‘Lunch politics’ goes bananas

Girl pulled from school after being told to eat fruit thrown in trash

A spoiled banana pulled from a school trash can by a teacher and handed back to a student to eat — resulting in the teacher’s suspension, a Children’s Aid investigation and the withdrawal of an Ontario family’s children from the school — marks another skirmish in the lunchroom politics of schools and daycares.

The “banana incident” — as even the school is calling it — took place at École élémentaire catholique Sainte-Marie in Simcoe, Ont. An eight-year-old student says she was forced to eat a “rotten” banana the teacher had retrieved from the trash.

“It had all black spots on it so threw it out,” the girl told the Simcoe Reformer newspaper. “My teacher found it in the garbage and gave it to me. I felt like I had to eat it. I felt like I’d be in trouble if I didn’t eat it.”

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The girl’s mother, Jordan Stewart, said the teacher was acting like a bully and lodged complaints with the school and child protection workers.

The teacher involved is not to return to the school pending an investigation, said Mikale-Andrée Joly, spokeswoman for the French-Catholic school board.

“The [board] is of the opinion that the teacher’s actions reflect poor judgment on her part. Although the teacher has apologized, her behaviour is unacceptable,” she said.

Janice Robinson, executive director of the Haldimand and Norfolk Children’s Aid Society, confirmed a child mistreatment probe is underway.

Also this week, an Ottawa father complained his twoyear-old daughter was suspended from daycare because she carried a cheese sandwich through the daycare’s door.

Randy Murray told CBC he knew his daughter had the sandwich in the car but did not notice she had taken it with her into the daycare, which has a no outside food policy.

The incidents add to a list of complaints, attesting to an emerging school lunch fetish. Some complaints are for being too lax and others for being overly vigilant.

A Hamilton mother filed a human rights complaint in January against her six-yearold daughter’s school, claiming it failed to accommodate her allergy to eggs and dairy. In November, a Rossburn, Man., mother was fined $10 by her daughter’s daycare for not sending “a grain” component in her lunch; the staff gave her Ritz crackers to supplement it.

Parents have complained of heavy-handed application of “litterless lunch” policies, requiri ng a pupil ’s lunch arrive free of any wrappings or anything disposable. Similarly, there are complaints of “boomerang” lunch policies where nothing in a child’s lunch can be thrown out — so open, half-eaten yogurt containers get tossed into backpacks.

“As a society we need to get away from lunch politics,” said Sylvain Charlebois, a professor of food distribution and policy at the University of Guelph. “Lunches are an extension of a culinary culture which exists in everybody’s home and it is different one home to another.

“Perhaps we are trying to nurture some sort of nannystate around lunches or food waste, and I don’t think that is the proper way to go. We should empower parents with the information they require to properly feed their children in the way they see fit. And if we get away from that and get too involved in lunch politics, we are approaching a danger zone in society,” he said.

He pointed to a case of an immigrant family being appalled at a school art project of decorating a jar by gluing dry pasta to it.

“The cultural aspects of food needs to be considered.”

Lenore Skenazy, author of the book Free-Range Kids, urged calm in the lunch skirmishes. “There’s a belief that’s not only wrong, it’s also new, that if we don’t make every second, every experience and every bite absolutely perfect for our kids, we have hurt them, maybe permanently,” she said. “Our kids were built to roll with the punches [and] to act as if one somehow subpar lunch is going to hurt them or have any effect on them is ridiculous.”

Annie Kidder, executive director of People for Education, an education lobby group, said complaints are important to individual families but do not signal systemic failing. “There are always going to be issues about lunch — whether it’s policies, food, whether they sit on the floor. There is a kind of chaos about lunch,” she said.

The growing complaints may be a result of more children eating lunch at school, she said, as fewer homes have a parent at home during the day.