So, some school in New Mexico is implementing a new policy where kids (who aren't on the free lunch program) whose parents have not paid for more than 10 lunches get a cheese sandwich instead of the hot lunch of the day. Apparently, it's caused some parents to complain about the "singling out" of their children and about how awful it is to make them eat a cheese sandwich.

I'm no fan of cheese sandwiches. The concept sounds disgusting to me. But when i was in school, there was no 10 lunch limit. If you forgot your lunch money, you got a PB&J sandwich. Or nothing. At the time, PB&J sounded pretty much as disgusting as a cheese sandwich, so i think so far, it's equal.

Now, some people are saying it's not good because it's punishing the kids whose parents can't afford the lunch money. They even quote one kid who had to eat the cheese sandwiches while waiting for her free lunch paperwork to go through and now the idea of cheese sandwiches makes her gag. I don't know how long it takes for the paperwork to go through. 10 days is 2 school weeks. So, either the process of getting approved for free lunches is completely inefficient (wouldn't be surprising) or this girl's parent only bothered to file the paperwork because of the cheese sandwiches. Otherwise, she would have been more than happy to continue sending her kid to school with no money, banking on the school feeding her kid for free.

I get that mebbe they don't want to admit they can't afford the $1 lunch for their kid and that's why they don't rush out to apply for the free lunch program. But, you know, it's your kid. You need to swallow your pride and take advantage of anything that's there to help your kid. And the school providing anything at all is something i think the parents should appreciate rather than expect as a default.

That said, why can't they offer at least a choice of cheese or PB&J, just to give a little variety. I mean, eating cheese sandwiches 5 days a week can get pretty old pretty quick. Even if it's government cheese, rather than your Kraft singles variety. I love that government cheese. It's so much better than sliced.

Also, that 7-yr old is a whiner. She's lucky she's getting any food at all and doesn't work in some factory in South America making sweatshirts for Russell Athletics.

I believe schools are moving away from peanut butter at all due to the increased prevalence of peanut allergies.

how else are you going to weed out the weak?

they should replace the milk with bubble tea, too. if the kid chokes on the tapioca pearls, you'll know they're not fit.

man, i miss school lunch.

Weed out the weak? Is this Sparta? Will we have fights to the death? I thought fighting in school was frowned upon.