School food

From 2002 to 2012 I worked at a part time job where I went into 50 schools once per month to check on the boilers. During those visits I had many opportunities to watch how the kids ate lunch and I was always amazed of how much food was thrown out. The custodian stands by a 50 gallon plastic drum and as the kids finish the meal they scrape the left overs into the drum and then place their trays on a table. I estimate that between one-third and one-half of the food is tossed out. In the past few years Mrs. Obama has taken on the challenge of providing healthier food for school kids and it has now become controversial because the cost of the new menu is more expensive and the school budgets are being overtaxed. I believe that before we just start using healthier foods we should find out if the kids will eat these foods since what they are replacing is referred to as junk food and experience has shown that kids prefer junk food. On the bigger picture this is one more example of centralized planning where Washington determines what is best for individual school districts. We know that recent attempts to improve academics out of Washington with programs like, No Child Left Behind, Race To The Top and now we have Common Core have not been well received by local school