Lunchtime

Public school lunch, also known as prison food, is a mystery of the universe.

US school lunches were intended to provide students with an option for lunch that didn't require them to bring food from home. At the same time, they were supposed to be healthy and nutritious, fulfilling the "food pyramid" requirements. It is worth noting that these were also cheap and some students got lunch for free as their households couldn't afford food, the goal of this was to make school lunch accessible for all.

Lunch, Nutrition, and Accessibility. These were the factors considered to create the perfect school lunch. But the US government accidently forgot to consider another factor, Underfunding.
Thus, the Prison lunch was created. Using their ultra super powers, Preservatives, Frozen food, and the Lunch Lady, the Public lunch system has dedicated their lives to serving "food" and poisoning kids. 

When schools must serve healthy food that fit the food pyramid, while being underfunded, the result isn't pretty. It results in food of terrible quality that tastes like crap and the food isn't even healthy. I swear the "meat" is a vegetarian replacement, and  it's sometimes undercooked. The bread is also always stale as crap. 

I don't blame the lunch ladies at all, after all they aren't the cooks. They are just tasked with trying to serve the often ungrateful students with food. Almost of the lunch ladies I encountered were really nice and accommodating.

Schools have a habit of getting a deal with a pizza place for cheap pizza, which is understandable considering the financial situation. If we really want school lunches to improve, we need to fund them more, since a good accessible school lunch will always run at a deficit.

Also good job if you noticed the power puff girls reference in the 3rd section.

Comments

  1. Elizabeth TSeptember 26, 2018 at 3:19 PM

    Don't bash vegetarian meat substitutes. They're good.

    But I also totally get what you're saying. I haven't eaten school lunch (ever) since 2nd grade - I gave it up in Switzerland, but my friends dealt with stuff like this. One of them found hair baked into her pizza once. To this day we haven't decided whether to blame the pizza bakers, the delivery guys, or the lunch ladies. They wore hairnets, though... I think.

    Of course, things have gotten slightly more under control. There was a point where school boards wouldn't only make deals w/ pizza and soda places for food - the deal would have to include schools actively advertising those unhealthy foods, and supporting kids for eating them. At least now we can be informed enough to know that it's unhealthy and not try to brainwash little kids to believe it is healthy, even if we aren't actually fixing the problem.

    ReplyDelete
  2. tina wayneOctober 1, 2018 at 7:33 PM

    I'll admit, I was a bit skeptical of your criticisms of the school lunch program because too often we knock social programs for not doing enough while forgetting that for change we need money. However, you didn't disappoint. I'm glad you decided to explain how and why school lunches are so crappy. Maybe one day a lawmaker will find this post and will be inspired to create a more forgiving budget for school programs. Maybe. Great job.

    ReplyDelete
  3. CurtisOctober 3, 2018 at 5:52 AM

    Yes, it's a common stereotype that public school's lunches aren't very good in the way they taste, look, or even smell at times. I'm happy you brought a less considered factors into light with your post: the schools are too underfunded to be serving kids 5 star Michelin dishes, and that kids shouldn't hate on the lunch ladies serving foods they often didn't cook. Don't kill the messenger!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Max E.October 9, 2018 at 8:16 AM

    You're definitely right that school lunches are cheep and not as healthy as they claim to be. I've often wondered where schools can find such horrific food, such as milk that turns green and bread that appears to have been baked over a month ago. You do a great job of pointing out the issues in the school lunch system. The only thing I would argue with is that not all dinner ladies are friendly. Some are worse than the food they serve.

    ReplyDelete
  5. WillOctober 10, 2018 at 7:56 AM

    With how cheap they have to make these lunches, making them satisfy dietary needs is impossible. At the same time, I remember getting very sugary snacks as part of my school lunch throughout elementary school- things like gushers or pudding. Perhaps the government should stop giving kids candy for lunch and perhaps give them higher quality vegetables. However, even if they did that, lunches would be quite far from healthy. It's a bad situation that has no easy solution, that's for sure.

    ReplyDelete

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