No more bake sales in New York schools?

BY PAM LOBLEY

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

COMMENTARY

A New York City board is about to vote on a regulation that will basically outlaw bake sales in the schools. You can't bake a bunch of brownies or cupcakes any more to try to raise money for your classroom. Forget about selling home-baked goodness.

You can, however, sell Doritos! Those are much healthier than your dumb old cookies!

The regulation is designed to curb obesity among children, a known epidemic. However, the city board imposing the regulation realizes that alot money is raised through bake sales, and many field trips and book lists are paid for on the backs of chocolate chip cookies. So as not to damage the fundraising efforts, you can still sell food, it just has to be healthy food. Like Doritos.

To be fair, it's not all Doritos, it's just two varieties of the lower fat types of Doritos. The rules also allow one type of Pop Tart, because the serving size has just 200 calories.

All food for these sales must be in marked, single serving packages with less than 35 percent of the items' total calories coming from sugars or fat. They must also have at least 2 grams of fiber and no artificial sweeteners. Doesn't that sound like a fun bake sale?

The kids are also allowed to sell fresh fruits and vegetables. Hm. In response to that I can only quote my nine year old son: "A banana? That's not a snack!"

My New Jersey town also has rules limiting bake sales and food brought in for class parties. No store-bought stuff where the first ingredient is sugar; you can bring in some homemade stuff, like cupcakes, but they can't have frosting. No frosting? That's not a cupcake. That's a muffin.

When the rules in our town went into effect a couple of years ago, all of our mothers just rolled our eyes. Yes, there is way too much snacking going on. But do you really think you're going to change that by serving mini bagels and fruit cup at the class Halloween party?

All Americans are snacking way too much. I personally can't get through the afternoon without a few fistfuls of Cheez-Its. I know I should be staying away from processed foods, but darn it all, Cheez-Its just really hit the spot.

I actually think the biggest problem in obesity is ease of store-bought snacks. If the only way to get a cookie was to bake a batch of them yourself, how many times a week would you really eat cookies? I don't think training kids to eat processed, packaged foods is really the way to end obesity. Bake sales in schools were a staple for the last 75 years and people didn't get fat until the last 20, when tons of packaged food started being used by us busy moms.

The idea that a Pop Tart, at 200 hundred calories, is a better choice than a homemade brownie, which, if it is the right size, is probably 100 calories, is ridiculous. All that processed food has additives, laboratory produced flavor enhancers and sodium which the homemade brownie doesn't have. Furthermore, whatever packaged foods the students sell, they have to first buy someplace, so half their profits are going to the manufacturer. In the old days, you just got mom to bake the cupcakes for free, and then you kept the full amount you made.

In a final show of irony and ineffectuality, the New York regulation is actually allowing one "no-brownies-barred" bake sale a month. So for one day a month, they can have a regular bake sale, and sell all the home-baked goodies. One bake sale a month ... well ... just how many bake sales are they having in total? Two a week? Three? If you're selling Doritos, Pop Tarts and Granola Bars in the hallways three times a week, and you can't figure out why your kids are getting fat, then really, you need to go back to school.

Pam Lobley is a columnist and co-author of the book "You Definitely Know You're a Mom When ..." To read her past columns or get contact information, visit her website: www.pamlobley.com.