First, they came for the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…

Here’s an unwholesome mouthful of a headline if ever there was one.

 Obama’s ‘Food Cops’ Take Over School Cafeterias

In the name of protecting us from ourselves, the federal government is getting more and more involved in what we eat. Some people derisively call them the “food cops” but the threat to our historic freedom of choice is very, very real.

Students returning in September in Alexandria, Va., for example, discovered much to their surprise that they could no longer purchase peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in school cafeterias. The reason, says the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Amy Ridenour, has nothing to do with fears about peanut allergies or anything reasonable. Instead the sandwiches have been banned because of concerns they will not meet new nutritional guidelines being pushed by the Obama administration.

As people used to be taught in school civics classes, the theory behind the United States is a government of limited powers. Can anyone imagine trying to explain to the founders that the government is now dictating what foods may be eaten by school children?

Yet a number of people will nonetheless vote for Obama. You’d almost they want the government telling them what to do.

I’d like to feel sorry for such people, except when there are enough people who want to be told what to do everyone will end up being told what to do.

People who don’t want their freedom are a dire threat to those who do.

MORE: Complaints Mount Against Michelle Obama’s New Lunch Menu

In Wisconsin, high school athletes are complaining about not getting enough to eat each day, due to the skimpy new school lunch menu mandated by the United States Department of Agriculture and First Lady Michelle Obama.

The story we published earlier this week on that subject is unfortunately not unique. Students across the country are complaining about the new school lunch regulations.

Perhaps the real motive is to starve students into slimming down. Just ask students in Pierre, South Dakota who, too, are in an all-out revolt.

Can anyone please explain how on earth this became the business of the federal government?

(I think it started in 1914 with the war on drugs.)


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9 responses to “First, they came for the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…”

  1. chocolatier Avatar
    chocolatier

    Nonsense. Barack Obama is not banning peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in public schools. This is a case of single school acting on its own and blaming the ‘food cops.’ Thousands of public schools in the U.S. are still serving PB&J sandwiches and have no plans to drop them.

  2. Michael Nies Avatar
    Michael Nies

    The school pulled the sandwiches from the menu because they didn’t think the item would meet nutritional guidelines and that would cause the schools to lose federal subsidy. The picture that accompanied the oiginal article showed the usual glop (with added dextrose and hydrogenated vegtable oil) slathered on white bread. Obama didn’t pull the plug on the lunch; they probably pulled the item because they recognized that it was crap. Why should the gummint subsidize crappy school lunches. I don’t see how this is a threat to our freedoms.

  3. Another Anon Avatar
    Another Anon

    “The school pulled the sandwiches from the menu because they didn’t think the item would meet nutritional guidelines and that would cause the schools to lose federal subsidy.”

    Nice school funding you’ve got there. Shame if, err… anything were to happen to it.

  4. chocolatier Avatar
    chocolatier

    Peanut growers have one of the more powerful lobbies in D.C. Remember Jimmy Carter? Any effort to ban peanut butter nationally in public schools would meet with fierce resistance, no matter which party controlled Congress or the White House.

  5. Eric Scheie Avatar

    I agree that beggars can’t be choosers, but messing with lunches brought from home is disturbing, and has happened too often:

    http://www.greeleygazette.com/press/?p=13384

    As to peanut products, they are banned in Ann Arbor schools, and I have complained before:

    http://classicalvalues.com/2012/01/cracking-down-on-nuts/

    And did you know that peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are racist?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/11/is-peanut-butter-and-jelly-racist_n_1874905.html

    🙂

  6. Alan Kellogg Avatar

    Something tells me Micelle doesn’t understand the basic differences between adults and teenagers. Wait till her kids get older. 🙂

  7. Kathy Kinsley Avatar
    Kathy Kinsley

    Racist P&B – and I wander over via your link and find HP responders (and MOST of them) agreeing with me? Thanks! I needed that.

    BTW, would you be so kind as to remove “On The Third Hand” from your sidebar? I’m not blogging anymore, and you’re now linking some ‘getcher domain here’ ripoff site. 🙂 Thanks

  8. Eric Scheie Avatar

    Done Kathy. I hate removing links, though. Too sentimental.

    And Michael, thanks for your comment — especially for stopping by.

  9. chocolatier Avatar
    chocolatier

    I’ve been a volunteer teacher in junior high schools around the east San Francisco bay area for over 20 years. Individual schools ban all sorts of things. At one school I taught at, boys were not allowed to wear baseball caps backwards because the principal said it was a sign of gang membership. At the school I now teach at, teachers are not allowed to talk about or allow the students to talk about abortion or gay marriage in class.