Food Programs Make It Hard for Parents to Pack Alternative Lunches
Dear Healthy Parents, I'm sorry I gave you such a hard time about sending your child to our childcare center with gluten and dairy-free lunches, Amino acid supplements, and halal meals that needed heating or your child with special needs wouldn't eat. I'm sorry that I wouldn't allow you to share those homemade date brownies with the class to celebrate your child's birthday. I could have been more understanding when you threw those cupcakes in the teacher's face, but she was only trying to...
Dear Healthy Parents, I'm sorry I gave you such a hard time about sending your child to our childcare center with gluten and dairy-free lunches, Amino acid supplements, and halal meals that needed heating or your child with special needs wouldn't eat. I'm sorry that I wouldn't allow you to share those homemade date brownies with the class to celebrate your child's birthday. I could have been more understanding when you threw those cupcakes in the teacher's face, but she was only trying to follow the rules. We were all just trying to follow the rules. I didn't understand the health benefits you were fighting for, I didn't truly understand the disrespect I was showing for your family's values, and I couldn't figure out how to balance my legal responsibilities and budget with your needs. Your child should have come first. Now that I have a child who gets asthma from dairy and headaches from gluten, I get that. If I could go back, I'd do it all differently.
Sincerely, A Previous Childcare Director, but first a Mother
Fall is Here
I blogged before about 5 reasons school lunch programs are failing, now it's September, and for many moms like me that means it's time to get doctor notes and jump through 21 hoops to justify our decision to send kids to childcare, school and after-school programs with healthy lunches and snacks (special diets). The truth is, Food Programs Make it Hard for Parents to Send Healthy Alternatives to School and Childcare.
When I decided to take control of ManCub's nutrition all day, it was more difficult than filing taxes on April 14th. It required two different doctors, a medication form for our almond milk to be "administered" (no joke!) many guilt trips and snacks for an entire classroom.
I provided multiple peer-reviewed research briefs and sent emails to the principal threatening to take more formal action if they couldn't monitor the "share table" to prevent a first grader with a dairy allergy from trading an apple for pizza. (Thankfully, ManCub FINALLY learned to self-monitor after getting sick a few dozen times)
If your child's school or daycare participates in the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) or the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) you may have noticed they're exceptionally pushy. Ever wondered why the hard stance on fat-free cows milk at every meal? I directed a childcare center for a while and learned a lot as the administrator of the food program for my school.
Follow the Dollar
The USDA provides free food and subsidies to schools, childcare centers and adult daycare centers to provide meals throughout the day. The menu must meet USDA requirements for protein, grains, fruits and "vegetables" (Ya know, like pizza sauce?). Fluid cow milk must be served at all meals and children over two years old must drink fat-free or low-fat milk. Breakfast must include a grain product, fruit, and milk. Schools can add a protein, but only as an additional item (expense). In CACFP, the meal cannot be counted towards reimbursement without a grain, milk and fruit.
Center meal planning representatives are given one training on nutritional guidelines by USDA nutritionists and patted on the back for providing healthy meals for growing brains. When I attended my training ( to be fair, it was 2008, and things may have changed since then), it consisted of a notebook with guidelines. Most of the 4 hours was spent reviewing the paperwork for reimbursement and contractual responsibilities.
Childcare centers who participate in the CACFP program create menus that are in line with USDA's guidelines and are allowed to claim up to $3.52 for lunches and $1.86 for breakfast and snack. Programs with evening hours can also serve a dinner
It's not chump change. In my school, it added about $150,000 to my annual operating budget that was desperately needed. Hiring a kitchen manager who would comply with the guidelines was critical, and creating policies to require doctors notes for diet changes, and discouraging parents from bringing food from home became a necessary evil. (If I had known then what I know now, I might have handed all of this VERY differently!)
If a child has a food allergy and a doctors note, both programs can make appropriate substitutions and still receive reimbursement IF they still provide the food. If your dietary change is preference only, for religious reasons, or if you provide the food, the meal cannot be collected upon.
Milk must be served with the meal in order for the entire meal to be counted, and two brands of soy milk (who paid the money for research to show equivalency) are the only acceptable substitutions. Now you see the motivation to get your kid to the milk trough, no?
I recently heard that some schools have even taken to guilt tactics, sending home letters to parents who send their own lunches to let them know that they are costing the school money, and the poor cafeteria workers may not have job security if this trend continues.
Limiting Options
In many states, licensed childcare has minimum requirements that the provider must monitor and ensure all nutritional components are provided in a child's meals while at the center.
Washington's Minimum Licensing Requirements for Child Care Centers, for example, includes the following requirements:
(b) Each lunch and dinner meal the child eats at the center must contain:(i) A dairy product (such as milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, cheese);(ii) Meat or meat alternative (such as beef, fish, poultry, legumes, tofu, or beans;(iii) A grain product (such as bread, cereal, bagel, or rice cake);(iv) Fruits or vegetables (two fruits or two vegetables or one fruit and one vegetable to equal the total portion size required). When juice is served in place of a fruit or vegetable it must be one hundred percent fruit or vegetable juice.(3) When meals are not provided by the center you must:(a) Notify parents in writing that meals they provide for their children must meet the daily nutritional requirements;(b) Provide adequate refrigeration for keeping potentially hazardous foods (such as meats of any type, cooked potato, cooked legumes, cooked rice, sprouts, cut melons or cantaloupes, milk, cheese);(c) Refrigerate foods requiring refrigeration at 45 degrees Fahrenheit or less and keep frozen foods at 10 degrees Fahrenheit or less until they are cooked or consumed. This is often interpreted as supplementing meals sent from home to meet the nutrition guidelines. As with any compliance statutes, there is room for interpretation. If a parent sends a bunch of cookies and chips, most centers would offer fruit, vegetable and milk to supplement, because they genuinely want children to be healthy and ready to learn.
As you can imagine, teaching a room full of three-year-olds is a lot easier when they have eaten a nutritious, not sugar meal! How about when a parent intentionally packs a grain or dairy-free lunch? What about vegetarians or those who follow a kosher or halal diet? When is it no longer appropriate to tamper with the lunch sent from home? What are a parent's rights to decide their child's menu? There isn't much guidance on these grey areas.
Most childcare centers I've worked with avoid this complex situation by participating in the Child and Adult Care Food Program and NOT ALLOWING food from home to be brought unless there is a documented medical need. In compliance with nutritional and food safety requirements, food from home is discouraged.
Food to be shared with other children must be store bought or cooked in a licensed kitchen. Families who cannot afford to buy treats are put at a disadvantage, and families who wish to send special diets without medical documentation have an uphill battle.