The USDA is now touting “government-approved” school lunches as a “model” for the family dinner menu. The Obama administration is informing Americans, yet again, that the government knows what is best, and we probably can’t serve a decent meal when left to our own devices. So, the USDA will help us out by moving in with the idea that dinner should be modeled after the “healthy” food the government is already serving for lunch in the public institutions we call school.
For now, the Obama administration will make their “government family dinner” idea a suggestion, but, if re-elected, I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Obama won’t stop there. It’s likely they have already figured out how to “monitor” our private family dinners in the same way they monitor students’ lunches, our electricity usage, and whether or not we buy health insurance.
If these ideas aren’t getting your blood boiling or, at the very least, insulting your intelligence, perhaps you are the “other” kind of American, the kind Barack Obama and his staff can easily win over with their Alinsky-style strategies. These techniques basically amount to condescension and attempts at making you feel like there’s something really wrong with you if you’re not on board with them. Yes, perhaps you are simply an inferior American who is “maladjusted” or “slow to adapt.”
Last week, we saw a video created by some students who are dissatisfied with the new “healthy” lunches served in school. Complaints about a lack of filling menu items and insufficient calories, particularly for those involved in sports, were noted. In light of these concerns, the “USDA Blog” published a post entitled, “Ask a School Meals Expert: How Are Schools Helping Students Adjust to the New School Meals?”
The problem, you see, is not that young people don’t know what foods they do and don’t like, or whether or not their hunger is satisfied. The problem, according to the Obama administration, is that young people are not “adjusted” or haven’t “adapted” to the new menus. In fact, they need their schools to “help them adjust.” The problem is with American kids, because, certainly, there is nothing wrong with the Obama administration’s methods.
To make sure that school kids know that it is the government, and not their parents, who are in charge of what they eat, the USDA says:
Schools can also allow kids a certain amount of flexibility to choose only the foods they intend to eat. We refer to this as “offer vs. serve” (OVS). OVS allows students to decline one or two of the food items offered in a school lunch. Schools can decide how to implement OVS including which grades and how many items can be declined.
To parents who have not yet gotten with the government program of serving “healthy” meals, USDA urges the following:
We recommend reviewing school menus with kids at home and working to incorporate foods that are being served at school into family meals as much as possible. In many schools, parents are working through their Parent-Teacher Associations to take a lead role in helping kids adjust.
This sounds like a plan in which teacher unions and the “it takes a village to raise a child” gang will be giving suggested dinner menus to parents, and providing free counseling sessions for those of our psychologically inferior children who can’t “adjust” to the Obama way of doing things.
More profoundly, this sounds like big government easing its way further into our private lives as it wears away at the bonds between parents and children. There is a better way, but big government-lovers just can’t see it.
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