Lunch, Anyone?

A few months ago, I noted how anecdotal evidence showed that kids were just throwing out the healthy food now being served in schools due to federal regulations.  C'mon, what kid is going to eat carrot sticks when he's used to pizza at lunch?  And so on.  It reminds me of what the economic planners in the former Soviet Union did back in the '70s.  Instead of letting the Russian men decide for themselves what kinds of suits they wanted to buy/wear, the commie planners determined that only blue, baggy, and otherwise ugly suits would be made and the Soviet men would have no choice but to buy/wear them.  Well, it turned out that the Soviet men wouldn't/couldn't be coerced into buying the ugly garments.  They didn't buy them, but the planners, not wanting to look stupid, kept the suits on the racks for a long time.  Finally, it became an embarrassment and the suits were quietly removed to warehouses, where they remained hanging for years and years before they were destroyed.  American school kids are doing the same.  They aren't buying what they don't want, but what the federal gov't insists they be served.

Of course, many students get free lunches (and breakfasts) from federally-funded programs.  So, they get the food, but they aren't eating it.  And now there are some statistics to back up the anecdotal evidence.  An op-ed in today's newspaper reveals some of the numbers.

In the first school year after the federal "healthy food" regulations were put into place, more than 1.1 million fewer students bought lunches.  Presumably, these are the students who don't get the free lunches, but pay from their own (or their parents') pockets.  Oh, the free lunchers get the food, but they don't eat it.  Fully 48 states have indicated "widespread" waste of the so-called "nutritional food."  A Michigan Dept of Ed official who backs the federal guidelines seemingly dismisses this with, "We're seeing some of those issues here."  Yeah, right, "some of those issues."

The op-ed also points out how the federal gov't is squandering even more money, besides that wasted on food kids aren't eating, but continue to get.  There's a federal program that provides money for all students in schools where 60% of the students qualify for free lunches.  So, theoretically, in those schools, 40% of the students who don't need free lunches, have them paid for anyway.  One of the silly lines of reasoning goes like this:  Students who get free lunches shouldn't have the stigma that might be attached to getting free lunches.  Ah, self-esteem rears its head again.  In the fall, this program is scheduled to go nationwide, too.

And states and local districts are gobbling up all of this.  After all, it's "free money" and "If we don't get it, someone else will."  Isn't that an immature attitude?  But it's typical in the schools.

Hey, its not their money.  What do they care?