Ranting about Social services and their take on healthy snacks

Warning: This is a mom rant about a very boring subject. I wrote this more to get it off my chest than for others to read. I'll post something a little more fun tomorrow.
My girls go to this fabulous preschool here in Richmond called River Road Preschool. The school itself has been in business for 30 years. They run the school out of River Road Baptist Church, which is a very large church here in town. So anyway, we've been over the top happy with River Rd. The teachers are awesome, the support staff is awesome and the director knows her stuff. So in this rant I just want to make sure that everyone involved understands that this rant is toward social services and not our fine school.

So to start the story. Our school is licensed in the State of VA and follows the guidelines set by the state. And part of these nutritional guidelines that our school follows comes from social services. Which I am 100% behind making children aware of healthy eating habits and starting them early. So again my gripe is not about food. Where my gripe is is the inconsistency in the guidelines.

It all started this morning when I was making snacks for the girls. In the school handbook it asks that we send in an item from two different food groups (i.e. fruit and cheese). So I work really hard to find yummy food that the kids will eat and that will travel well to school. Some favorites are cheese and crackers, or apples and cheese, or a cereal bar and a banana. All of which have been acceptable to the school. So back to this morning. I had nothing in the cupboard. So for Kate I packed a banana and 3 small oatmeal crisps (we call them cookies but they are really small and crunchy crisp things). And for Hannah I sent in 4 mini blueberry muffins that we made yesterday. So when I picked Kate up today the teacher said that social services does not consider "cookies" an acceptable snack so she was not able to eat them. My first thought was wouldn't it have just been easier to let her eat them and send me a note home so I would send them in again. And then I started thinking that they aren't horrible for you, its not like I sent in Oreos. So I called the school to get a list of acceptable and unacceptable snacks and they didn't have a list. They just said they go by the social services and the USDA food pyramid. So, at this point I was a bit mad. You mean to tell me that its up to the individual teacher to decide how much sugar is in a product??? So long story long, they will accept Teddy Grahams (which have a heck of allot more sugar than 3 little oatmeal crisp), and they also accept fruit rolls ups as a fruit snack (which my kids have never had because they are full of sugar). Now not to say I don't feed my kids crap, because I do. But I also try hard to feed them healthy food also. And when it comes to snack its even more important to feed them healthy food that they like.

So I guess by biggest gripe is the school is following someone else's list of foods that actually doesn't really exist. They just keep talking about the food pyramid. I know the food pyramid and fruit roll ups are not on it. So leave it to me to stir up the pot.

Oh and Kate could have cared less that she couldn't eat her "cookies" at snack, so I guess I was more traumatized than she was.