School considers "trash-cams" to monitor tossing of gov't mandated lunches
By AnjaP
@Rollo1 (16679)
Boston, Massachusetts
October 2, 2012 9:35pm CST
Since schools have instituted the Michelle Obama-approved school lunch guidelines, schools have found that much of what they serve to the kids is ending up in the trash can. The kids don't have the choice of not taking some items they don't want, so they take them but throw them out. See, the gov't figures if it forces you to take your veggies, you will eat them. They obviously don't know much about kids.
In a county in Florida, students threw away $75,000 worth of produce last year. This is really a waste. If kids don't want it and you know they won't eat it, why are you spending money on giving it to them? Remember, a lot of these meals are free or reduced price meals for students from low-income families, so this is gov't money being wasted. Or rather, taxpayer money.
So Lake County is considering installing cameras in the trash to monitor what kids throw out. They say they won't be taking pictures of individual students, they just want to see what they throw away. Apparently, the idea of just looking in the trash can to see what was thrown away never occurred to them. Plus, it won't cost any taxpayer dollars to implement.
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/Lake-County-considers-trash-cams-at-school-cafeterias/-/1637132/16830940/-/or18q4/-/index.html
Do you believe the schools are not going to try to identify students who throw away food? Why do they need the cameras when they could just measure the trash? If they do identify students, do you think there would be reprisals for the student or his/her family? Maybe food re-education camps? Vegetable University? Fruit seminars? Is this just one more invasion of privacy?
4 people like this
11 responses
@flowerchilde (12529)
• United States
3 Oct 12
If they do this, it will end up becoming a way of getting the next generation used to government surveillance and compliance..
1 person likes this
@flowerchilde (12529)
• United States
3 Oct 12
yep.. here's what I've been thinking for some time, "if you see the sword coming and not warn, I will require it of thee.."
@ShepherdSpy (8544)
• Omagh, Northern Ireland
4 Oct 12
Yep,the "Big Brother" TV show is just the thin end of the wedge in this....
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
3 Oct 12
This type of surveillance is already common in the UK. Here, we may have traffic cams, but there they have cams on the streets. They can see if you throw a candy wrapper on the sidewalk instead of the trash bin.
http://www.newsrt.co.uk/news/horncastle-man-fined-for-littering-770991.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2201498/Litterer-23-fined-565-hurling-bag-chips-man-street.html
The students are already used to cameras in their schools, some schools even have cameras in the bathrooms.
If you are born in a fishbowl, you have no idea what privacy is like. That's the goal.
1 person likes this
@dragon54u (31634)
• United States
3 Oct 12
I know this is a serious subject but you just made me laugh out loud with the way you said "Apparently, the idea of just looking in the trash can to see what was thrown away never occurred to them".
Seriously though, I think it's an excuse to see who is throwing stuff away. The FDA has already strongly suggested we imitate the lunch program in our own households so what's next, food police? I can just picture then battering down someone's door in riot gear and screaming at some poor family to drop the Ding Dongs or going door to door confiscating pizzas.
If the American people put up with that, stick a fork in us--we're done. As it is, the fork is off the table and coming at us fast.
1 person likes this
@dragon54u (31634)
• United States
3 Oct 12
I remember well the battles I had with my kids' schools! Battles over curriculum, what I taught them at home that they did not teach there, the books I let them read, and yes the food I sent to school with them and even the utensils!
We have to keep fighting. Our families are at stake and there is no room for the faint of heart in this battle. 
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
3 Oct 12
If it is such a waste they should get rid of he school food program all together and have kids bring their own lunches - seriously.Put the money towards education - which should include nutrition AND cooking classes at every grade level. I find it quite ridiculous that see schools are not being run like a business. If a restaurant was wasting that much food every day, they'd be out of business.
1 person likes this
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
5 Oct 12
True, but as an adult you should understand nutrition and how bad food affects you. Kids who grow up in households that o not offer healthy options are clueless. These kids need to be educated on proper nutrition and they need to be exposed to it.
As far as the school lunch program because there are kids who may only get those 1-2 meals a day at school because their family is poor, that is even more of a reason to have health food and not junk.
It's not hard to raise kids to eat healthy. I have 2 kids, 13 & 2 1/2. We don't keep junk in the house - no soda, candy, ect. The most unhealthy item in our house right now are Kashi granola bars. I cook pretty much every night. For dinner tonight we had vegetable fajitas with black beans & salsa - everything made from scratch. My 2 yr old will ask for cucumbers, apples, oranges, bell pepper and tofu. I know there are picky eaters, my 5 yr old nephew is one of them. There are ways around that, parents need to be creative.
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
3 Oct 12
A restaurant wouldn't ask for payment as you come in the door and then serve you food you didn't order...
But, there are kids who get free lunch through government programs. So the lunches have to meet the federal criteria. Those kids might not have a bagged lunch from home if there were no school lunch. But when I was a kid, we all had bagged lunches from home.
Here's a story of one school that confiscated a school lunch.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/n-c-food-inspector-sends-girls-lunch-home-after-determining-its-not-healthy-enough/
@matersfish (6306)
• United States
3 Oct 12
At this point, anything to do with the public sector stands out to me as job opportunities for friends in high places and to increase voting blocs.
The camera leads to new positions to watch over what's being thrown out, which leads to supervisors for that position, which brings with it a board of professionals to assess how to change it, which then bears a separate office of the Department of Education to focus on the issue, which then opens up new positions in other sectors of government dealing with the FDA and EPA, which thing brings those useless social degrees out in the form of a slew of psychologists and theorists and social scientists dealing in education, behavior and economics. And then the only thing that gets accomplished is pay raises for the positions.
