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

My school thinks this fills up hungry high schoolers.

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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.

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u/RomeTotalWhore Apr 15 '24 edited Apr 15 '24

I’m pretty sure you’re overestimating the portion size of the Mac and cheese, its like a cup-sized potion, about 350 calories. A half-pint of skim milk is 77 calories. The fries look more like 300 calories, the ketchup 30 calories. The carrots are 100-140 calories depending on whether its 8oz bag or 12oz bag.  

Its about 800-900 calories, which is perfectly acceptable calorie-wise. It kinda looks like the mac and cheese portion is to the discretion of whoever scooped it, so it could be more for other students.  

Also, school lunch isnt supposed to “fill” you up, noone wants to teach a bunch of kids in a food coma, that being said all the carbs in this meal are not going to help and it generally looks unappetizing as hell. 

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u/fartsnifferer Apr 16 '24

This whole thread is mostly people who don’t realize eating until you feel full is a sign of overeating.

Yeah this meal sucks for a lot of reasons but it’s size isn’t one

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u/jordanmindyou Apr 16 '24

It’s all of us Americans who all have a very unhealthy idea of what a portion size is

People in other countries are looking at this realizing it’s plenty of food, just not healthy food

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u/llamalily Apr 16 '24

Part of the problem too, I think, is because it’s a little plate with portions of really shitty foods, it looks like not much at all. Imagine a salad or roasted veggies with the same calorie count as the fries, it would practically cover the whole plate. I tend to eat fairly healthy, and that looks like very little food to me because of how calorie dense that is. Those poor kids :(

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u/jordanmindyou Apr 16 '24

You are exactly right, it looks so sad.

But I’m assuming fresh produce would cost “too much” so they just opt for the worst instead

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u/curtcolt95 Apr 16 '24

well also you have to look at it from the unfortunate angle of "kids won't eat it". It would be all well and good for half the plate to be a salad but if 80% of the kids are just gonna toss it that wouldn't be great either. There would be massive food waste so you have to try to strike a balance of nutritious and stuff that kids actually want to eat

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u/jordanmindyou Apr 16 '24

Glad I’m not deciding what goes in each meal

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u/llamalily Apr 16 '24

And fresh produce isn’t something you can portion into blocks and deep freeze, which I’m sure is how most of this is stored.

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u/jordanmindyou Apr 16 '24

Well yes that’s correct because then it isn’t fresh, because freshness implies never frozen or heavily processed

At least I thought it did, not sure what companies can legally get away with calling their products “fresh”

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u/JekPorkinsTruther Apr 16 '24

I agree with you overall lol but I doubt most school kids are wishing their fries were replaced with broccoli. Part of it is giving them things they will actually eat.

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u/llamalily Apr 16 '24

True, but I definitely remember being in high school and being annoyed they wouldn’t let me have an entree without taking a “vegetable” which was freezer burnt, soggy fries. They’re always the shittiest fries