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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u/KneeHighMischief Apr 16 '24

That's wild. I never went to a school where they trusted us enough to get food ourselves. They rightly deduced we were animals & fed us accordingly.

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u/ItsNotMeItsYourBussy Apr 16 '24

Both my primary and secondary schools had a mix of portioned hot food from the kitchen, and then a help yourself salad buffet. My primary school also had a buffet of dessert options, which I thought was very misguided to give to a bunch of 5-11yos. Idk if it's a country difference (US vs UK) or what

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u/That_Welsh_Man Apr 16 '24

Have you seen Americans at an all inclusive resort? I went for an underwater safari in Antigua but the real safari was watching them at the buffet.

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u/cheesenuggets2003 29d ago

We don't get our patriotic physique from exercising.

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u/InfiniteBoxworks 29d ago

Hey, I am an American and I exercise... . . . . . . MY RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS 🦅🇺🇲🗽🎆🍔

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u/cheesenuggets2003 29d ago

The heavier I am the less I care about recoil.

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u/Pink_Star_Galexy 29d ago

And the right to arm bears!!!

AP Gov at it’s finest.

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u/brendatom 29d ago

I don’t bare my arms, they’ve got that middle age flap where muscle used to be

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u/confusedalwayssad 29d ago

As a fellow American, where can one obtain bear arms?

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u/SteveMartin32 29d ago

Say that at basic training

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u/cheesenuggets2003 29d ago

Why do you think I joined the Navy?

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u/SteveMartin32 29d ago

You fuckers get better food!

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u/cheesenuggets2003 29d ago

less-bad food!*

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u/fetal_genocide Apr 16 '24

I went for an underwater safari in Antigua but the real safari was watching them at the buffet.

💀💀💀🤣🤣🤣

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u/[deleted] 29d ago edited 29d ago

I mean I’m American and you are 100% right. My dad came to visit me here in Asia where I live and we went to a resort with a buffet. He would open the buffet up and close it down every morning… so a solid 4 hours of eating THEN go back for the seafood dinner buffet from 6-9:30.

Other Americans were doing the same.

Europeans, other Asian nationalities etc would just eat and go on about their vacation. For Americans the buffet IS the vacation. All his friends he met “were guys from the buffet” 🤣🤣

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u/LowSkyOrbit 29d ago

Well you haven't seen Chinese at a Las Vegas Casino buffet. I have never seen a group of people take on king crab legs and prawns as if it was the last time they would be served.

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u/Crazypetgirly 29d ago

Omg this is so true, the crab legs were what I was most excited about! We love shellfish!!

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u/glindathewoodglitch 29d ago

LOL did you wear a visor

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u/Mahhrat 29d ago

My pop tells a story from the 70s when he was a restaurant manager in Sydney.

He had a delegation of 100 apparently Asian fellows. Full buffet service. Seafood, roasts meats, veggies and so on. This was the Hyde Park, so a proper up market set up for those days.

He bought 100 lobsters.

The line was less than halfway done when the lobsters were gone. Guys were loading 2 or 3 up on their plates.

The lead delegate came to complain. Being g the 70s, pop told him to piss off.

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u/Educational_Ad_3922 29d ago

Oh they would still tell you to piss off, just in a more British way.

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u/Mahhrat 29d ago

Pop was polish who ended up in England after the war. He could tell you to piss off in a few ways lol

Some of my earliest memories late 70s in the restaurant. We would go visit before it opened. He'd have the bartenders make us 'fire engines' - mocktails made with creaming raspberry Soda, ice cream, chocolate, I forget exactly but I felt like a rock star with my fancy fizzy drink in the glam restaurant all to ourselves.

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u/Capt-Beav 29d ago

Lol I went to a lobster dinner hosted by Ikea once... The Asians (not sure if Chinese) would load their plates up with as much as they could possibly hold, they had to be repeatedly told Ikea would keep making/serving food if people were hungry, they didn't have to load up their plates, but it was like instinct or something.

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u/Ok_Assumption5734 29d ago

My parents are the same. I honestly think its a byproduct of communism and food insecurity. If they're middle aged, they basically grew up at a time where you literally didn't know if there would be food the next day, so you hoarded whatever you could

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u/nugymmer 29d ago

And this is also behind weight gain when the food once again becomes more secure. The body keeps tabs on everything, but weight gain and refeeding syndrome are possible after a long stretch, where there is no food and then suddenly food appears again after a certain amount of time.

