I don't have as much problem with Biggest Loser, because that show actually is talking to individual people about individual choices. This show it talking to individual people about federal regulations. If they were only looking at what people ate at home, that would be different, but he's looking at school lunch programs, which have to be analyzed within the context of funding and regulations. At the end of the week of Jamie making the cafeteria food, they told him that they couldn't continue with his program because it cost twice as much as usual and he still hadn't submitted the required nutritional analysis showing that his meals satisfied the USDA requirements. And they didn't actually break down the costs or the funding anywhere, but I would bet that one reason for his meals costing more was that he didn't use the commodity foods that the school doesn't have to pay for.

Announcement: Our new patent agent is an ass.

No real analysis needed. Just an ass.

I remember reading an article about a school in Queens where the cafeteria workers were trying to make foods that the kids, mostly immigrants, would eat. Sloppy Joes and tacos were not going over so well. So they decided to try making a chicken curry, since a lot of the students were Indian. Within the NYC rules, they weren't allowed to use raw chicken, so they had to make the curry by tearing apart frozen rotisserie chicken. The cafeteria worker in charge of ordering the commodity foods was able to exchange and trade around a bunch of stuff to get a giant container of curry powder, but it took a whole lot of finagling.

Oh man, Matilda! She looks shockingly big all of a sudden.

nutritional analysis

That's a whole thing -- stuff in a box comes with it on the side. The lunch lady is going to calculate that?

Oh man, Matilda! She looks shockingly big all of a sudden.

SERIOUSLY

That's a whole thing -- stuff in a box comes with it on the side. The lunch lady is going to calculate that?

This was the reasoning behind NYC public schools banning homemade things at bake sales but allowing Doritos and Pop-Tarts. They can't regulate the calories in the homemade stuff.

Within the NYC rules, they weren't allowed to use raw chicken

OK, that's wack.

Those are the rules that seem particularly onerous.

nutritional analysis

That's a whole thing -- stuff in a box comes with it on the side. The lunch lady is going to calculate that?

sighhhh

And yet, that is the problem with the school lunch program. Why not draw attention to that, instead of feeding kids crap merrily along?

The WalMart issue is fresh on my brain, cause there is talk of one going in not far from me and there's a lot of hating on it. I'm more prone to the anti-case, if only for the traffic and the suspicion it'll take out what few city groceries in the area (kinda a big deal.) Yes, potential submarket prices for the local community (essentially subsidized by suburban stores) but at what cost?

This was the reasoning behind NYC public schools banning homemade things at bake sales but allowing Doritos and Pop-Tarts. They can't regulate the calories in the homemade stuff.

Which makes some sense to me, for a big institution. Obviously, I would pick a small homemade cookie over a 100 Calorie Pack (TM), but Mike Bloomberg is going to come over and tell me if I'm making the cookies small enough?

I love Matilda's doggie plate!