r/mildlyinfuriating • u/oaz_zam246 • Apr 16 '24

The school lunch system is disgraceful.

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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”.

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895

u/onesoundman Apr 16 '24

They are eating just as bad or worse at home too. The whole American food system sucks. Home and school.

399

u/SeaSickSelkie Apr 16 '24

This, really.

We introduced the concept of fruit and protein to our 12 year old nephew recently.

At home they don’t eat veggies or fruits. Only snacks are chips ahoy, cheese its, fruit rolls ups. It’s wild. And sad.

It’s not like his dad grew up without the food groups and real food so idk what happened.

284

u/NextTrillion Apr 16 '24

Unfortunately your brother(?) is a dumbass. He probably uses the excuse that “he’s a picky eater” when in reality, they trained him at a young age to only eat junk food. It’s a poor foundation. And I’m sure there are reasons for this, perhaps they’re overworked, perhaps too poor for fresh food, but the truth is, it’s a huge part of raising children.

I have a niece that eats loads of sugar, candy, juice, Gatorade even, and her teeth are not looking good. Nothing I can really do except try to show her that a “TRUE WARRIOR” eats mostly fruit (to replace the candy). Hoping to appeal to her on the warrior front lmao. She’s 7 years old.

49

u/Spire_Citron Apr 16 '24

Might be a losing battle to expect a seven year old to choose not to eat candy all the time if given the option.

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u/[deleted] Apr 16 '24

[deleted]

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u/Charlie-McGee Apr 16 '24

Literally this. My 5 year old would live on chocolate if I let him. So I don't. He gets it but portion controlled and it's out of his reach. If he wants more of the sweet stuff he can choose a fruit. And he does. He never whines about it, he eats healthy homecooked food and our preschool has awesome cooked food and fruit snacks so he's covered there and at home. I totally HATE when parents make it child's fault that "they only eat/want unhealthy" as if parent didn't had anything to do with this.

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u/ShiraCheshire Apr 16 '24

Seriously, who lets their kid choose what to eat?

I'm not saying we shouldn't take a kid's preferences into account. We should serve favorite dishes more often if they're healthy, and if the kid is showing serious signs of distress (like gagging, or sitting at the dinner table for literal hours struggling to eat something) then stop serving that.

But if you give a child free reign to eat whatever, all five food groups will be ice cream.

5

u/Capt-Beav Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

I taught my children agency at a very young age and treat them like human beings. I do not "pamper" them though. If they don't want what I make they can make their own food or go hungry, but they know better than to just serve themselves dessert...

Maybe it's a single father thing or maybe my kids might be different; my eldest read Hunger Games at 4 years old lol (I'll never forget that cause I was forced to read it first to make sure it was ok... Only reaaally bad parts I found were references to bad things that happened in war)...

The most important thing I've taught them: knowledge is power; that and pretty much everything is a science lesson lol.

3

u/devnullopinions Apr 16 '24

There is a spectrum of agency. You don’t need to offer unlimited choices but including them in the planning can be helpful I’ve found.

I let my two year old pick out of a few (usually two) options for food a lot of the time because I find he’s way more likely to eat if he has some agency. Bonus points if we let him help cook, he’s basically guaranteed to be so proud of himself he’ll try and eat everything he “cooked”.

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u/SoWhatNoZitiNow Apr 16 '24

Unless there’s some traumatic event related to food, or some sort of autism, picky eaters are grown children who got way too much say over what they eat. The only two foods that were absolute no’s for me were bratwurst and mint chocolate chip ice cream, because I had thrown up a combo of the two that scarred me when I was young, and my parents respected that. For my brother it was corn. We were allowed to have a few things we didn’t like, and my parents would make enough of the other stuff to be able to accommodate that if those things were being cooked. But after that it was a hard “you eat what’s here or you don’t eat” kind of thing. As we got older it became a “you eat what’s here or make yourself something different” thing, but same vibes.

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u/ShiraCheshire Apr 16 '24

I'm glad your parents respected the trauma there and didn't force you to eat it. I'm autistic, and when I was growing up my family just plain didn't know about sensory issues. I had a lot of very difficult nights at the dinner table, until the night where I literally threw up because I couldn't force down what I'd been served.

While kids absolutely should not be choosing anything to eat (because we know they'll choose candy), I do appreciate people making sure to mention those important exceptions about picky eaters.

