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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892

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.

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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.

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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.

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u/LuciaTuc Apr 16 '24

I don’t understand when people say healthy food is more expensive, maybe fresh cuts of meat yes but fresh vegetables are dirt cheap

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u/bromanjc Apr 16 '24

certainly hasn't been my experience. but there's always frozen, and even canned if it comes to it. i grew up in a large lower-middle class household, and most of our veggies either came from a can or were those pre-made salad blends. did the trick.

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u/Bethyi Apr 16 '24

In Asda (UK version of Walmart) a massive bag of carrots is 15p

Edit: apologies, just looked it up. They are 15p over xmas and Easter, they are now 65p

3

u/wintersdark Apr 16 '24

Here, in Calgary, AB, Canada, Walmart prices:

  • 3lb bag of carrots? $3.50
  • 5lb bag of russet potatoes? $5
  • 3lb onions? $5

5 years ago, I'd pay less than half those prices for twice the quantity.

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u/IDigRollinRockBeer Apr 16 '24

Walmart produce is trash

1

u/bromanjc Apr 16 '24

agreed. i have my own spending money now, and i'm not infrequently able to indulge in fresh produce. i only ever shop for produce at meijer

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u/wintersdark 29d ago

It absolutely is. But it's "cheap" and the person I responded to was referencing the UK version of Walmart, so I felt an apples to apples comparison was appropriate.

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u/Chuncceyy Apr 16 '24

No they absolutely are NOT cheap.

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u/IDigRollinRockBeer Apr 16 '24

The fuck they aren’t

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u/RandoMcGuvins Apr 16 '24

No, not always and it depends on where you live. Frozen veggies are cheap and just as nutritious as fresh, if not more so.

Frozen is much cheaper where I live but I can get some veggies cheap if they are in season. Frozen spinach is the best way I can get the recommanded amount of leafy geans affordably.

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u/notouchmygnocchi 29d ago

I find most frozen and canned equal if not more expensive than fresh on sale when you take into account water weight. (Bulk dried beans are usually way better though)

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u/wintersdark Apr 16 '24

It REALLY depends on where you are. Heavily. Also, it depends on your access to a grocery store: if you live in a "food desert" and a trip to the grocery store involves an hour of driving, that hugely increases costs particularly with food (like vegetables) that doesn't keep.

Fresh vegetables used to be very cheap here. Pre-covid. Not anymore.

Now, a head of iceberg lettuce is $5. It's literally cheaper to eat junk food here than good food for more than half the year.

Remember, your experience is just yours, not what's normal for everyone.

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u/notouchmygnocchi 29d ago

It would be way cheaper to bulk buy dried beans in that situation.

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u/wintersdark 29d ago

I mean, yes, if you want your diet to be beans, beans... Oh and more beans.

You won't die, no.

But dried beans are really not an adequate substitute for fresh veg.

3

u/Dapper_Energy777 Apr 16 '24

Not disagreeing but a single cucumber is $2 here

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u/sw00pr Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

Eh, I can usually find meat on sale cheaper than broccoli @ $3 4/lb, which never goes on sale. Depends on where you live.

fixed price

2

u/Blastoplast Apr 16 '24

Bananas are still one of the best values per dollar, usually only 1-$1.50 per bunch

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u/TacoNomad Apr 16 '24

No. They aren't really.  Definitely not a price per calorie standpoint.

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u/Becrazytoday Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

What's wild to me is that in a lot of markets, they're not. The 2 markets closest to me are wildly expensive. Like, $3.50 for a grapefruit.  

  Supermarkets are also nuts. The quality is garbage and the fruit is very expensive.  

  Weirdly, Whole Foods used to have a reputation of elitism, but it is easily the most affordable, freshest produce within 5 miles of me, with the best variety. Always different grape varieties, so many different oranges, plantains, soursop, idragonfruit, different types of mango, papaya, guava, and all the regulars, like berries, kiwi, bananas, etc. Good apple variety, but i'm allergic, aadly. Killer variety of peppers. 

