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Another way to address obesity would be to cut the food stamps in half, and limit food stamp purchases to certain foods, stop allowing junk food and expensive cuts of meat.
Another way to address obesity would be to cut the food stamps in half, and limit food stamp purchases to certain foods, stop allowing junk food and expensive cuts of meat.
agreed. when you can buy crap with foodstamps (ex, soda, candy, canned food) in favor of healthier choices, why would a family on welfare eat healthy?
and stop allowing fast food restaurants from accepting them (EBT in our case)
Most of you are focusing on calorie intake. Let me bring up an additional problem - taste.
I have experienced cafeteria food for 37 years: 13 years as a K-12 student, 6 years as a college student, and 18 years as a high school teacher. I'm not picky aboit my food - I'll eat anything.
But the last couple of years, I've stopped eating in our cafeteria. It's not becasue of diet, cost, burn-out or anything else but taste. Those rectangular pizzas we've all grown up with? Now they have wheat bread crust and some really funky tomato sauce. Healthier - yes. Tastier - not at all. And it's not just the pizza. Even some of the other 'healthier' foods really don't taste well. These for-profit companies that have the conctracts for school systems' cafeterias are focusing more on the bottom line and the federal mandates for calories and ingredients and are less concerned with the taste of what they're making.
Let me tell you something tha went on this year in my school. The numbers of students utilizing the cafeteria were dropping alarmingly. The for-profit company saw this and found out the students were bringing in outside food - but not just from home, from fast-food as well.
Now I have no idea if this is in the contract between the company and our system, but it came down from on high that students were no longer allowed to bring in outside food for lunch anymore. Was this because the company was losing money? Was it because of the federal mandates for forcing healthier lunches? Don't know. There were letters to the editor in local papers before this complaining about food quality, but after this mandate, people exploded. What if I went to subway last night, got a foot-long sub, ate half and put the rest in my daughter's lunch bag for tomorrow? Not allowed.
If calories are a concern, but a other helping - that is, if you can afford it. But would you do this if the food sucked? Not likely. And what if you couldn't bring in outside food?
Hunger.
Ridiculous. My kids took their lunches because 1. They rarely liked the cafeteria food and 2. It was much more expensive than packing a lunch. Could anyone be stupid enough to believe that this move is about kid's health and not about money for the school?
What I've heard happened at a lot of these schools is they kept serving the same junk passed off as food, but simply cut down on the portions. Of course kids are going to feel hungrier based on that. I feel lousy school administrators are more to blame than the government here.
Ridiculous. My kids took their lunches because 1. They rarely liked the cafeteria food and 2. It was much more expensive than packing a lunch. Could anyone be stupid enough to believe that this move is about kid's health and not about money for the school?
Oh, I garantee it was about money. And the company was losing it. We also had to remove any vending machines that contained food. The drinks were still allowed, but no more sodas - just water, juice, milk, low-cal sports drinks, etc. On this, I can agree. But the food machines were cutting into the profits of the catering company, so per contract and Michelle Obama's mandates, they're gone.
Another problem we had with this is the profit from the food vending machines were used by the school to help buy us supplies. Now we no longer have as much, but the system didn't kick in for the lost revenue - they're broke, too. So it's out of our pockets that we pay for paper et. al. if we want.
Last edited by Starman71; 07-11-2013 at 08:06 AM..
What I've heard happened at a lot of these schools is they kept serving the same junk passed off as food, but simply cut down on the portions. Of course kids are going to feel hungrier based on that. I feel lousy school administrators are more to blame than the government here.
Come into my school and see the portions that are given out. They are actually quite reasonable. So that's not really an issue.
But you are right. In American restruants, we have tremendous portion sizes compared to other countries (and yes, I have eaten in several other foreign countries.) If federal mandates would come down from on high that restruants should decrease portion sizes, I would support it - as long as cost of meals decreased proportionally as well.
Last edited by Starman71; 07-11-2013 at 08:07 AM..
Another way to address obesity would be to cut the food stamps in half, and limit food stamp purchases to certain foods, stop allowing junk food and expensive cuts of meat.
I'm actually ok with that. The republicans in my state have proposed that type of bill. It's literally the only thing those people have proposed that I agree with. They finally got it right for once. I also would like more farmer's markets to take EBT. I know the one in my neighborhood does which is nice to see.
You don't have to cut off food stamps, just limit what can be purchased.
Everything is in a computer and quite easy enough to do.
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