Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Where is the freaking common sense???

First, life stuff: weighing 121 and feeling good. Drank more water/tea/coffee than I thought humanly possible at jury duty yesterday!

I have an ultrasound today with a possible mammogram. I am nervous. I know it is likely nothing bad, but still - being a woman in this day and age, I get nervous. You hear about way too many young woman getting breast cancer. But that's why we do this stuff, right? Go to the doctor, try and be preventative, etc.

Other than that, life is going well and as usual!

On to my rant:

Everyone in this country (and I am including our neighbor- Canada, since I believe that's where this article takes place and our diets/ideas are very similar!) really needs to wake up and start being a lot more reasonable. Most people wouldn't be able to identify a healthy meal if you threw it in their face.

Case in point:

Mom Gives Kids Homemade Lunch, School Forces Them to Eat Ritz Crackers

Some quotes from the article:

"A mom who thought she was properly parenting by sending her two young kids to school with a homemade, whole-food lunch was shocked to find a penalty note from school officials informing her that the lunch of roast beef, potatoes, carrots, oranges and milk she provided was "unbalanced" and therefore had to be supplemented with Ritz crackers.


She was also fined $10."

"Unbalanced lunches are subject to supplementation and a fine of CDN$5 (US$4.80) per "missing item" per child.


In Kristen Bartkiw's case, she "neglected" to include "grains" with Natalie and Logan's packed lunches — a "dereliction" that was "corrected" through the "supplementation" of Ritz crackers.

According to the nutrition facts found on its homepage, a serving of Ritz crackers (~10 crackers) contains 6.5g of fat, of which nearly half is saturated."

I just... I'm frustrated.

Roast beef, potatoes, carrots, oranges and milk = not enough?

Absurd.

There are a lot of different ways to eat healthy. I am not really into nitpicking and telling people they have to eat just like me (ie. paleo). BUT I am TOTALLY not into schools telling people they need to include a whole grain in their kid's lunch.... ESPECIALLY when that grain is a freaking Ritz cracker. A Ritz cracker is basically a non-food item to me. Especially when you compare it to the rest of the lunch she sent with her kids.

I don't know.

I don't have a solution. I don't know how to make people be freaking sensible about food. Why these huge pendulum swings? Why don't we know how to use our brains???? (The thing I am most grateful for from my education is being taught HOW to think, not WHAT to think).

It just seems like so many people, especially authority figures, don't think anymore.

I like logic and reason, really. I like common sense instead of arbitrary rules enforced without thinking. For example, if a kid gets sent to school with Doritos and cookies, throw in a protein and a veggie and let the parents know there needs to be balance (I wish that had happened to me as a kid- I was bringing pretty much that every day because my dad didn't monitor my food!). But that meal the mom in the article sent to school? It was clearly a decent, heathly, balanced meal. It didn't have grains, but not every meal needs grains (it did have starch!). Just like not every meal NEEDS meat or fruit. We have 3 meals a day and a snack or two to get in a variety of foods and nutrition.

Just wanted to share this bit of news, and urge people to value some rationality in the world again.

Sorry for the rant, stories like this make me crazy!!!

Have a good, balanced day!

5 comments:

  1. I really just shook my head in disgust when I read this on FB. I have long understood and tried to accept that common sense is something sorely lacking, but it's still frustrating.

    ReplyDelete
  2. See, I purposely was avoiding that headline because I knew I'd go ballastic. If that was my child I would've made such a stink that it would've been even a bigger news story. It's patently ridiculous!

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Most people wouldn't be able to identify a healthy meal if you threw it in their face."

    All over the world this madness continues.

    It's ludicrous, ridiculous and a whole lot more!

    All the best Jan

    ReplyDelete
  4. Canada's food guide is the biggest piece of crap I have ever read! Just say'in...

    ReplyDelete
  5. That is just utter rubbish - leaving out grains they should be given a medal, not a fine!!

    ReplyDelete