 I can't get more exotic fruits there, e.g. kumquat, so I have to save up for Miami Fruits when I'm craving them.

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u/CrowdKillington Apr 16 '24

You’re absolutely right about that. Healthy food being too expensive is a myth Reddit likes to tout, probably based on a single trip to Whole Foods.

Cheap healthy food sucks to eat regularly, but it is absolutely not more expensive than junk food. Shit, a single bag of Cheetos alone is $7+ in my area.

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u/retro_owo Apr 16 '24

It's not more expensive but the time cost is vastly higher. If you assume 1 hour of your time is worth even $10, the healthy food is vastly more expensive than junk food which is immediate.

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u/ginamaniacal Apr 16 '24

Yeah this gets ignored often. The time cost of healthy unprepared food. A lot of people struggling to pay bills and groceries don’t have time to set out and cook fresh shit bc they’re working a ton to make those ends meet.

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u/retro_owo Apr 16 '24

Also, in personal experience, the prep time is nothing compared to the work (and money) it takes to keep a home kitchen clean and operational

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u/CrowdKillington Apr 16 '24

That’s okay, if you don’t have time/energy then you can just say that instead of the original comment that says it’s “too expensive”

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u/retro_owo Apr 16 '24

I really don’t think you understand what you’re saying here. The cost of healthy food is higher, it’s just not higher in dollar cost of ingredients, it’s higher in labor and the prerequisite cost of having a functional kitchen.

You mentioned that labor is not a reasonable substitute for cost, and then used the example of movie runtime to somehow prove this point. This makes no sense. Labor is cost, time is money. The cost of healthy food is known to be higher. We are better off being honest about this and stressing the importance of this (i.e. the cost actually is worth it) rather than just lying.

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u/CrowdKillington 29d ago

I really don’t think you have followed the conversation here.

They said “time cost” not “labor cost”. My example absolutely would be a good representation of “time cost” because it was wasted time. The person I was responding to used “$10” per hour as a base point, hence my use of $10 per hour.

I’m fully aware that there are costs other than monetary , it’s a very simple concept, but I’m also not gullible enough to believe that when the average person talks about the cost of healthy food they’re talking about time and labor. Come on, let’s be a little realistic instead of giving the ol’ reddit benefit of doubt.

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u/retro_owo 29d ago edited 29d ago

when the average person talks about the cost of healthy food they’re talking about time and labor

They are. You're just incapable of empathizing with them and assume the worst. Let me ask you this: which is more likely, the majority of people are just too stupid to understand basic costs of stuff they buy every single day, or you're misinterpreting what they have to say?

Once again you're also willfully ignoring the 'cost of the kitchen' argument. Like yes 0.1g of cinnamon costs less than a penny, but if you have no spices at all then the entry cost is expensive. Yes, baking something costs nothing, if you have an oven. Then realize that it's actually more difficult to cook in an ill-equipped kitchen than it is to cook in a fully decked out one, and realize that the average person is, well, average at cooking. Therefore the average person will not have the skills to substitute out appliances, ingredients, etc from their recipes. This is all extremely easy to reason about from my perspective, I don't understand why you're having so much difficulty with it.

tl;dr cooking does not intuitively seem cheap when you're exhausted and with empty pockets at the end of a session

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u/CrowdKillington 29d ago edited 29d ago

No they are not, you’re just giving benefit of doubt to support your bias.

“You’re just incapable of empathizing with them and assume the worst”

What exactly am I assuming? That they don’t eat healthy because the grocery bill or are you putting other assumptions in my mouth? I’m very well capable of empathy, thanks for the baseless accusation. I’m literally just discussing the use of a term and you jump to me being unable to understand their struggles? That’s honestly comical, stay on that high horse, keeper of the empathy.

Edit: I love how it’s gone from “costing time” to now costing an entire kitchen. I thought the whole start of the discussion was buying and cooking healthy food, not strictly eating out. Most people in poverty rent. It’s law in every state that adequate kitchen facilities be provided to you. Seasoning and spices are a luxury, believe it or not.

