You said the policy discourages it – but doesn’t prohibit it. In that case – I would do what you feel comfortable with. However, in today’s litigious society you have to be careful about circumventing policies that may be there for your protection or the protection of the students. There are so many children now days with food allergies that you have to be extremely careful what food you provide. There are also religious restrictions for some people and parental restrictions or prohibitions of different foods. Following the policy would keep you from doing something that might be called into question.

Any teacher working at a school that has a policy like that should be sending their resume out to other school systems.

In the 1940s kids used to cut school in New York to go see the Broadway theaters with a performance by Frank Sinatra and the big band behind him.

He’d pass out sandwichs to the kids sitting close to the front.

Sinatra wasn’t a teacher or even a college graduate but he sure knew how to work the audience and knew a full stomach was a more receptive mind who would give him their full attentions instead of listen to their stomach grumble.

A true story told to me by one of the kids who used to cut class to see Sinatra. That kid went on to become a Chemist and one of the foremost cinema experts in the world.