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December 21st, 2011 5:50 pm
Michelle Obama’s Food Nannying Leading to Black Markets in Public Schools
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Conservatives (myself included) have had a lot of fun over the past few years taking shots at First Lady Michelle Obama’s efforts to get Americans — particularly schoolchildren — to eat healthier food. Usually, however, the criticism is at a fairly abstract level, focusing on the administration’s seemingly endless appetite for nanny-state interventions. But as Michelle Malkin notes, the First Lady’s impact goes well beyond giving hectoring speeches … and the results aren’t pretty:

According to a weekend report by the Los Angeles Times, the city’s “trailblazing introduction of healthful school lunches has been a flop.” In response to the public hectoring and financial inducement of Mrs. Obama’s federally subsidized anti-obesity campaign, the district dropped chicken nuggets, corn dogs, and flavored milk from the menu for “beef jambalaya, vegetable curry, pad Thai, lentil and brown rice cutlets, and quinoa and black-eyed pea salads.”

Sounds delectable in theory. But in practice, the initiative has been what L.A. Unified’s food-services director Dennis Barrett plainly concludes is a “disaster.” While the Obama administration has showered the nation’s second-largest school district with nutrition awards, thousands of students voted with their upset tummies and abandoned the program. A forbidden-food black market — stoked not just by students, but also by teachers — is now thriving. Moreover, “principals report massive waste, with unopened milk cartons and uneaten entrees being thrown away.”

The story goes on to report that L.A. Unified produces a staggering 21,000 uneaten meals every day, partially because the healthy fare is so unpalatable; this while the woman spearheading this initiative is choking down 1,700 calories a sitting in her down time.

Of course, fairness compels us to admit that the First Lady’s diet habits are none of our business. But we’re not planning on butting out of her life until she returns the favor.

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