That was what I decided on after a smoke....
"Once-hailed salad bars gone from city’s schools; Costs cited; health advocates frustrated" by James Vaznis | Globe Staff May 26, 2014
They stopped selling junk food at lunch and they persuaded a health-conscious food organization to donate a salad bar for their cafeteria so students could eat fresh romaine, cherry tomatoes, and bean salads instead of ice cream and potato chips.
By all accounts the fight against childhood obesity and diabetes appeared to be on the upswing at the Curley K-8 School in Jamaica Plain. The salad bar, offered twice a week to the upper grades, was a big hit with about half the students.
But it’s gone.
The School Department has refused to stock the salad bar since September and — to the horror of the school’s health and wellness committee — has reinstated the sale of snacks, including cookies and Doritos, during lunch.
As Michelle Obama campaigns across the country to get more salad bars into public schools, many educators, students, and parents are befuddled by Boston’s decision to weed out salad bars from its cafeterias. Nearly all of the six salad bar stations that once operated in Boston schools were donated by a foundation pushing Obama’s cause.
I'm tired of her fat lying ass, sorry.
“It is outrageous,” said Susan Trotz, a guidance counselor at the Curley and cochair of the health and wellness committee. “There’s an epidemic of childhood diabetes and obesity in this country. We need to give our students healthy and good-tasting choices. We need to give our students real food not processed food.”
Related: School Lunches Suck
Always have, always will.
Cost is part of the calculation. The school system’s food services program has been quietly shutting down the salad bars over the past two years as it has struggled with millions of dollars in financial losses.
Who wants pesticide-laden GMO crap that is empty of nutrients anyway?
The program racked up a $3.6 million deficit last school year and is on track to incur similar losses this year, according to a review the School Department released last week that also unveiled widespread mis-management and dysfunction in the program.
WHERE is ALL the F***ing MONEY GOING?!!!!!!!!!
Interim Superintendent John McDonough, who has been in the post almost a year, said he only recently learned that the salad bars had disappeared from the cafeterias.
“I was taken by surprise to hear about it,” McDonough said in an interview last week, after the Globe first began raising questions. “I don’t think it was an appropriate action. We should be expanding rather than reducing salad bars in the schools.”
This after he got a glowing review from the Globe?
He said he was going to get to the bottom of the issue.
Just don't ask him to have lunch at the school cafeteria.
I don't want to blame him for everything, but what the hell does he know? Is there anyone in government that knows anything, or is it all on auto-pilot while they grab their cut of tax loot for themselves?
A few days later, Brian Ballou, a School Department spokesman, issued a statement, saying the salad bars were a pilot program.
And good, healthy food for lunch didnt pa$$, huh?
He said that “a high cost associated with the salad bar service” prompted the food program to close them and that the School Department also had difficulties meeting state and local health regulations to operate them.
Whatever.
What are you saying? Bo$ton's school kitchens are filthy?
In a follow-up interview, Ballou was unable to provide any estimates of how much money it took to run the salad bars, saying school officials “haven’t done a complete cost analysis” yet. He defended the selling of snacks at the Curley, saying the items met state and local nutritional guidelines.
Tastes like $hit to me.
Boston’s lack of success with salad bars is unusual, said school nutrition experts.
Then how did Bo$ton f*** up $o bad?
The Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools — a partnership founded by several organizations, including Whole Foods Market, to support the initiative — has donated more than 3,400 salad bar stations to schools nationwide, including several in the Boston school system and more than 50 others across the state.
The salad bars, valued at about $2,600 each, include chill pads, pans, and tongs. They are designed to last 10 years.
“There are very few that haven’t worked,” said Ann Cooper, a chef who works with the Whole Kids Foundation on the salad bar initiative. “Successful implementation depends upon the support of management and food services and the larger community as well. You just can’t put a salad bar out there and expect everything will work. If kids don’t eat broccoli at home, why would they eat it at school? You have to teach them.”
Yeah, you have to teach kids how to eat, they are that f***ing stooped.
Now, the dinner conversation becomes WHICH FOOD CORPORATIONS and LOBBIES ordered this reversal.
Just a few years ago, Boston’s food service program launched the salad bars with much fanfare, blogging about it on the school system’s website. The salad bars qualified for reimbursement under the federal free- and reduced-priced lunch program.
Let me guess: federal budget cuts.
One item in December 2011 trumpeted the launch of salad bars at Boston Arts Academy, Fenway High School, and East Boston High School; another in April 2012 touted a “traveling salad bar” that made a stop at the Hale Elementary School in Roxbury; and then two months later a posting featured the Curley School trying out a salad bar.
This dinner bell not being rung so loud.
All the while, the food service program was starting to move to shut them down.
OH! DECEIT in the SCHOOL DISTRICT! If that doesn't make you lose your appetite.
