Lunchtime!

I attended training this morning to serve bagged lunches to the masses this summer.

I do understand that many of these children would not have food if this program did not exist, and I don't have a problem with the idea behind it.

I am glad they have a meal at least once a day, and sorry that not every child can count on food without this kind of help.

What I find ridiculous is the amount of food wasted.

We are to order lunches for the next day based on what we serve the day before. We're not to order what we think will be just enough, but have a few extra just in case. So if we serve 90 kids one day, and order 95 for the next day and only 40 show up, those other 55 lunches go back to the food kitchens and are THROWN AWAY.

They're not donated to a shelter, because there's a possibility that they've been contaminated while not under direct observation by the food preparation kitchens.

When a child goes through the line, he or she is required to take one of each component of the lunch. (Bag and container of milk.)

Now many kids don't drink milk. They even say so. But they must take it anyway. If they don't drink it, they can put it on the sharing tray, which makes it available for someone else to drink.

They can also put any other item they don't want on the tray.

It's perfectly acceptable for kids who brought their own lunch (to our program or to summer school or one of the other programs) to also eat one of the USDA lunches.

This frequently happens when there are cookies served with the lunch. Kids can take a WHOLE LUNCH just to get the cookie from it. The rest of the lunch goes on the sharing tray, and then back to the kitchens, where it's dumped. In the trash.

Your taxpayer dollars at work, folks.

Only children from age 1 to 18 are allowed to eat the lunches. No adults are to eat any portion of a child's lunch, and food must be eaten on premises. The exception is that the kids can take the fruit or vegetable portion of the meal with them to eat later.

The guy who instructed us in the finer points of taking food temperatures and making sure we "don't feed all the white kids" first said a couple things that struck me.

One, he said that, "Eckspecially with the economy the way it is, we can expect to serve more meals this summer."
Eckspecially?

And several times he mentioned the collection of racial and ethnic data, except he said "racial and ethical" data instead.

I don't plan on questioning any children about their views on abortion or gun control or stem cell research, but it's nice to know that someone, somewhere, is keeping track.