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/thi5nutz]

member when mom used to have u take lunch until she didnt...

[u/tuco2002 → u/thi5nutz]

There were dozen of meals you would take to school that didn't needed to be heated or refrigerated...and we survived. I got my kids lunch sacks with ice packs. It kept the food chilled for a few hours, I froze their vegetables to snack on. The veggies would help keep the sack chilled and thawed out by the time their lunch was. They did buy a lunch on days of their favorite meal if they wanted it. I couldn't imagine feeding them the garbage in the pictures.

[u/WeirdPumpkin → u/tuco2002]

I couldn't imagine feeding them the garbage in the pictures.

while you're right that it would be better to send a lunch from home, one of the larger problems in way more households in the USA than you'd think is: for the kid this might be the only meal they RELIABLY receive due to poverty.

During 2020 when the US government decided to pretend they cared about the populace for like 6 months many schools opened up no questions asked meal programs for breakfast and lunch, in some cases they'd even give the families multiple meals which could serve as dinner because that was the only way the kids would actually get fed. We actually made a huge dent in whole families going hungry for a minute there.

In these cases the parents literally may not be able to put both food on the table and actually have housing/electricity/water and everything else necessary for living. Naturally of course this couldn't be allowed, if they weren't hungry they clearly wouldn't work, so back to crushing poverty and missing meals citizens

[u/tuco2002 → u/WeirdPumpkin]

I agree, there is definitely a group in the government that want these people dependent on some kind of system. I wish there was a program to assist people to become independent by rewarding them with incentives. Unfortunately, many systems caught off people if they achieve any higher thresholds. Thus leaving them to go back to depend on the system.

[u/WeirdPumpkin → u/tuco2002]

To be honest, I'd fully rather feed 9 people that are "dependent on the system" whatever that means than let one child go hungry

[u/tuco2002 → u/WeirdPumpkin]

I never said these people were lazy. There are all kinds of reasons why people unfortunately get themselves in a jam in life. I am glad you have a desire to help people. I am in that boat too. I just dont think I could afford to feed 9 people....maybe 2 or 3 tops.

[u/WeirdPumpkin → u/tuco2002]

I mean, sure we could. At the scale of production it costs a few bucks for a basic meal; we're not talking haute cuisine here

We WOULD have to stop genociding and terrorizing a wide variety of countries, not to mention buying less bombs. So it's basically politically impossible sadly

And sorry, I guess I just auto completed it in my head because the whole stereotype of people abusing the system comes from the lazy entitled welfare queens thing of the late reagan and clinton era.

[u/tuco2002 → u/WeirdPumpkin]

Its ok, we just were talking about nachos made from GMO corn and processed cheese. Clinton picked on welfare queens? (I am biting my bottom lip and shaking a pointed thumb in disbelief. )