Chocolate, chips, cookies, candy and pop are not allowed in the lunch boxes of kids at James S. Bell Middle School in Toronto, as reported by CTVNews.ca today. If students do bring the offending items, they are told to bring them back home. The students can also bring them to my house, where I will dispose of them very safely...in my mouth. But in seriousness, has this school gone too far? It actually isn't an ironfisted principal who has brought down this new rule, but parents of kids at the school who helped form it, according to this report. I don't think this school has gone too far. Soda has no redeeming health benefits and really, kids don't need to drink pop with their lunch. The earlier kids can learn to enjoy drinking plain water, and I admit this took me until my 30s, the better. I would even ban juice, if it were up to me. Chips and candy are processed foods too, and kids also don't need them at school. I do take issue with the ban on cookies though. Cookies come in a wide latitude of types, and cookies that have been amped up with, say, seeds, dried unsweetened fruit, whole oats, eggs, applesauce and butter -- sorry, but I don't see that as junk food (probably because, ahem, that's how I make them at home). Dark chocolate, in moderation...I don't think that's junk food either. But maybe that's too slippery a slope. On a side note about cookies, and there should always be side notes about cookies, have you seen our Quinoa Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies? They're so good. I'm sure many parents disagree with me on the principal behind this, even if they might agree with the nutritional argument. They might argue schools should stay out of lunch boxes, it's a parent's right to pack whatever they want for their kids, and the kids right to eat what they want at school...True, but kids are highly influenced by each other and we do have a problem with eating too much junk in our society, whether we want to admit it or not. So my questions is: Has this school gone too far? And did you eat junk as a kid at school and how did it work out for you? (I mean, I ate tons of it and I'm kind of ok, but then again I grew up in an era when parents smoked inside the house. Times have changed.) Photo credit: Evan-Amos as a part of Vanamo Media, via Wikimedia Commons. -Helen