It's Just a Cupcake: Only Store-Bought Treats in Schools?

these cupcakes look great mmm i want a cupcake now! lol

http://www.thebestcupcakes.co.uk/

rob

oops, I meant two bithday cakes each year: one for school party and one for family/friend party

No one will probably read this as I see it's over a year old but I'm compelled to write. My son has started first grade in the public school system and I have just encountered this ban. For the past five years, I have made two homemade birthday cakes decorated as Elmo, Batman, Scooby Doo, etc. I pride myself in the one creative thing I'm good at and the faces on the kids when they see the cakes makes it all worthwhile. But now, I find that I'm only allowed to bring in a pre-packaged 50 ingredient science project for a cake as opposed to my 5 or 6 ingredient cake. All in the name of health, allergies, and safety? Really? I found your site while beginning my research on this. I think I may have found a cause. So the school's right to allow processed, can survive on the shelf for 10 years ckae in the school overrides my right to ensure my child's limited exposure to unpronounceable ingredients. I don't think so.

I agree with many of the posters. The ban is prob due to health issues, and it's a sad, sad world when the squeakiest wheel presides over a supposed democratic society. My kids' schools don't have a homemade food ban, but I can see them starting to lean that way. My kids have nut allergies, but I specifically requested my kids NOT be placed in a classroom designated nut-free because it does not teach them to manage their allergies. Last year my youngest was in such a class, so I offered to bring in treats during a class party to accommodate everyone, including delish chocolate homemade cupcakes that were nut- dairy- egg free. One allergy-free mom was so perturbed that her child chose to eat one of my cupcakes without her approval (mind you, she didn't plan, organize, bring in any treats, or help pass them out even though she attended the party), that she immediately shoved me away when I tried to show her the cupcake ingredients list and dramatically declared that I was trying to poison her child. Excuse me??? Grrr...I have no use for bee-otches that think the world revolves around them.

Doesn't it just piss you off to spend that much on cupcakes? The elementary school I work at doesn't even want you to bring in food, and in a way I respect that. I see first hand what is in the kids' lunches and it is NOT pretty. Not as bad as the flavored milk and sugary cereal the school gives out for breakfast, but close.

I agree with you that packaged food sends a horrible message. The same people who bemoan the fattening of our children are the same ones who make the decisions to put crappy food in the school cafeteria and require packaged snacks and treats at school. How about requiring everyone to bring homemade food? I love the fact that your little girl is already baking, and I'd eat one of her cupcakes anytime!

The school that I worked for pre-quads enforced this rule a few years back in order to prevent possible allergic reactions and limit sugar as a main ingredient.
I understand somewhat the concerns and initiative, but I mourn the loss of homebaked treats.
I was truly looking forward to experiencing the baking and sharing with my little ones!

Jen

Mama 2 Quadruplets

www.murraycrew.blogspot.com ( http://www.murraycrew.blogspot.com/ )

This is heartbreaking to hear. How often do you hear of someone keeling over from eating a homemade cupcake. Your right not everyone has $30.00 to spend on a school treat. I know it was always hard for me to find money I didn't have and 30 bucks is alot of money. Ignor the school and enjoy the labors of your hard work in the kitchen, invite friends over for a tea party.
http://mgco4you.com/sValentino/

My friends with children would tell me that they'd buy baked goods for their kids' holiday school parties & I'd tease them & ask if they were too lazy to bake to which they replied that schools won't let you bake your own. I'm a child of the 80s and we would always have bake sales & parties regularly & I don't recall an instance when anyone got sick over these homemade treats. I wonder why the world is getting so sensitive all of a sudden.

I get the whole allergy thing. I have a nephew with peanut allergies and it can be very scary. I think his Mom handles it very well though-she takes treats that her son CAN eat and when the class gets a treat he chooses one of his. I also remember how cool it was to take treats we had made to school for my birthday. It was important!

I guess in the end, children just shouldn't bring treats to school to share with their class- it wouldn't be fun but it would solve the problem.
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How would the teacher think it's possible to know that there are some kitchens you wouldn't want to eat out of? And which ones? That sounds a bit dicey to judge, to me.

Each year, the classroom teachers advise us parents if there is a child in class with an allergy that we need to know about. We're also asked to mark anything that we make for bake sales and the like, to indicate if it contains nuts.

The students are very aware of their classmates allergies, and work around them. The allergic students take responsibility for their own allergies as well. It's pretty impressive to see a kindergartner ask at the bake sale table, "Does this contain any nuts? I'm allergic..."