In spring 2012, the Boston Latin School parent listserve was buzzing about the possible demise of its salad bar. An assistant headmaster finally interjected, assuring parents it was here to stay.
But food services eventually closed the salad bar there, as it did in other schools.
Oh, parents were lied to by the school? No kidding.
Whether salad bars will return to Boston schools remains unclear.
Ballou said in his statement that the School Department is looking into more cost-effective alternatives.
Like prepared and wrapped foods from some corporate conglomerate?
More expensive for the kids, of course, but....
A few weeks ago, the Curley started serving pre-plated salads, which are less appealing to students because they can’t choose their own ingredients.
Then they go to history class and are told this is the land of freedom.
The school’s wellness committee has indicated in posts on its website that it would rather have the salad bar back and junk food banned from its lunch room.
I would like for the kids to have both.
Offering a salad bar is a no-brainer, said Katie Fitch, a parent and cochair of the Curley’s health and wellness committee.
I like salad.
“A salad bar teaches kids how to eat healthy,” said Fitch, who also is a nurse practitioner. “Pulling out a salad bar and replacing it with snacks sends a completely wrong message to students.”
And sometimes it just tastes good!
Btw, I'm tired of sending kids me$$ages; how about sending them a meal? 1 in 4 kids in this country is victim of malnutrition and hunger.
Achly Esparra, 18, of Dorchester, said the School Department was being short-sighted in shutting down the salad bars. Esparra pushed for more salad bars as part of a campaign with the youth advocacy organization Sociedad Latina and used to frequent the Boston Arts salad bar, before transferring to another school.
“They are not thinking with their heads,” Esparra said. “School lunch is disgusting, but students will eat the salad bar and won’t skip class to go to Burger King. The salad bar increases attendance after lunch and increases students’ health.”
But she added, “I think BPS just sees money.”
That's all any AmeriKan in$titution and those that run them $ee the$e days.
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Also see: Review finds Boston schools in disarray
Not a healthy culture or work environment in the school lunchroom?
Wait until you see what the croutons are made of:
"Eliminate invasive species by eating them?" Associated Press May 26, 2014
HOUSTON — It seems like a simple proposition: American lakes, rivers, and offshore waters are filling up with destructive fish and crustaceans originally from other parts of the world, many of them potential sources of food.
So why not control these invasive populations by getting people to eat them?
The idea has gained momentum recently from the lionfish, which invaded the Gulf of Mexico but was successfully marketed to restaurants and today appears to be in decline.
No campaign to save the lionfish from extinction?
But businesses and scientists have struggled to repeat this apparent triumph with other species. Some, such as Asian carp, are not appetizing to Americans.
Deal it up to the wealthy then.
Others, like feral hogs, reproduce too quickly to make a dent. And then there’s the question of whether turning them into sought-after cuisine undermines the larger goal of eliminating them.
Well, eating them will eliminate them.
‘‘Eating invasive species is not a silver bullet,’’ said Laura Huffman, the Nature Conservancy’s director in Texas. But it can still be ‘‘a way to get people engaged in the topic and in the solution.’’
I've had my fill of agenda-pushing, thanks.
The lionfish, a striped saltwater species with a flowing mane of venomous spines, is native to the Indo-Pacific Ocean and was first spotted in parts of the Gulf and off the East Coast a little more than 10 years ago. The skilled predators damage reefs and devour native fish, and they are eaten only by sharks, or larger lionfish.
People soon learned that beneath the lionfish’s spiky skin lies a buttery, flaky meat that is perfect for ceviche, taco filler, or as an alternative to lobster. After a few years of intense fishing and brisk fillet sales, the population is dropping.
But similar efforts targeting feral hogs, Asian carp, and the Himalayan blackberry have been far less successful.
Damage from invasive species extends beyond the environment. A Cornell University study concluded that they caused more than $120 billion in economic harm annually. Feral hogs cost Texas alone about $52 million in agricultural damage every year.
Asian carp were introduced to the United States about 30 years ago. Now they have infested dozens of waterways, including the Mississippi. The Army Corps of Engineers is weighing several options to try to keep the voracious eaters out of the Great Lakes, where they could threaten other marine life and the fishing industry.
No urgency there, though. Not like the fart-mist threat.
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Nice catch for your lunchbox, 'eh?
The idea being floated for several reasons: with the fouling of the Pacific due to the dumping of 300 tons of radiated water a day and the lingering effects of the Gulf oil spill, the world's food supply is becoming strained and will not support the people of planet earth. Thus unappetizing solutions are proposed while genocidal depopulation policies are pursued.
None of this will be affecting the buffets and menus of the 1%while you can literally eat shit.
NEXT DAY UPDATE: Many want modified foods to be labeled
Gee, all of a sudden GMOs are becoming big news in my Boston Globe.
