving kids foods like that can lead to them being fat and getting the diabeetus. This country is disgustingly unhealthy as it is, we don't need to be subsidizing little debbies any more than we already do.

:doh

3. A kid that refuses to eat a salad at school is most likely a kid that isn't made to eat healthily at home [and shut the hell up with your lack of "personal responsibility" in eating properly, you ungrateful brat!]. Anything less from those "personal responsibility" whiners in the Soda-buying thread is pure, unadulterated hypocrisy.
 
I've got no care if you want to replace the "junk" in School Lunch for "healthier" things.

I do have an issue however if you're just throwing more money at it, ADDING "healthier" stuff that is unlikely to be used and likely to be a large waste of money while leaving the "junk" in place.

Here's a wild thought...why don't we actually address what's being suggested in this thread, which is not replacing any of the bad stuff but simply throwing more money at the whole situation pointlessly.

Really, who in the world in this thread is arguing against possibly swapping out Soda, Fried Food, and Pizza for more healthy alternatives? None that I've seen. I've seen people having issue with ADDING something to the options which would cost money and likely have little to no positive affect.
 
Majority Of Americans Will Have Diabetes Or Pre-Diabetes By 2020 – With Huge Financial Costs | Internet Marketing Company SEO Graphic Webdesign Domain Registration Website Hosting Phuket Thailand and Web Design Daily World News
by looking at that story above, one must admit we are running headlong towards a medical crisis caused primarily by poor diet
so, i am not refusing to address that major problem with enormous health and financial implications for our nation

but when seeing how ill-conceived this salad bar "solution" appears to be, out of sync with the school systems and the FDA, with nothing to indicate that it will in any address the diet problem our kids (and their parents) have, this roll out of salad bars in school cafeterias seems to be little more than applying lipstick on a pig
 
1. It doesn't matter if the kids in question are fat or not. The underlying argument presented by the right-wingers in the Soda-buying thread is that "fast food and soda are BAD for kids and should not EVER be funded by taxpayers." Do you agree? If so, how can you condone taxpayer-funded school lunches that include any sort of unhealthy fast foods? You should be just as outraged as they were in the Soda-buying thread. Should we be surprised that you're not?

:shrug: Never even saw it. You should not make such assumptions.

Don't see what the one has to do with the other, anyway. You're going on and on about the kids of people bitching about something without having any idea what their kids actually do.
 
Here's a wild thought...why don't we actually address what's being suggested in this thread, which is not replacing any of the bad stuff but simply throwing more money at the whole situation pointlessly.

Here's a wild thought... why don't we completely eliminate throwing taxpayer money away on crap food for school lunches and give kids ONLY healthy choices?
 
Here's a wild thought... why don't we completely eliminate throwing taxpayer money away on crap food for school lunches and give kids ONLY healthy choices?

Who do you think would actually be against that (at least in principle; some may argue over exact implementation)?
 
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