A mom in Manitoba did what so many mothers with kids in daycare do, packed her kids lunch that included leftovers of roast beef and potatoes, carrots, an orange and some milk. Sounds great right? But the daycare where her five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter attend school didn’t think so, and under Canadian law they charged the mom 10 bucks for supplementing her kid’s lunches with Ritz crackers.
Apparently if a child’s lunch is deemed “unbalanced“, where “balance” refers to ensuring that a lunch conforms to the proportions of food groups as laid out by Canada’s awful Food Guide, then that child’s lunch is “supplemented“, and their parent is fined.
Blog reader Kristen Bartkiw received just such a fine.
She sent her children to daycare with with lunches containing leftover homemade roast beef and potatoes, carrots, an orange and some milk.
She did not send along any “grains”.
As a consequence the school provided her children with, I kid you not, supplemental Ritz Crackers, and her with a $10 fine.
(Image: Weighty Matters)
First of all, to our dear Canadian readers, are Ritz crackers something you guys are in short supply of? Because here in Mericuh’, 10 bucks would buy you about three and a half big boxes of Ritz crackers, and maybe we can all start a country wide cracker drive so you guys can stop getting robbed by the totally unfair cracker industry.
This has to be one of the most absurd things I have ever heard of. It isn’t like Ritz crackers, as delicious as they are, and they are delicious, have any sort of markable nutrition value. I mean, sure, they are a grain, but it isn’t like they gave the kids some type of whole wheat high fiber bread or anything. Actually, I consider these a sort of junk food really. There isn’t a whole lot of difference between these and chips I don’t think.
According to The Daily Mail, and this may be my favorite part of the whole story, Kristen is actually a board member of the board who fined her:
”˜I phoned the daycare worker and said ”you know, potatoes, surely I can get away with this,” and they didn’t actually end up charging me the $10,’ she said.
This incident happened in 2012, but it has only recently received media attention. It all ends on a happy note though, because Kristen wasn’t actually fined got to keep her 10 bucks and maybe use it to buy more crackers or something. Absurd.
You often hear about the judgement that occurs between moms on the best way to raise a family (often…
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A mom in Manitoba did what so many mothers with kids in daycare do, packed her kids lunch that included leftovers of roast beef and potatoes, carrots, an orange and some milk. Sounds great right? But the daycare where her five-year-old son and three-year-old daughter attend school didn’t think so, and under Canadian law they charged the mom 10 bucks for supplementing her kid’s lunches with Ritz crackers.
