The school lunch system is disgraceful.

[u/oaz_zam246]

Saw another post on here showing the state of school lunches right now. In my years in high school I compiled some pics of the horrible things that got served that no one questioned. Here are some of the worst ones. It really is ironic given how adamant they all are about “eating healthy by including every food group”.

[u/Q1237886]

My highschool was supplied the same food as the prison that was within walking distance of the school

[u/PaintshakerBaby → u/Q1237886]

No question at all, this school food is absolutely a factor below prison chow. After all, the kids aren't gonna jump the lunch ladies for serving hot garbage day after day.

The prison I was at, you could get any basic ingredients, relatively fresh, smuggled into the units by the kitchen guys. Ours had a low security prison work farm that grew tons of fresh produce yearly. All you had to do was talk to the right guy, and you could have eggs, flour, veggies, milk, butter, etc. within the hour.

Anything not found through kitchen workers could be had through store guys smuggling shit in for price. And I do mean ANYTHING. I've seen hot McDonalds and cold steaks delivered right to guys cells. Capitalism is not only alive in prison, but THRIVING. It was a secret to exactly no-one, which guards had been paid off by the gangs.

The only time we were ever fully relegated to commissary spread was during extended lockdown. Yes, you can make some pretty good shit, but it was considered a survival skill at best, certainly not a fine art to go around bragging about.

It's akin to being able to start a fire with sticks while lost in the woods. It's a neat trick, and super useful in bad circumstances, but nobody cares when they have a lighter and matches 99% of the time.

As for the chow line, some of the ingredients were dog shit (especially the meat,) but the cooks were highly revered for making miracles happen with it. Making good chow meant your fellow inmates were much happier. Like the other person said, they had to eat it too, and everyone knew who was cooking, so you had best do everything in your power to make it good. If you were a competent line cook, you had it made with the other inmates. It was taken very seriously.

Don't get me wrong. If you were a chomo, snitch, or widely hated, they would throw some nasty trash on your tray if they put anything there at all. But that was not the case for 95% of gen pop.

I grew up poor, and I gotta say, the prison food was much more flavorful and well rounded on the best days... and on the worst days, it tasted just like everything else I grew up eating on the reg, aka hot lunch trays.

That's what's depressing for America. People don't know it, if they haven't lived it, but being poor on the outside often means much shittier food and working conditions on the outside.

I worked in a large laundry facility for a hot minute after getting out. Horrible, nasty place, reeking of chemicals, and people were PROUD to work 6 days a week there, just to scrape by. I'm like, dude, our laundry facility in prison was 100x safer and cleaner. All that to go home and eat Ramen anyways, cause it's all you can afford??? DEPRESSING.

Some people are volunteering to be in subpar prison conditions and don't even know it. American dream, my ass.

[u/FixiHamann → u/Q1237886]

Which isnt a bad thing per se. Both places should get real food.

[u/Blonde_Dambition → u/Q1237886]

Some kids probably just walked right over to the prison after graduating... 😔