Did you hear about the Little Village Academy, a small school in Chicago that no longer allows students to bring food from home to eat for lunch.
So, you either eat the cafeteria food or go hungry.
Elsa Carmona, the Little Village's principal said the intention of the policy is to protect students from the potential for unhealthy homemade lunches.
"Nutrition wise, it is better for the children to eat at the school," Carmona said.
"It's about the nutrition and the excellent quality food that they are able to serve (in the lunchroom). It's milk versus a Coke. But with allergies and any medical issue, of course, we would make an exception."
Carmona says she made the decision after seeing kids bringing bottles of soda and bags of chips on field trips.
There's a very big reason why Carmona's plan will fail, if the kids don't like it, the kids aren't going to eat it. Right now many students accept the lunch offered at Little Village, but throw most of it in the garbage uneaten.
Here's a question for the principle, what happens when kids decide to skip lunch only to go home and eat what they want?
We find these policies just another way to restrict personal freedoms and consider it an assault on basic rights.
But soon, school cafeteria food across the country will all be "healthier", whether students like it or not.
Remember last year's Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, promoted by First Lady Michelle Obama?
Her calls for higher nutritional standards to serve the 32 million kids who eat lunch every day at school would set calorie limits for school lunches.
The bill also calls for stricter food safety checks on cafeteria food and would recommend serving more vegetables and whole grains, and less salt, French fries should be replaced by vegetables and fruit.
“This is such a fundamental infringement on parental responsibility,” said J. Justin Wilson, a senior researcher at the Washington-based Center for Consumer Freedom, which is partially funded by the food industry.
“Would the school balk if the parent wanted to prepare a healthier meal?” Wilson said. “This is the perfect illustration of how the government’s one-size-fits-all mandate on nutrition fails time and time again."
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