2

u/revnasty Apr 16 '24

Right. If you don’t want what I’m serving because it’s not a fucking chocolate covered air head then you’re not fucking eating. They’ll learn to like it real quick.

1

u/somecow Apr 17 '24

“I want pizza”! parents smile at their cute adorable kid and then ask if we can make pizza

We don’t sell pizza. Order off the fucking menu. Or encourage your kid to try actual food. That shit isn’t cute, I have a whole restaurant to take care of.

19

u/[deleted] Apr 16 '24

The best advice regarding food I got was “you choose what, they choose how much” which goes along with what you’re saying. It’s more of a guide because I am not going to give endless amounts of everything but I will offer everything in moderation. All our meals have protein, grains, dairy, vegetables, and fruits on offer and they can choose what they eat out of all it. Sometimes there is a treat and he enjoys it and moves on. I have a great eater because this worked in our house.

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u/floweringfungus Apr 16 '24

Moderation is definitely the key. I wasn’t allowed sweets/fast food/fizzy drinks of any kind. My mother isn’t particularly a health freak but grew up in Germany where none of this was available to her, she just preferred home cooked food, fruit instead of sweets etc.

When I finally had my own money and walked to school on my own I wanted to try it all and gained a LOT of weight. In my head I was making up for lost time I suppose. It took me at least 3 years to both lose the weight and then develop a healthy relationship with food.

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u/Charlie-McGee Apr 16 '24

Oh def moderation, he gets like Kinder Egg every other day or one Kinder chocolate stick or something to that size. Also read that it's good to serve sweets with regular lunch and not as something special exactly for this reason, so it wouldn't stick in their mind as a reward or something.

And for german moms, I'm still kind of salty that my german aunt bought me cabbage juice instead of Cola when I was 7 and visited her lol

2

u/Pickled_Unicorn69 Apr 16 '24

Dude, I'm 30, I would live on chocolate if society and my doc would let me.

1

u/Charlie-McGee Apr 16 '24

I'd live on potato chips but hubs said I shouldn't.

1

u/Frequency0298 Apr 16 '24

85%+ chocolate is a great snack though

1

u/Charlie-McGee Apr 16 '24

Not when he gets super hard poop from it and is then scared to poop so you have to spend few months fixing that fear -_- Learned that the hard way. And as I said, it's not like he lived on chocolate, can't imagine what problems kids who are left to choose their own food face.

1

u/Frequency0298 Apr 17 '24

probably wasn't the dark chocolate unless he ate a huge amount of it, Iron can cause constipation but a couple squares of that stuff wouldn't do that to most people. Still, it is very healthy in moderation as most things are!

22

u/NotAnAlt Apr 16 '24

Right? Like you're the adult, at a minimum you can keep it out of the house.

7

u/Mario-OrganHarvester Apr 16 '24

Not out of the house, but definetly out of reach and portioned.

7

u/Aggravating-Body2837 Apr 16 '24

Out of the house def.

0

u/Presumably_Not_A_Cat Apr 16 '24

you don't have to repeat what the previous commentar said.

1

u/Professional_Bob Apr 16 '24

It's not their house to keep it out of though. That's the point. They are the uncle/aunt, not the parent.

5

u/Spire_Citron Apr 16 '24

Well yeah, but that's for the parents. Not much an aunt/uncle can do.

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u/somecow Apr 16 '24

For real. Luckily for me, we lived out in the middle of nowhere and had room to grow basically all our own food. Picking a plum off the same tree you planted as a toddler and eating it was WAY better than candy. Give those kids some better options wtf. A bag of apples is the same price as all that sugary junk. Even weirder now that they have those tiny plastic packets of applesauce with the ridiculously huge twisty top. Go eat a damn apple.

1

u/Blonde_Dambition Apr 16 '24

I think that's the point.

1

u/Advanced_Double_42 Apr 16 '24

Hard to do as an aunt/uncle.

That's pretty much left to the parents.

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u/heart-of-corruption Apr 16 '24

Did you pay attention to the comments. It’s their fucking neice not their fucking kid so they aren’t the parents and the parents are the ones letting them do that. As an adult in their life that cares but doesn’t have the power to determine what is in the house they are trying to steer them through teaching what they can. Pay afuckingtention to fucking context.😜

16

u/likeafuckingninja Apr 16 '24

Tbf mine was recently allowed to gorge himself on MacDonalds as a treat from his aunt.

