NationStates Jolt Archive

First off, let me say this:
I have never eaten school food in my life. I either brought my own lunch or skipped it.
That done with...

Where do they get off serving this crap?
They go about promoting 'health' and 'fitness', and you wander into the caffeteria to find...
Horrible pizza, with a consitency something like cardboard. You hit it on the table and it goes 'thump'.
French fries pracitally dripping grease.
A tub of wilted lettuce, the single voice of anything which isnt artificial or meat.
The soda machines, which have recently been converted to 'juice machines', which are the same as soda machines, except they arent carbonated. They still have Pepsi logos on them.

Of course, this is better than a few. My school in Oregon served 1950's army surplus, or so it seemed.

Anyway, Im not going to start blaming schools for the whole 'obesity epidemic', they share the blame with just about the entire country.
The point is, school cafeterias look alot like McDonalds now, complete with desultory employees from across the boarder who most likely arent being paid minimum wage, there is most likely some law regarding this, but what the heck, its school.

(OMGITSNOTAPARODY!)

They buy the cheapest shit they can find, they don't care what it looks like or if it's nutritious.

They can't provide good food for students. To do that, they would need to care whether we live or die, which, of course, they don't.

Sadly, it is rather simple. The reason that schools serve such food is because children will buy it. Which do you think the average student would buy: the wilted salad, or the bag of chips? You can also look at the continuing trend of unhealthy food costing less than healthy food. Why does water cost more than soda? Another big factor is portion size. For example, a package of Hostess Donuts contains two servings, but how many people eat them in two sittings? Not many. Finally, some of it is laziness--why go through the effort of making something healthy when something cheap, fatening, and premade is available?

Actually, the schools here do serve more healthful things -- students can get veggie burgers, tofu in various forms, salads, veggies, and yes, french bread pizza, hockey-puck hamburgers, chicken egg rolls, and potato wedges. None of it is fried, but all of it is chock full of calories.

And yes, I am talking about salad bowls of spinach salad with grilled chicken, or halved eggs, and such.... which they ruin by offering fat-filled salad dressings only (I grab lemon wedges or JUST the vinegar).

The reason?

For some students, the school's free lunch is ALL they are going to eat all day. Therefore, the school's nutritionists make it as stuffed full of calories as possible so as to try to maintain SOME kind of nutrition in the most poverty-stricken kids. Ours at least had the sense to add vegetarian fare to the menu and to increase the number of fruits (real ones! not packed in syrup!) and veggies available.

Anyone with a healthy diet who eats the servings of school food they give is going to pack on the pounds and fast.

My school food's ok, but 3 times a day, 5 days a week, and twice on Sat and Sun it gets...repetetive. I normally skip brekkie anyway.
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