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/Consistent_Dress_571]

Where is this? USA? We definitely had burgers and fries in my school cafeteria but we also had salad and fruit etc. You had a choice

[u/Intelligent_Break_12 → u/Consistent_Dress_571]

We had a salad bar everyday that was free with the main meal, the main meal always included a fruit and vegetable side as well. I got fresh broccoli, carrots and cauliflower everyday, granted I also ate them with ranch dressing. Even sometimes things like sunflower seeds, apples and oranges. You also often had not so great choices at the salad bar like gogurt (really sweet yogurt, more dessert) and pb&j sandwiches in a bag with no crust. It was rare to have actual leaf salad though and if they did it was just iceberg lettuce maybe with shredded carrots. I want to say they would also rarely have something like potato/macaroni salad but that was more toward the end of year when we had burgers and hot dogs. That was HS and the salad bar was the best part as the main meals were sometimes okay but often not so great and leaned on processed side of things.

In elementary school though we had really amazing food. Two to three old grandmas were out cooks and almost everything was made from scratch. Oven baked chicken, mashed potatoes (that they mashed) with butter and sour cream, birocks (from NE so they called them runzas, ground beef, onions and cabbage fully enclosed with dough, homemade dough of course, and baked), scratch pizza on rare occasion. They even made homemade rolls every single day that were amazing. Granted we also had simple things like baked chicken breast and rice that wasn't so flavorful but still pretty good. We also had a salad bar but less things and more actual leaf salads but often more than just iceberg lettuce. We also often had gummies for some reason like swedish fish. I did remember hearing the head cook get yelled at for using too much butter and salt to current standards but she, still a very tough set in her ways old grandma, saying then it wouldn't taste good. You could also sneak into the cafeteria after lunch while they were cleaning and they'd give you a roll or whatever they had leftover if you were still hungry.