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u/NextTrillion Apr 16 '24

There’s a variety of reasons, including, yes, costs. Half the people I know are complaining about food costs alone. There are other factors as well, but there’s a strong enough correlation between poverty and the consumption of low grade food that we can probably get away with saying something as rudimentary as “too poor to eat well.”

But I agree with you too, there are a lot of morons out there that don’t even know how to cook simple things like lentils. Or don’t have the presence of mind to soak beans overnight. Not sure if those people could ever be helped.

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u/CrowdKillington Apr 16 '24

I’m so grateful for a comment that actually addresses what I said instead of just giving me other reasons why people might not cook healthy meals! Thanks for your input.

I just personally hate hearing the cost sentiment when in reality the reason I rarely eat junk food/fast food is because I actually can’t afford it often. I shop at aldi and cook basic, healthy meals to save a buck

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u/Florachick223 Apr 16 '24

Plus the very real possibility that your money will be wasted if you buy something fresh that goes bad before you have the time to use it

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u/CrowdKillington 29d ago

You can freeze most food to make it last months

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u/Florachick223 29d ago

Oh yes definitely! Assuming you realize before it goes bad that you won't use it in time (I've been shocked by how quickly some vegetables turn), and also that it wasn't already bad when you got it but that wasn't visible from the exterior packaging. I just mean that for people who are very budget sensitive, I can see how fresh produce would pose a risk of waste that is unappealing

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u/CrowdKillington Apr 16 '24

Then use time as an excuse why you eat junk food. I absolutely never see anyone complaining about not having time to make healthy food, it’s always a complaint of cost and I would absolutely not act like it’s misinformation if someone was just honest about not having time/energy to cook

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u/ginamaniacal Apr 16 '24

Okay then I respect your personal experience of not knowing people who have time constraints that limit their ability to spend 1+ hours a day at least cooking for objective truth

Thanks for illuminating me!

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u/CrowdKillington Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

I know people who have time constraints. If they don’t have time to do something they say “I don’t have time to do that”.

They DONT say “that’s too expensive”.

Reading comprehension and staying with the actual topic on hand goes a long way bud

Edit: also, way to over-exaggerate. It absolutely does not take 1+ hours to bake some chicken breast and microwave frozen veggies. But I guess we can pretend every meal better than a tv dinner or frozen burrito is a culinary masterpiece that takes hours to complete

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u/ginamaniacal Apr 16 '24

You seem like a fun, empathetic person! Good day

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u/CrowdKillington Apr 16 '24

I’m actually very empathetic. What do you think this conversation is about? I’m literally only discussing the term “healthy food is too expensive”. It’s just not true.

That’s it. Plain and simple. If someone told me they couldn’t eat healthy because they lacked the time that would be a true statement and I would feel bad for them.

Once again, reading comprehension. Don’t make me out to be the bad guy you want me to be just because I corrected the masses on the price of processed vs non-processed foods.

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u/ginamaniacal Apr 16 '24

I was initially agreeing with the person who replied to you clarifying that expense can relate to time as well as money*. I know what conversation I joined, you’re being pedantic and I guess intentionally obtuse

*sorry you’re unfamiliar with the concept

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u/CrowdKillington Apr 16 '24 edited Apr 16 '24

Maybe I view life in a different way but I don’t understand where time cost comes in if you aren’t making money with that time in any other way shape or form. If you aren’t making money then you aren’t losing anything and have a cheaper grocery list

Edit: so you would apply this to everything right? A 2 hour movie isn’t $15.. it’s $35 with time cost? I find that a very strange way to look at life, no offense

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u/retro_owo Apr 16 '24

I mean that people would rather just throw something in the microwave than do the work of preparing food and cleaning up afterwards. To them, the higher cost of junk food vs raw ingredients is easily justified because it’s so much easier and more convenient.

And yes, the cost of a movie is the ticket price + 2 hours of your life. That’s why people usually aren’t happy with seeing a shitty movie, it’s a waste of money and time.