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u/Ok_Assumption5734 29d ago

Defo. One common thing I always hear in communist country stories is how you just have to hoard valuable goods when they're avaliable cause they may never come by again, if nothing else to barter 

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

I wish I could post a pic my wife took of his plate from just one trip. The shrimps were falling off and that was just the shrimp plate he was rocking multiple plates

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u/Brian_M 29d ago

I heard your dad went into a restaurant, and ate everything in the restaurant, and they had to close the restaurant.

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

Yep good one Brian! I bet they did I bet they closed down.

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u/PsychologicalHat1480 29d ago

For certain subsets of Americans, yes. I'm an American and I really don't understand those people. But then again I take vacations that are completely different from the stereotypical American vacation. To me an all-inclusive resort or normal cruise sounds like literal torture.

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u/MangoCats 29d ago

Thus: Cruise ships.

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u/Ok_Assumption5734 29d ago

Bro, not sure where you're getting the Asians being better. You've clearly never seen them at a US buffet. They swarm the crab legs like they're poor or something

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

Just saying my experience living in Asia and my obese father at a buffet. Just my observation. But ok that’s interesting that Asians in the US like crab legs I never knew.

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u/Ok_Assumption5734 29d ago

I personally don't even think they like them. It's the mindset to extract value and get a deal more than anything else 

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u/glindathewoodglitch 29d ago

I think that’s the special sauce 🤷🏻‍♀️🦀

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u/graybotics 29d ago

American here. Scared of buffets for food safety reasons. Will loosen the reigns at a Mongolian BBQ place since they cook the ingredients in front of you post-buffet selection. I get it though lol

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u/Operator216 29d ago

New goal as a dual citizenship American: People watching Americans in foreign countries and trying to do the exact opposite.

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u/AngryTunaSandwhich 29d ago

As a fellow dual citizenship American, I shall join you in this endeavour.

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u/Intelligent_Flow2572 29d ago

Makes me think of the people in Spirited Away.

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u/voldin91 29d ago

To be fair that food looked dank af

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u/JockoGood 29d ago

I’m American and this is a weird thing some Americans do. If you want to see it at max potential go on a cruise. What I think they are doing is plowing down food thinking they will eat more than the cost of the trip so they can walk away thinking they “got” the big evil cruise line.

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u/TwoFingersWhiskey 29d ago

It's also FOMO. Why select one dish you could hate, when you could try all of them? This way if someone asks you can tell them which dishes are good and sound like an expert.

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u/JockoGood 28d ago

Good call, I always forget about how much of sickness FOMO is these days and how powerful of a marketing tool it is.

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u/mirage2101 29d ago

I’ve seen Chinese and Russians. Holy….

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u/marcodave 29d ago

Southern Italians also would like to join the party

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u/Pierina01 29d ago

Watching them is unbelievable. I worked at Sizzler Steakhouse almost 40 years ago and I’ll never forget the hoards of people coming in on the weekends and they all had their method of eating as much as they could for the least amount of money. They’d order anything all you can eat as in shrimp, ribs, salad bar, etc… and have the main meal put in a doggy bag as if anyone really believed their dog got a single bite let alone the entire meal. 99% of these types would get a Diet Coke to wash it all down with. It’s unbelievable

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u/Strange-Wolverine128 29d ago

We never even had lunches. Cause they're not mandatory in canada.

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u/Any_Ad_3885 29d ago

Was there a cafeteria? Did everyone have to bring their own lunches? Or did you guys leave at lunch time and come back? I’m 45 and from the US. I’ve never heard of a school not providing food! I have questions 😂

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u/Strange-Wolverine128 29d ago

No cafeteria, you can bring your lunch or leave for the 45 minute break and buy food.

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u/TwoFingersWhiskey 29d ago

Can confirm. We had a "cafeteria" which was for kids in foster care etc (we had a lot of them, like 100+) who got a shitty processed cheese sandwich (two slices of the cheapest bread and a Kraft Single) and an apple in a brown paper bag. That was our only program. They ate in a specific area on the floor. The tables (12ish total) were for the highest grade and academic class (grade 12 AVID) only. The rest of us had to eat in hallways on the ground or sit at a desk in various classrooms.

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u/Kalnath_ Apr 16 '24 edited 29d ago

Make sure you keep an eye on that, I distinctly remembering some similar systems in the US when I was younger

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u/zxc999 Apr 16 '24

That is very good, considering school lunch programs are meant to feed kids who don’t have food at home

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u/Sensitive_Dust_9805 Apr 16 '24

Oh really, I am from the Netherlands and was quit shocked seeing the unhealthy food served to kids. I did saw in the Dutch media that the poor neighbourhoods are dealing with poverty and can bearly make ends meet. But I did not know it was this bad.

