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Friday, September 19, 2014

Special Ed Kids' Food Cart Is Latest Casualty Of Federal Calorie Counts

Federal regulations have upset the coffee cart at a Georgia high school.

Government limits on the calories in food sold to public school students have stifled both special education and culinary programs at Marietta High School, according to the Marietta Daily Journal. Students at the school learned baking and business skills by manning a cart that sold coffee and muffins to teachers and students every morning last year, but the business recently got the boot due to rules imposed by Washington.

Muffins exceeded the 200-calorie limit placed on snacks sold on school grounds under the 2010 federal Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, which also limits sodium, sugar and calories in each food served at lunchtime. The cart was operated and stocked by the 16 special needs students, but since August, the coffee cart has been locked in a closet collecting dust.

“Our students need those opportunities to interact with others because they are very shy and they don’t have a lot of opportunities to speak,” Christy Hunt, a special education teacher at the school told the Daily Journal. “It was really about our teacher curriculum and teaching our kids real-life skills in a real-life setting. It’s part of what we need to teach them, and that part of it in the school system has been taken away by the Healthy Kids Act.”

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The same thing happened at WIHI. They lost their biggest fundraiser. Another example of government screwing everything up doing stuff to make themselves look good to the clueless do-gooders. I bet the Obama girls can eat whatever they want at their private school.

Anonymous said...

If you want to sell muffins, sell mini-muffins instead. One of them would not exceed the calorie count. Folks could just buy five or six which would not be illegal.

Anonymous said...


First comment is accurate. 'Moochie's Law' is crippling a variety of school based fundraisers which support a number of fine programs that have few other funding options.

Thanks, Moochie! Enjoy your next vacation and room service.

Anonymous said...

VERY GOOD!

Anonymous said...

I'm not a fan of gov't interfering in every little thing but this could have been a real life lesson for the kids in reacting to market changes either due to gov't regulation or popular demands. Shame the educators missed that.