Meals minutes: 2013-04-02

Minutes:

Hi Meals, just getting around to responding to some of my old emails. I wanted to comment on this part of the minutes:
> Cheese sticks and baby carrots will not be considered staples items. Individual cooks may
> choose to purchase them for kids at their meals. It has been found that these
> items are being used as between meals snacks and thus sometimes not available at
> meals.

As the parent of a young child who can sometimes be picky, cheese sticks and baby carrots have been a crucial fall back when the meal has not been appropriate for our child - either because their wasn't enough kid food, because the food was too spicy for her, or because the meal just didn't turn out to be very averagely kid friendly. When I mentioned to some parents, including Aaron (who I have CC'd here) that the reason there were no cheese sticks or baby carrots was because Meals has decided they aren't a staple anymore, there was a similar response to my own - which was disappointment.

If some people are eating them in between meals - then that should be addressed with those people. It feels like punishing all parents who have sometimes picky kids because some people are misusing the system. I know Willie and I have sometimes run out of mayonnaise or ketchup or mustard and run over to the CH to get a tablespoon or two - but Meals is not going to eliminate them from the staples. When we cooked a recent meal, overnight someone used up half of the parmesan cheese we had purchased for the meal. And yet, I think parmesan is still on the staples list. If we were talking about something that seems like a luxury or just too enticing (such as hot cocoa mix) I would understand. But these are cheese sticks and carrots!

If you know who specifically is eating these things between dinners, I would be happy to explain to them what the policy is and that Meals has decided not to keep these items staples based on these foods being eaten outside of the meals system. If, however, people are assuming that any kid sitting in the CH eating baby carrots and cheese sticks got them from the CH fridge - I would challenge that. I know that I have brought snacks to the CH for Ellie to eat in the past and some of them were definitely cheese sticks and carrots. And if the feeling that people are eating them outside of dinner is because they disappeared quickly after having being bought - it could have just been that there was a particularly kid un-friendly meal and 6 kids needed cheese sticks to get them through dinner.

Thanks for listening,
Katie