Free Chicken Nuggets for Everyone!

By Chris Pelicano ( bio - articles ) | Feb 16, 2012

How about that North Carolina mom who sent her four year old to Pre-K school with a rather ordinary homemade lunch? The Department of Health & Human Services intervened, deemed the lunch unhealthy and augmented it with a serving of processed chicken nuggets ... then sent the child home with a $1.25 bill for their unsolicited interference.

Let's leave aside the fact that processed chicken nuggets are questionable at best as a legitimate nutritional food group. What gives the school and/or the Health Department the right to contradict mom's authority and tamper with the lunch she provided? This particular mom was justifiably upset. The bill just added insult to injury.

This shows how irrelevant parents have become, if not in reality than at least in the emboldened minds and policies of government directed agencies and institutions. Under the guise of good nutrition, the self-proclaimed "experts" wield self-appointed powers ... no doubt armed with self-serving statistical evidence to justify their actions.

Sound familiar? Of course, it's not about freedom or the rights of parents to decide and do what's good for their kids. It's about nutrition. Besides, 98% of all parents have eaten chicken nuggets in their lifetime. So, obviously they approve of chicken nuggets. Oh, and about that bill for $1.25? If parents object to paying it, the Health Dept. can make the school provide chicken nuggets free of charge. Better yet, let's make the chickens pay for it ... which is what's happening now ... unless we stop this nonsense?

Christopher Pelicano is a graphics artist who has both designed and written for CatholiCulture.org. Chris has more than 30 years of experience in graphic design, illustration, and creative problem solving, including many Catholic projects. Among other things, he created the author bio sketches on this website.

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• Posted by: wolfdavef3415 - Feb. 16, 2012 9:48 PM ET USA

  "...Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded. ... we must ... be alert to the ... danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite." Dwight Eisenhower's 'other' warning.