The only way this is truly breastfeeding-related is that I'm nursing my
little one as I type!  However, I would feel guilty if I didn't respond
to this week's school milk issue and confess that, in a former life, I
was a child nutrition program director, aka, school foodservice
director.  Sorry to bore those of you not in the US, but school
districts which choose to participate in our USDA's reimbursement
program must comply w/ USDA's guidelines.  Schools must *offer* 5 meal
components...a meat/alternate, 2 different fruits and/or vegetables, a
bread/grain and the infamous fluid milk.  Each *school district* chooses
whether to serve all of the meal to the students (faster and easier on
the principal/teachers time-wise) or to allow students to choose 3 of
the 5 components.  (There are more complicated ways based on
computer-based nutrient planning, etc., but...)  When the first option
is chosen by the school, milk is put on the tray.  If a child is
allergic to milk, the school would be putting the child at risk by doing
so, thus a big reason for the medical substitution form allowing orange
drink, etc. to be substituted.  It's also important for the foodservice
director and school to know if a child is simply intolerant of/dislikes
fluid milk *or* has a severe milk allergy requiring substitutions for
other lunch items that contain milk as an ingredient, such as mashed
potatoes whipped w/ milk...it's a liability issue.  Another reason is
that USDA is reimbursing nationwide for specific components and,
although most foodservice directors would be fine w/ a parent's request
for a milk substitute, auditors would have questions... what's to
prevent some schools from substituting "Pat's fun food groups" for any
of the required components?  A school would then be receiving federal
aid (your tax dollars, in other words) for lunches consisting of
chocolate, cheesecake, Coke, etc.  Believe me, the red tape is
incredible.

As a director, I okayed many other food substitutions for allergies and
religious reasons, but we were well-off financially and could afford to
go 2 extra miles.  When you're serving 6,000 meals and have many special
needs to meet, production becomes quite costly, making school lunch
unaffordable to many parents if they're charged appropriately to make it
a cost-effective program.  The reimbursement (the same nationally) the
school district receives is the difference between what the meal costs
to produce it and what the parent pays for it, thus the lunch and milk
price difference between school districts around the country.

Enough of an explanation, I'm sure...if you want to understand more for
ammunition in your district, you can go to asfsa.org.

Rebecca in KS