New Brunswick — A brand-new government school lunch program is taking heat from many New Brunswick parents, who say the meals are unappetizing to kids and lacking in nutrition. The parents in question, though, subsist on a combination of smokes, energy drinks, GLP-1s, and the odd Tim Hortons breakfast combo.
Gina Dawson, mom of an elementary schooler, said she can’t believe the crap the schools are passing off as nutritious fuel for learning.
She allowed a Manatee reporter a few minutes of her valuable time, and she elaborated on the cafeteria complaints.
“The thing is, I can’t even identify what that is! Looks like maggots!” she cried, pointing to meal pictures she had printed out. “I wouldn’t feed that to my dog!” Our reporter noted that Dawson’s dog was an overweight pug that was lying on a rug and struggling to breathe.
“Someone told me it’s lentils, but what the hell is a lentil? And this hotdog-looking thing is supposedly ‘kafta,’ which must be French for ‘turd,’ because look at it!”
Our reporter asked Dawson what kinds of food she normally serves her child.
“I don’t really see how that’s relevant, but we eat a lot of Kraft Dinner, chicken nuggets, and other things that everyone can recognize. And we do eat fruit and vegetables, but just the normal ones like potatoes. Not all these weird ones Holt is serving up.”
Dawson then lit a cigarette and offered our reporter an energy drink for the road. We continued on our way to visit another parent who objects to the government-funded meals.
“As soon as my son told me about the meatballs, I had to see for myself, so I marched right into his school at lunchtime to take a look,” said Arnold Smith, who was vaping and blowing the smoke in our reporter’s face. “They were a weird brown colour with something green in them — no idea what.” Even from Smith’s blurry phone photo, it was clearly a turkey meatball with parsley or some other herb mixed in.
We asked Premier Susan Holt for comment on the complaints.
“It’s $4 — what do you expect?” said Holt. “We’re trying to combat food insecurity, here, and make sure students aren’t going hungry in a time when even the most basic ingredients are very expensive.
“And let’s be honest — if you don’t know what a lentil is, I think you’ve got bigger problems.”