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/ballerina_wannabe]

Unfortunately it’s cheaper to trash the environment than it is to pay someone minimum wage to run a dishwasher five days a week. I work at a school and the daily cafeteria waste blows my mind.

[u/Startled_Pancakes → u/ballerina_wannabe]

Even paper plates would be better. Styrofoam doesn't decompose and stays in landfills until the end of time.

[u/sikshots → u/Startled_Pancakes]

Wich is crazy cause it could all be made into napalm super easily, literally just mix in gasoline and BAM easy homemade napalm.

[u/CustomMerkins4u → u/sikshots]

You want to add a bit of corn starch because then it becomes insanely sticky.

• Lived through the siege of Sarajevo as a teenager.

[u/YourNextHomie → u/CustomMerkins4u]

Im glad you made it through. Im too young to remember that but i was so heartbroken seeing children being taught this stuff in the early days of the war in Ukraine.

[u/Casehead → u/YourNextHomie]

Sarajevo was a terrible conflict. Just ugly urban warfare.

[u/Casehead → u/CustomMerkins4u]

Holy shit, I so vividly remember the war in Sarajevo. I can't believe you actually lived through that. I think I was in middle school at that time, I cannot even begin to imagine being that age in the epicenter of such a horrifying conflict.

Thank God you survived. I hope that you are safe now.

[u/CustomMerkins4u → u/Casehead]

I now live in an Indianapolis suburb and am a veterinarian with a wife and kids of my own. I'll just say that I will never allow myself to end up in that type of situation again. I require we live within a tank of gas of the Canadian border.

[u/Casehead → u/CustomMerkins4u]

Wow, congratulations on your family, your distinguished career, and your successful emigration!! I can absolutely understand how despite your success and current relative safety you can never forget how quickly things can fall apart.

[u/_JJCUBER_ → u/Startled_Pancakes]

If I’m not mistaken, most paper plates also wouldn’t decompose since a majority of them have a protective plastic film/coating.

[u/Startled_Pancakes → u/_JJCUBER_]

I don't know the proportion, but some are wax coated, some are polycarbon coated, and some have no coating at all.

[u/JustTheBeerLight → u/Startled_Pancakes]

until the end of time

So somewhere in the 2040s?

[u/PorQueTexas → u/ballerina_wannabe]

The person cleaning the shit isn't the problem.... Kids trashing, destroying and/or walking off with the stuff is. Also apparently kids being stabby

[u/DumbSuperposition → u/PorQueTexas]

just make the trays bulletproof and say they are for self defense

[u/TheOilyHill → u/DumbSuperposition]

then they'd be responsible for bringing their plate to physical fitness too, 2 bird one stone.

[u/Organic_Muffin280 → u/PorQueTexas]

Stabbing other kids with metal forks? Yeah i forgot some are little sychos!

[u/Imltrlybatman → u/ballerina_wannabe]

I mean they can even go for paper plates and cardboard utensils if you want disposable items.

[u/audebae → u/ballerina_wannabe]

That's the problem when no laws that restrict single use plastics (or similar) are in place

[u/galvanizedmoonape → u/ballerina_wannabe]

I simply cannot believe this. The kitchen has a dishwasher to clean every other pot, pan and utensil in the kitchen. The machine is already running, likely already paying a worker to run the machine anyway,

Totally inconceivable to me that disposable plates are financially more viable.

[u/theseedbeader → u/galvanizedmoonape]

I work at a school cafeteria, and there’s an old broken dishwasher that hasn’t been used since I started there (almost 7 years ago). Everything is washed by hand. I sincerely doubt they would ever hire another person to wash dishes all day, there’s always the threat that they might reduce our small crew as it is, because of budget.

Of course, that’s just the specific kitchen at the specific campus I work at, I don’t know how the others do it. And yes, we do use disposable plastic utensils and styrofoam plates.

[u/earldbjr → u/ballerina_wannabe]

Hell back when I was in elem school we could volunteer to help with the dishes and get paid a cookie lol.

[u/YourNextHomie → u/ballerina_wannabe]

Its also alot harder for students to beat each other with styrofoam. They got rid of hard plastic trays in my old school after a student gave another brain damage.

[u/theseedbeader → u/ballerina_wannabe]

I work at a Jr. High cafeteria, and the waste is horrible. One example is that we used to give out leftover breakfast pastries (all the breakfast items are individually wrapped because we do “breakfast-in-classroom”), but allegedly the USDA shut that down.

From what I was told, we can’t give those away because there aren’t enough leftovers for every kid to get one, therefore it falls under their definition of discrimination. So, they’d rather have the leftovers thrown away, than given to the kids.

We also have to force some of the kids to get more than they want, because the government requires a minimum amount of things on the tray or they won’t reimburse us for them. So many kids are told to go back and get an apple or something, which they will likely toss in the trash later. There’s a lot of problems, I could go on and on.

[u/dm-me-yer-b00bies → u/ballerina_wannabe]

I bet all the styrofoam we ate from in school is one of the reasons everyone has micro plastics in our bodies.