61–70 of 137 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did /your/ parents know what you ate at school?
I don't know about his school, but every month my kid's school sends a lunch menu home with the "what's happening at school this month" letter. So we do know what he's eating, and by looking at his purchases online it's pretty obvious what he likes.
If you watched Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution show to this point, it was quite depressing how little was done about it on the American show. We unfortunately live in a world where we value money over people's health.
This is sort of a nonsensical statement, as money is simply an external means by which to make such relative comparisons of value between things which are good. Perhaps you meant to assert the accumulation of savings is valued over health related expenditures? Debt levels would suggest otherwise.
Awesome and hilarious - I would be a very proud father or older brother. But on a serious note, directed at the media woohoo that always ensues, demanding better food for schools Jamie Oliver style misses the constraint of a limited budget. Presumably there's some price/utility tradeoff between the cost of the food and the health/taste. Then there's a tradeoff between teacher quality and wages, school size and the nu…
I cannot imagine a future in which they do not look back and think "Food was cheaper in their age than at any point before or since, but they fed their children worse than cattle. How could a school have computers but no fruit?".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Preparing and cooking fresh food requires much, much more effort than prepared packaged foods. Microwavable or similarly low/zero-prep food products. Microwaving corn on the cob is pretty much as low effort as it gets.
Someone has to remove the husk, de-hair it first, and chop it to size, not to mention dress it with butter or etc. Each single one. Compare that to the amount of effort it takes to microwave a 20lb bag of creamed corn that is already dressed, and ready to be scooped onto a plate. Go inside a small kitchen at 4pm or so and watch the amount of effort it takes to even chop onions in preparation for dinner service.
She writes remarkably well for a nine year-old, quite witty. I may have smirked a couple times.
Indeed. It almost makes me question whether this was a real 9 year old, or a teacher that wrote lower than their level (but not low enough) and that was outraged by the activities ... and then signed it their child's name.
It's clear he's helping with the tech aspect (i.e. number of hits), so he could be helping with editing/spelling/content too.
I don't see a problem with that.
I get the impression that had she been American, the school would have suspended her for her actions.
1. She is a student using personal electronics on school property during school hours without permission. This is explicitly disallowed in the handbook she and her parents would have been compelled to sign. This is not about food - she broke the rules.
2. That's great that she wants to be a journalist, but you never know what's going to happen with children in possession of cameras. Sexting! Cyberbullying! Violation of privacy! And with the Internet these days... She is not old enough to appreciate the consequences of what can happen with cameras. Maybe in 11th or 12th grade she can join extracurriculars that introduce students to photography in an age-appropriate, supervised, and controlled environment.
As a matter of policy, the school recommends that parents who give their children smartphones use parental controls to disable the camera, restrict internet access to school-approved websites, and always monitor calls and text messages. If a child needs the Internet for research purposes, a parent should always sit next to the child and supervise.
3. All personal electronics are distractions and disrupt the learning environment.
These arguments play very well with the mainstream American media. In fact, the media makes these arguments all the time, probably more vigorously than school officials would.
This PR problem would have been trivial to crush had administration desired to crush it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Blarney. Healthy food is not pricier unless you get fancy. Legumes, quinoa, and vegetables aren't more expensive (though they do have smaller margins!) than the crap that they had been serving previously.
The cost of the materials is only a small part of it. Preparing and cooking fresh food requires much, much more effort than prepared packaged foods. Microwavable or similarly low/zero-prep food products require very little labor, require only a few steps before they are served, and create almost zero items to be washed and cleaned. You would be surprised how much cheaper a flat of microwave burritos is compared to an…
But I was thinking, here, of quinoa prepared in a rice cooker (comparable in difficulty to microwaving a burrito), salad, and pre-made vegetarian chili. There's no way the total cost of this is higher than calorie-equivalent microwave mexican fare.
E.g., Costco organic quinoa is about 700 kCalories/USD (plus 25g protein, 15g dietary fibre). Given a big enough rice cooker, I could teach any minimum wage employee how to spend 30 minutes and prepare quinoa enough to feed a school of 6000 for around a dollar per student. With another 30 minutes I could even make it palatable.
She writes remarkably well for a nine year-old, quite witty. I may have smirked a couple times.
Indeed. It almost makes me question whether this was a real 9 year old, or a teacher that wrote lower than their level (but not low enough) and that was outraged by the activities ... and then signed it their child's name.
Awesome and hilarious - I would be a very proud father or older brother. But on a serious note, directed at the media woohoo that always ensues, demanding better food for schools Jamie Oliver style misses the constraint of a limited budget. Presumably there's some price/utility tradeoff between the cost of the food and the health/taste. Then there's a tradeoff between teacher quality and wages, school size and the nu…
My son now gets his food at school - while it's nice that we don't need to prepare his lunch beforehand, I'd much much rather have my school district's food-related costs be used towards teachers and learning.
I have prepared lunch for my son when he was in elementary, it is not a hard thing to do.