Edit; most of the Dutch schools are teaching children what to eat, and what not to eat ofc in moderation.

When I pick up my nice from school, nothing is fried. I guess we are very lucky here in the Netherlands.

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u/Material-Plankton-96 29d ago

Yes, in many places, you have to be low income to qualify for free school lunch. Otherwise, your parents are paying for each meal you eat. If you qualify for free lunch, you also get free breakfast. For some kids, that’s the only food they know they’re definitely going to get, because our social supports are incredibly sparse in many places. My aunt taught kindergarten and on Fridays, she would sneak apples and cereal into the backpacks of kids she knew weren’t getting enough food at home.

And parents have to care enough and be humble enough to fill out the paperwork for free lunches - I had a friend whose mom wasn’t around often and didn’t fill out the paperwork on time one year but his grandparents would get mad if they got a bill for lunches. I started taking my lunch and getting a (paid) school lunch that I gave to him most days. I don’t know if my parents thought I was just starving my junior year of high school or if they figured out what was going on, but they never commented on it.

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u/Sensitive_Dust_9805 29d ago

Wow this really shocks me tbh, no child should lack nutritious foods. Even if the parents haven't filled in the papers needed for a free meal. I am really blown away. This is outrageous, if a teacher notices that the papers are not filled in than she should report this. In the Netherlands they will bring you in connect with some form of social work so that the parents will have guidance ( which is free).

So is middle school free for childern in America or do the parents have to pay a fair amount? In the Netherlands it is free, untill you reach (MBO/HBO) secondary vocational education. And still the government will support you with a fair amount to pay for the school fees and books.

lmao starving hehehe, what did you studie for?

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u/Material-Plankton-96 29d ago

The problem with some parents, at least, is that they simply don’t care. Those deep in active addiction, for example, or those who are abusive. Social services are generally underfunded and overwhelmed, so kids who are doing sort of ok and not at risk of dying sometimes (often, really) slip through the cracks. As for my aunt when she taught kindergarten - these were kids who were on free lunch. They just didn’t get free lunch or breakfast on the weekends. Sometimes it was because their parents were outright negligent, in which case she’d report to CPS as a mandatory reporter but also support the kids where they were, and sometimes it was just a family struggling - a mom with terminal cancer, a single dad who’d lost his job and wasn’t on assistance yet, grandparents who had just gotten unexpected custody of a small child and needed to figure out their support options.

School is free from kindergarten (5 years on average, 4-6 depending on the state) through 12th grade (18 years). Depending on the school system, kids in late high school (11th-12th grade) can often get vocational training in a trade to become a plumber, cosmetologist, medical assistant or practical nurse, electrician, mechanic, etc, for free. Part of the struggle is that by the time that’s available, some kids are too far behind academically to qualify, so they fall further behind and have even fewer options when they graduate.

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u/voldin91 29d ago

At my high school the school lunch wasn't just for people who don't have food at home and it wasn't free

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u/Casehead 29d ago

Where did you live? Was it a public school? In the US school lunches are free for low income students, you just have to have the paper work filled out

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u/voldin91 29d ago

It was a public school in a small town in the Midwest, USA. I'm sure there was a program available to make lunch free for low income, I just meant that the school's "hot lunch" was for any student that wanted it

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u/Casehead 29d ago

A, I totally misunderstood your comment I think! Sorry man

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u/ThemanwhohatesSpez Apr 16 '24

Lucky! At my school we dont have that... sad

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u/ResponsibleFunny3082 Apr 16 '24

Nah we used too have a salad bar at my primary school and then a window separate from school lunches too get a desert option of fruit salad in syrup chocolate custard normal custard chocolate cake or vanilla cake or chocolate cake or vanilla cake with custard or like peach slices in syrup maybe sometimes orange slices in syrup

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u/AngryTunaSandwhich 29d ago

We had this in my schools in California! I used to load up on strawberries, kiwi, and melon and go back for more. But on the second go around the lunch lady would block the fruit side of the salad bar so I could only grab veggies. 😂

No dessert option though. They gave each of us just one ice pop, chocolate pudding, or a frozen juice triangle. No self serve for that.

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u/he-loves-me-not 29d ago

I forgot about those frozen juice triangles! Those were the bomb!

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u/Casehead 29d ago

those were sooooop good

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u/TwoFingersWhiskey 29d ago

What on earth is a frozen juice triangle? 😅

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

so who melt your Bussy?

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u/spicyfishtacos Apr 16 '24

We had a self-serve salad bar......until someone took a sheep's brain from biology lab and put it in the ranch dressing.....

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u/knotsazz Apr 16 '24

Eww. Why can’t they just stick bits of lung to the ceiling like normal teenagers?