To insist on packaged crap rather than home made is preposterous. Go only knows how much artificial-flavor-color-texture is crammed into a plastic wrapped, 'creme-filled' cake-like 'treat', and I ponder if just letting them eat the packaging is better/worse/the same as the product inside it.

While I find it irritating, I have a friend who lives in a district that is so uber-conscious of 'healthy eating' that they are not allowed to bring any treat in, unless it is 100% organic with exclusively all-natural ingredients. No cookies, cupcakes, or other sweet treats are allowed under any circumstances.

Can you imagine? "Happy Birthday, Kid...to celebrate, let's all dive into this delicious tofu and flaxseed fun-dip! grab a carrot..."

Somewhere, somehow, there has to be a happy medium!

~Margaret

Just Margaret ( http://maurhoffbarney.blogspot.com )

The cupcakes look delish.

There are so many allergies that so many people have that pretty soon we will all only be able to eat plastic. It is not your fault that you have allergies just be careful with even the store-bought stuff. It would be very hard for families to prepare egg/gluten-free cupcakes at home without some guidance.

I think some people are afraid of food that comes out of houses where cats and dogs are allowed to lounge on kitchen counters. Also, I am sure your daughter was clean while preparing the cupcakes but would you let a group of 3-4 year-olds fix your lunch?

I agree with you about the school policy.

I didn't get it before either, but a friend who is a teacher explained that there are some kitchens you wouldn't want to eat out of and how are teachers supposed to say "this mom can send homemade treats, but this one can't." So they say no one can.

Nancy

http://teachingsundayschool.blogspot.com
http://www.abridescookbook.com/blog
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http://onlinestoregivitup.blogspot.com
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This really irritates me! My dd's daycare will let us bring homemade treats, but this is from our district's handbook:

Food Brought Into School
As recommended by the Monroe County Health
Department, the practice in this district is to not allow any food other than commercially
prepared food to be brought into the school for student consumption. This practice would apply to food that is sent to school for a party or special occasion. The reason for this rule is the spread of communicable diseases such as hepatitis A through the consumption of home prepared foods.

I think it's a load of hooey. Think about the diseases from the peanut contamination a while back. I'm betting my kitchen is cleaner than some industrial sites, but it does avoid the liability problem. Sooooo sad. :(
Patience is a virtue that takes too long ( http://take3-cassandra.blogspot.com/ )

I would love to just eat some fucking cupcakes and be happy! I will buy them from you!

I'm so glad it's not like that at my kids' school yet. We actually even do have an annual bake sale. Up until this year it's just been pies - homemade or storebought acceptable. This year it's expanding to a dessert social, instead of just pie and I am pretty sure I'll be baking cupcakes!

Laurie, mom of 3 boys and

blogger about my VA business ( http://halosecretarialservices.com/blog ) and my life as a work at home mom ( http://mobilemommy.me )!

That's been the rule here for years, and the reasoning I've heard is hepatitis.

Still, it's disappointing. :(

Plus - when I've had to buy 24 bakery cupcakes to bring in, that takes what could have cost $5 and quadruples it. I hate that part almost as much.

I also hate that this increases the consumption of processed, packaged foods over something simple and homemade. We do this - make these rules in schools and promote Branded Pizza Day and packaged foods for birthday treats and then we throw up our hands and say "Why are our kids getting fat?" Makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

Honestly, I'd rather them do away with birthday treats altogether than say "Bring only packaged stuff."

JustLinda

fabulously imperfect Nothing to See Here... Just Linda ( http://justlinda.net )

Twitter @JustLindaSTL

At least that's the excuse we've been given. I'm with you on the whole issue - I'd prefer to take homemade treats to school. They can be made healthier for one & cheaper as well.

If your child has a severe food allergy, then the parent needs to teach them to not eat food unless they know how it is prepared. Store bought treats aren't guaranteed to be allergy free either.

Elizabeth

@texasebeth

http://texasebeth.blogspot.com

http://www.LandRDesigns.etsy.com

Geez oh peas, this is ridiculous on so many levels.

As a twenty-something, I can remember when people didn't sue each other frivolously and when people had fewer allergies (is it the environment?), but I also remember when all of my fun came to an end because people grew litigious.

I remember when I started 3rd grade, I was so disheartened upon seeing a barren playground. It was like that all over the city (except for private schools) because someone sued the Orleans Parish School Board.

After that came the McDonald's and local playgrounds.

When I was a girl, teachers were made aware of their students' allergies and the other parents were also made aware.I also think that a parent would put more care into the homemade treats than a bakery. If a parent knows that one of her/his child's classmates has a peanut allergy, that parent would certainly make sure that he/she avoids all contact with peanuts while making the treats.

