Garcia Media Life

I don’t mean to sound like Sarah Palin ragging on the Food Police, but it seems to me that nutritional paranoia concerning our children is getting out of hand.  Chocolate milk has become a HUGE issue.  And now a Chicago public school has banned home-packed lunches.

As a member of the board of directors of the Student Press Law Center, an organization that protects the 1^st amendment rights of high school and college students, I’ve seen enough to conclude that when it comes to the marketplace of free ideas, our schools are practically a police state.  And now their attempted control of the food the inmates students consume just makes the picture complete.

Growing Up in the 50’s and 60’s

Frankly, I don’t know how I got to the ripe old age of 54.  I have a picture of me as a 3-month old holding a teddy bear.  You know what that little stuffed bear had for eyes?  Stick pins with eyeballs on them.

The area above and behind the back seat of my parent’s Chrysler was the perfect spot for laying down-  while the car was in motion.  I think I pretended I was riding in a boat of some kind as I pressed my face against the glass.  You can forget baby seats and seat-belts.  Neither existed at the time. 

Let’s not even get into the food I ingested.  The Good Humor truck was my regular 4^th meal of the day.  I had a particular penchant for toasted almond bars.   And chocolate milk.  What was bed time without chocolate milk?  To this day I’ll drink a cold glass of chocolate milk and thank God profusely for the privilege of such a perfect drink. 

And I don’t think I ever had a single cafeteria lunch that didn’t include a good old-fashioned 35-cent ice cream sandwich for dessert.  And Twinkies!  Remember when they had honest-to-goodness cream in the middle instead of whatever that weird white shit is they put in there now?

I should be dead, right?  Or morbidly obese?  Well, I’m morbid, but not obese.  And I’m cynical, but still alive. 

Chocolate Milk and Home-packed Lunches

Here’s the great controversy over chocolate milk.  Ignore the hilarious headline about how chocolate milk is stirring up trouble. 

Bottom line- in their attempt to protect children from the evils of chocolate, the do-gooders accidently reduced total consumption of milk by inmates students by some 37%.  Milk, last I heard, really is truly good for you- so this chocolate ban was not a smart move.   Fairfax County, Virginia has come to its senses and has decided to reintroduce a reformulated chocolate drink product that is less sweet and has no corn-based sugar and apparently meets the taste-test, so common sense does seem to have won the day, at least in Fairfax County.

Here’s the great controversy over home-packed school lunches.  Apparently, the Ayatollah of the Little Village Academy in Chicago was convinced of her cause after seeing kids on field trips carrying around little brown bags with soda and flaming hot chips.   Soda and flaming hot chips?  You know what I call that?

Breakfast.

Actually, sounds like Mom was sick and Dad packed the lunch for the field trip.  I don’t know any mothers who would give their children soda and flaming chips for lunch at school.  That is so a Dad thing. 

So here’s the solution for the Little Village Academy.  Ban all lunches home-packed by fathers.  Everybody knows that for field trips, mothers pack stuff like baby carrots.