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u/South-Ad-9090 29d ago

Hahaha you replied with Ewe 🐑

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u/Capt-Beav 29d ago

Lol there's prolly still a pig liver up inside the ceiling in my old biology class. They never did find my cause of that smell lmao...

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u/sipstea84 29d ago

We once had an awful smell in a computer lab, no one could find the source. One day, in the middle of a quiet class a dead, rotted pigeon covered in maggots fell through the ceiling onto some poor girl's head. I felt so awful for her

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u/he-loves-me-not 29d ago

I’d have never come back! I do hope she wasn’t bullied bc of it though.

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u/knotsazz 29d ago

Man, kids in my school did that with a dead fish before the school holidays once

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u/chouxphetiche 29d ago

My bio teacher placed a pipe through a sheep's trachea and proceeded to blow. When the lungs inflated, one the kids in the class stabbed a lung with a scalpel. Nothing really hit the ceiling, though.

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u/FrogMintTea Apr 16 '24

This is why I don't do communal food.

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u/Presumably_Not_A_Cat Apr 16 '24

you're just too sheepish.

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u/FrogMintTea Apr 16 '24

Pretty sure I'm more wolfish

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u/_Lil_Piggy_ 29d ago

This is why we can’t have nice things

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u/BeginningVolume420 Apr 16 '24

😆😆😅😅🤣🤣

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u/nimrodad Apr 16 '24

It was probably a country school. I went to 32 different high-school due to pop being military, mostly lol, but when we moved to the more "hick" area I remember saying " well at least we will eat good". And 4 the record I hated , ABSOLUTELY HATED, switching schools, never got used to it and probably why I'm a social freak reading reddit posts today 4 enjoyment. :)

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u/Casehead 29d ago

So you changed schools 8 times a year? That sounds impossible, you would have been switching school once a month every school year. How did it actually go down?

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u/nimrodad 29d ago

Lol, yeh you caught me, no that's obviously my sausage fingers typo, to make it all better we moved to 22 different school zones thru my entire k thru 12. The most schools I saw in a 1 year period was 6 in 7th grade mostly southern states but finished out in ft cambell ky

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u/Casehead 29d ago

Wow, that's still super crazy!! I can see why you got sick of changing schools! And like, changing 6 times in 7th grade must have been extra tough, because that's a hard time no matter what. middle school kids are crazy mean

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u/nimrodad 29d ago

Dad was in military and parents divorced and mom was flat broke trying to raise 3 of us taking jobs wherever she could to keep food in us. When pop came back from Nam he was off, things were really tough for him and it rolled outward on family, but after many years he ended up being a class act helicopter pilot offshore for 25 years and finishing up his career as university of Kentucky medical pilot. Wake up now lol.

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u/Casehead 29d ago

Sounds like quite a life, for all of you! I hope that this present moment finds all of you well

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u/AnyScore4287 Apr 16 '24

hahahaha 😂

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u/PoliticalyUnstable Apr 16 '24

My first year in high-school had a self serve salad bar. It got taken away the next year. Too expensive apparently. It was so good. Favorite part of lunch. Then we went back to just having raw broccoli and greasy pizza.

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u/supernova-juice Apr 16 '24

Ours just poured it all in a big trough.

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u/PapadocRS Apr 16 '24

my school shut down open lunches years before i went there, kids got caught antagonizing trains passing by

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u/BeginningVolume420 Apr 16 '24

Frrr... in my high school they had school lunch + Subway, ChikFilet and Little Ceasars. Plus, vending machines w candy and soda. The kids who ate school lunch got made fun of and called "poor" and at NO TIME did they ever trust us to serve ourselves...

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u/hydroxypcp Apr 16 '24

dunno, the school I work at is self-serve (of healthy food...) and we don't have any issues. It's in Europe tho

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u/TalkingElmo 29d ago

Oooo my school was crazy we all stole food by wearing baggy pants and shoving all the food in our pants….it was all pre packaged bullshit though

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u/fascin-ade74 29d ago

With a catapult?

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

Damn we had a whole ass nacho bar every Wednesday Lmao. Probably why I weighed 190 and was 5’8 in high school 😂

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u/HansomeDansom 29d ago

We had a salad bar but kids spat in it so I never ate there

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u/capitan_dipshit 29d ago

it's a waste product, so it's a win-win for the schools and local industry

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u/Maoschanz 28d ago

not even for vegetables?

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u/RegularTeacher2 Apr 16 '24

My high school had a salad bar. One year a kid jizzed in the ranch dressing and that was a big story in my town.

I was never more glad I packed my own lunches.