In one of our local elementary schools, parents must spend $2 per week to
cover the cost of the "afternoon snack" for their kindergartners.  Lunch is at
10:30 am, snack at 1pm, dismissal at 2pm.  Apparently, there is "no way out"
of spending this $2 for the snack, whether you want your child to eat it or
not.  The snack in this child's class is an ICECREAM MILKSHAKE, each and every
day.  To top it off, my friend's child is almost certainly sensitive to milk,
even though the allergist stated that the "test for milk allergy was
negative"- my friend also gives her son "Boost" adult formula to drink as per
her nutritionist's advice since he is such a picky eater.
  I love my friend dearly but she can not imagine that her HCPs might be wrong
about this.  She is happy that her children drink milk (or formula products
like Boost) because they eat so very few other foods (they are ages 3.5 and
5.5 years)  I contend that they don't eat other foods *because* they get milk.
  This is one of those situations where friends have to agree to disagree.
BTW, her children were breastfed for about nine months each, but *always* had
formula also, just in case (she is also Swiss, home of Nestle', so perhaps she
had an even more intense indocrination in her childhood than I have had with
the National Dairy Council???)

Lisa Jones, LLL Leader in Wellington, sunny south FL