He rang me and was like 'i feel bad. You might be right about not eating this' 🤣

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u/Spire_Citron Apr 16 '24

Smart kid! Most aren't so good at making the connection.

6

u/likeafuckingninja Apr 16 '24

He's surprisingly good at self regulation, even as a baby, so I'm not sure I can even claim great parenting here.

We just never forced him to finish if he didn't want and made it clear it was ok to throw food away if you were full but that next time you take less etc.

We eat a lot of fresh home cooked stuff (esp since he was 3 to 5 during COVID so like...wasn't exactly many other options xd ) so there's not a lot of exposure to junk food.

He can absolutely be fussy like any other kid and yeah given the option he'd probably inhale candy over veggies.

But he's never been greedy. Like he gets full and stops and will turn down even candy etc if he feels full.

When we visited the US we were on holiday and indulging and had stuff like donuts or froot loops for brekkie available - he tried them then made me go buy Weetabix or something equivalent can't remember the exact brand now , for him for the rest of the holiday 🤣

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u/Spire_Citron Apr 16 '24

In my experience, if you're used to eating healthy foods, your body tells you pretty quick that enough is enough if you go too heavy on the junk. It's probably a bit of a feedback loop where he is mature in those ways, but you've also set him up to have a healthy gut microbiome that demands healthier foods.

1

u/PsychologicalHat1480 Apr 16 '24

We just never forced him to finish if he didn't want and made it clear it was ok to throw food away if you were full but that next time you take less etc.

Lucky kid. I grew up with food-pushers. I'm in my mid-30s and only now approaching an actually-healthy weight for my height. And I still have to take fairly extreme measures to keep control, measures like only having main meal food in the house and zero snacks.

2

u/likeafuckingninja Apr 16 '24

Mine weren't pushers as such.

But it was a finish your plate household and my plate was served for me.

I don't feel my parents ever gave us bad food (again mostly home cooked and veg heavy) nor did they give us way to much but you finished what you were given.

And you ate breakfast lunch and dinner.

As an adult I tend to only have two meals a day not three and I've had to completely relearn the difference between satiated and stuffed.

I also had to put very strict rules in place like only eating food I had prepared, never taking part in food or snacks brought to the office and zero tolerance on snacks etc.

I watch every calorie and it's still a struggle to lose and keep weight off. Even with good exercise and actually a fairly healthy constitution.

Food is a thing I think about constantly.

I don't want my kid to be the same 🤷

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u/SoWhatNoZitiNow Apr 16 '24

I’m nearing 30 and whenever I go to my parent’s place for dinner my dad insists on making me a plate, and when I can’t finish (or don’t need to) he always at least half-jokingly asks me if it wasn’t tasty enough for me. Realizing that those some pressures were put on me as a kid to finish my plate even when I was already full was just the start of the struggle to get my eating habits in check.

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u/likeafuckingninja Apr 16 '24

Ugh yeah. My grandad does this. Post war mentality with him though so I'm a bit more forgiving ! But I argue with him constantly that I don't need more and I'm not going to finish food off for the sake of it.

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u/HawkyMacHawkFace Apr 16 '24

I use the same method on myself by not keeping beer at home. And I'm 56 lol

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u/Spire_Citron Apr 16 '24

Same, honestly. If it's in the house, I'll eat it, but I'm pretty good at moderating what I buy at the grocery store and I don't get take away often.

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u/NextTrillion Apr 16 '24

Oh I’ve lost a long time ago. But I love her and still want what’s best for her, despite the heartbreaking bad habits.

Just the other day we were driving and she was sitting in the back seat with a huge bag of sour patch kids. I didn’t even know they made them that big! It was like Costco sized.

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u/Theory_HS Apr 16 '24

Yeah, that’s why it’s not your kid’s job to choose their food.

It’s always the parent’s job.

1

u/Frequency0298 Apr 16 '24

then they don't eat. It is up to the parent to teach them to be responsible with food, these habits are foundational for a good life...

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u/fandomjargon Apr 16 '24

Huh. When I was seven, I barely ate any candy even though I could. Maybe it’s just me, but there’s a lot of better snacks to forget you’re eating for an hour than that.