And then we hate kids and we're racists and we're against the middle class when we want the problem solved instead of growing the staff in and around public education.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
3 Oct 12
I am sure it would lead to a spate of new jobs for people to run the cameras, monitors to watch the trash cans, monitors to watch the kids trying to smash the cameras, and as you say, there will be more students who are obviously in need of a new and guided nutrition program, counseling, and perhaps entire families will need home visits to help them become familiar with vegetables. It's also a good excuse for a few field trips to farms, so kids can see where food comes from.
It's also just one more place for the government to stick cameras and tell us to stick it when we object.
@debrakcarey (19887)
• United States
3 Oct 12
Well we know they won't 'pick on' the black kids, Obama says NO NO NO to disciplining repeat offenders in schools if they are a minority.
But as far as the cameras go, of course they will identify individual students, they've already singled out minority students for favored status.
IF I SEE ONE MORE PIC of Michelle Obama stuffing her mouth with greasy fries or ribs, I'm gonna explode. And how about the bill for the first family's upkeep, you see that? that's a lota ribs! LOL
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
3 Oct 12
Identifying and punishing kids (and maybe sending the whole family for re-education) can be the only reason for the cameras. The trash can contents can tell them what was thrown away. In the UK, kids are used to being monitored on security cams, they even have them in the bathrooms at schools. We are not far behind.
@ReViewMeMedia (3785)
• United States
3 Oct 12
The government shouldn't make people eat school lunch, people have the right to waste food. Maybe parents should actually take the initiative to give their kids healthy lunches instead of relying on school lunches. While I was in high school I only ate a school lunch once or twice. Why? Because my parents always made me lunch and I had good sandwiches and chips for lunch and I liked what I ate.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
3 Oct 12
The schools think they are the ultimate authority in our childrens' lives. If they take lunches to school, the school inspects them to see if they meet the school guidelines. In one school, a little girl had her lunch from home confiscated. She had a turkey sandwich, and the school threw it out and made her eat school lunch.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/n-c-food-inspector-sends-girls-lunch-home-after-determining-its-not-healthy-enough/
Now there are kids who get free school lunch. Low income kids that are fed by schools at least once a day and sometimes twice. Schools are worried about getting those federal funds, so they will adhere to whatever guidelines the federal gov't sets.
First we need to re-assert our own authority over our kids and stop the encroachment of the schools on parents' authority.
@laglen (19759)
• United States
4 Oct 12
Its about time we increased camera usage in schools, how can we know if our indoctrination is working. Food camps, you betcha, great way to spend their summers. We can't have kids spending too much time with family, the government must nanny them so we can have a warmer fuzzier future. 
Regarding just looking in the trash can for discarded food, how can the admin that does not get anywhere near a kid, know for sure. We need the cameras so that the "head dude" can know. Information is power! An added bonus, we will need audio with the cameras so we can know the extent of government teaching, to be sure these kids are getting the message and may one day become community organizers.
*******yes, this is sarcasm*******
Regarding just looking in the trash can for discarded food, how can the admin that does not get anywhere near a kid, know for sure. We need the cameras so that the "head dude" can know. Information is power! An added bonus, we will need audio with the cameras so we can know the extent of government teaching, to be sure these kids are getting the message and may one day become community organizers.
*******yes, this is sarcasm*******
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
3 Oct 12
Forcing the kids to eat what they do not like even if it is good for them does not work. The reason is that they do not see their parents eating it, and also it would not be right for the children to tell the parents what to do. I would say forget about Michele Obama telling them what to do. (I wonder if the schools have a photo of her and the students have to bow and katow before it - I was thinking of that movie :Silent Movie' by Mel Brooks where the rich guys bowed before a photograph of a dollar biill.)
But I digress.
Why could not the school start a garden. The children would be more interested in eating veggies and salads, if they actually grow them or maybe some of the garden supplies could give the children and their parents seed starter kits to get them to plant gardens.
@Yestheypayme2dothis (7874)
• United States
4 Oct 12
I think it is terrible that all that money is being wasted and thrown away. People are hungry. So much money is wasted. Not sure why they need cameras. That is a waste, too.
@bestboy19 (5478)
• United States
3 Oct 12
It's one more invasion of privacy. If the students don't like what the schools provide, why don't they bring their own? Let the school food go to food banks to help the needy in the community.
@marguicha (222855)
• Chile
3 Oct 12
I am not a US resident but in my opinion instead of pressing into the students a kind of food they are not acostumed to eat, there should be lessons about the importance of eating well as part of the school curriculum. If you are given something you don`t like and you don`t know why they are givig it to you, I suppose you will have a negative response. WE usually eat mes, including some bad tasting ones, when we are ill. But we do it because we know it will help us to get better. With food it should be the same.
The school lunches you mention, with no possibility of choosing at least part of it, sounds very dictatorial and very far from the idea of the US being the land of the free.
@Rollo1 (16679)
• Boston, Massachusetts
3 Oct 12
"sounds very dictatorial and very far from the idea of the US being the land of the free."
I could not agree more. After all, most of these kids are paying for that lunch. Would anyone go into a restaurant and pay the bill first, then have the waiter tell them what they are going to eat, no choices?
They do have all sorts of classes on health topics, but in the end, we are all free to make bad choices.
