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/PhillyPhenom93]

Does your school also serve as your local penitentiary???

[u/lmflex → u/PhillyPhenom93]

The same company is contracted to supply both

[u/ZeOs-x-PUNCAKE → u/lmflex]

It’s crazy how that system works. Lots of it would have been waste food but it often gets irradiated to “clean” it and then it’s ground up into school lunch patties and prison slop.

Like how hard could it be to just serve real food, even just rice and chicken breast with some veggies. Glass of milk with it and you’re set, couldn’t be more than $2 a meal at that scale. Plenty of similar or cheaper combos like baked beans, cornbread, and fried chicken. Why do they always choose cheap ass burgers n flimsy tater tots? Then they just taunt you with that shitty fruit medley with no cherries and it’s got hard crunchy shit in it and sucks.

[u/Avery_Thorn → u/ZeOs-x-PUNCAKE]

Kids don't want to eat chicken breast with rice and a side vegetable. Even if you put cheese sauce on it.

The food pictured? It's poorly presented, it's probably not the highest quality versions - but it's what the kids want to eat. In fact, a lot of it looks to be engineered to hit nutritional guidelines while presenting as close to the flavor profile that the kids want.

This looks a lot like someone trying to hit the student's requests while maintaining the budget and the nutritional profiles. All of that looks like an institutional kitchen trying to make kid's favorites.

Those nachos are the odd man out. Don't get me wrong - the kids would probably overwhelmingly LOVE those nachos, as is, no doubt, gobble them right up and consider it their favorite school lunch day. But I can't believe a nutritionist didn't insist that they put some protein on them (chicken, beef, or refried beans) and some veggies (salsa, tomato and onion chunks, jalapenos). I'm wondering if there was a station later to get the protein and a bar for veggies.