New Jersey high school students recently created a Facebook page to protest the new federal regulations requiring public schools to provide healthier lunches.
As a parent, I am well aware of how unhealthy these lunches are. My daughter would come home and tell me all about the wretched food served in Miami public schools -- lunches that no one in their right mind would feed to a child.
Two fried egg rolls. Nachos. Empanadas. These are examples of entrées served in our schools. I would say this was an underhanded means of population control, but the collective intelligence of bureaucrats doesn't deserve that much credit.
After trying to declare that relish and ketchup packets were servings of vegetables, and claiming the tomato sauce in pizza counted as a vegetable serving, the government is finally trying to make things right by forcing schools to provide healthier lunchtime meals.
And here is where the New Jersey nincompoop comes in.
A student from a New Jersey high school, which I intentionally neglect to mention because he is reveling in all the media attention, created a Facebook page to call for a boycott of the school cafeteria:
hey everyone the lunch strike is coming up! i have been passing out flyers in school please tell everyone you know in PHHS not to buy anything, please also remember not to buy anything from the school cafe that means nothing from the snack line nothing in the morning for breakfast and nothing at lunch if everyone does this we can make an impact and help change things in the cafe! thanks everyone! i hope to see you all not eating from the cafe this friday september 28th!If only he concentrated more on his language arts class than his passion for protest. Even more galling than his composition is his motive. The school has made a snack-size bag of apples and one of carrots mandatory additions to lunch, which according to an article in Care2, "most of these end up in the garbage."
A student protesting healthier school lunches... In the words of a well-known carrot enthusiast, what an "ultra-maroon."
On the other hand, students in Sweden created a Facebook page to prevent their government from interfering with their lunch lady's menu -- because it is too healthy.
Annica Eriksson bakes fresh bread and offers a variety of 15 vegetables for the students to choose from daily. The government, believing such enhanced menu options are unfair because they are not available in all schools, has called for a stop to her meddling. I'm not an advocate of collective anything, but the Swedes spirit of jante, a belief system that values the collective over the individual, has pushed my anti-collective beliefs over the edge. Want a peek at what the Swede kids are saying on their Facebook page?
"Let the students at Vikaskolan keep their good food. Stop Jante!"
I propose a plan. Instead of exchange student programs, we should create an exchange school program. We swap the New Jersey kids for the Swedes, with one caveat: no takesies backsies.
If you have any qualms whatsoever about my proposal, don't. The Jersey kid will have a top-rated reality show and a New York Times best seller in no time. Of course, he would need help writing it.
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