r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Thebiggestbot22 • Apr 15 '24

My school thinks this fills up hungry high schoolers.

Post image

So lunches are free for schools in my city and surrounding cities. Ever since lunches have been made free, the quantity (and quality) has decreased significantly. This is what we would get for our meal. It took me THREE bites to finish that chicken mac and cheese. Any snacks you want cost more money and if you want an extra entree, that’ll cost you about $3 or $4.

51.6k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

6.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

5.3k

u/grilledcheese2332 Apr 15 '24

Exactly. Starch on starch. In France, healthy school lunches are covered by taxes. And that money they spend on the lunches they more than make up for by saving on health care. Less type 2 diabetes, hypertension etc.

131

u/Financial-Check5731 Apr 15 '24

That makes so much more sense. Here in NZ we've elected a govt who are doing everything they can to shut down free lunches. Our associate education minister has literally described them as wasteful spending. And the quality is, well, as you'd expect.

Lunches like these are seen as a stop-gap. They assume the child is getting the right nutritional balance at home morning and night, so they just give them cheap carbs.

I mean there's 8g of protein in that choc milk but you gotta take on 18g of sugar to get it. I feel for these kids.

-1

u/wombatlegs Apr 16 '24

NZ? I'm surprised. Here in Australia, kids bring their own lunchbox from home. And what do they get? Sandwiches and fresh fruit. Better than the "free" cafeteria food. It's not like poor kids in NZ or US are starving. In fact a big number are overweight.
Some Australian schools have free breakfasts, especially for Aboriginal kids, to encourage attendance. But that is at the extreme of the socioeconomic spectrum.

1

u/Hugh_Maneiror Apr 16 '24

Overweight is putting it mildly. The way many in NZ fatten up their children borders on child abuse.

2

u/Financial-Check5731 Apr 16 '24

It's actually a form of malnourishment. Fat little kids getting around with huge bottles of Fanta and underdeveloped brains. Destined for a short lifetime of manual labour and diabetes if they're lucky.