I hate having to walk on eggshells because of our litigious society!
-Megan Anne

Please visit, subscribe to, and share: http://www.momentswithmegan.com "An Independent Twenty-Something Girl and her Pursuit of Happiness...or at Least Satisfaction."

That is disappointing !
Store-boughts are stale, greasy or/and dry, empty of excitement and full of beurk.

Maybe you could sit just outside of school property with your daughter to eat your very own and delicious cupcakes.

At least when you bake your own you know what's in them ! I would eat a handmade cupcake before I eat one bought at the grocery store. Except for the ones made in cupcake shops.

Terry Elisabeth
http://pandabox33.wordpress.com
http://bazookah5.wordpress.com

And then I would make my cupcakes, buy them from my company and then bring them in.

Personally I think it's a very stupid rule. It can't be about food safety -- people have become very ill and/or died from eating fast food hamburgers or bagged spinach. I suspect that you're more likely to get a food borne illness from commercially prepared foods than homemade foods.

Allergies -- require people to list ingredients on foods they bring. If there's an allergen, pass on the food. If mixes aren't being used, you're more likely to know exactly what's in something if it's homemade rather than store bought. For instance, "spices" is pretty vague.

I've heard that it's about calorie or quality control -- which also seems very silly to me. There's no quality to most store bought treats. I won't eat most store bought cupcakes because they taste like chemicals. They taste like that because chemical are on the ingredients list.

I hate being cynical, but I'd look for some influence from Big Food here -- they're already in bed with school systems and the government. This is a way to ensure that we keep buying their crap.

My kids are adults now, but store bought treats were off limits in our home when they were growing up. It contradicts what Michael Pollan says: "Eat all the junk food you want as long as it's homemade."

I was talking to a mom who had a child going to a school district where only individually wrapped snack items from a licensed bakery were allowed. Apparently, there was a hepatitis exposure incident from home baked treats in years prior, and the district decided it was worth the risk.

I'm kind of bummed that I won't be using my new Cupcake Courier as much as I expected, since I just found out that my son's new school doesn't allow edible treats (storebought or homemade) for birthdays at all!

Lady M blogs at http://www.empress-m.com/

And I have a massive amount of food allergies. I think this is more about liability issues because this started before increased awareness of food allergies. I sent sliced apples to class and they were sent home uneaten. It's complete crap. I'm supposed to instead by baked goods full of chemicals or pre-sliced food treated with preservatives because that's safer for our kids. I call bullshit! And it pisses me off beyond belief so I completely agree with you.

I think it's less about rat poison and more about the huge increase in allergies. As an example: I'm allergic to cinnamon which is a very rare allergy. If I can read a list of ingredients, I avoid a trip to the ER. If I eat one of your cupcakes that doesn't look as if it should have cinnamon but, in fact, does, I get to take a ride in a very expensive ambulance.

Not that I'm disagreeing with you. I'm Methodist as well. Potlucks are what I do. As an adult, I know to avoid things that may have cinnamon: barbeque sauces, baked beans, almost all desserts whether they were store bought or not, chilis and, really the list goes on. If my child had this allergy though? We'd be avoiding potlucks, homemade cupcakes and everything in between. If my child had a less-rare but more-prevalent-in-foods allergy? Well, it would be very difficult to handle. Friends of ours have a son with an egg allergy, among other things. He can't eat anything and it's very hard for him to deal with at the age he is because his friends are at a "mmm, this is SO good and YOU can't have ANY" age. Boys are awesome, no?

Again, I'm not disagreeing with you. It'd be great if we could all just eat cupcakes and be happy but it's not really a reality for many children (and adults like me).

@FireMom ( http://twitter.com/FireMom ) from Stop, Drop and Blog ( http://stopdropandblog.com ) and
The Chronicles of Munchkin Land ( http://thechroniclesofmunchkinland.com )

...why my kids are in their last year of public school!

Can't wait to go back to homeschooling, for this reason and many, many others.

School lunches are crap. Commercially prepared birthday/holiday treats are chemicals. There is soda in the ELEMENTARY school here.

Gimme a freakin break.

If someone doesn't have time/energy/compulsion to clean their kitchen very well, are they really going to have time/energy/compulsion to make homemade goodies?
I would MUCH rather make homemade goodies, and have my child learn to appreciate the good of homemade than bring in store bought "treats".
At my daughter's school they told us last year not to bring food as birthday goodies- just little toys. This year she's brought home several goodie bags with candy.