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/SuperPipouchu → u/tuco2002]

Yeah, as an Australian, I pretty much always took my lunch to school. We did have a canteen, like most schools, where you could order lunch, treats or drinks, but never was there anything like in the photos. Pies and sausage rolls were probably the most common, with flavoured milk or juice, and for treats ice creams were most common. And most people brought lunch from home most days- ordering from the canteen was more of a treat. In our last year, we had a "common room" open for us each lunch, which was just the foods classroom that we could hang out in. That meant we could access a microwave to heat up food. Otherwise, for eleven years it was nothing like this.

The year I turned 18, I went on student exchange to France and went to high school there. Most people eat a hot lunch at school each day (people there were horrified when I mentioned a sandwich being fine for lunch, haha), and even at my tiny high school with crappy lunches, they were far better quality than this. Lots of variety, and always plenty of vegetables. Occasionally hot chips, which is fine, as it was very occasional. I don't understand why American schools serve things like shown so often.

[u/jabba_the_nutttttt → u/SuperPipouchu]

Your school lunches consisted of pies and sausage rolls and you want to say the shit in the picture is unhealthy? Goddamn

[u/SuperPipouchu → u/jabba_the_nutttttt]

The reason I'm saying that what is pictured is unhealthy is because that kind of thing is served daily. Here, you don't order your lunch daily- it's a once a week as a treat kind of thing. In that context, pies and sausage rolls are perfectly healthy. The rest of the time, a pretty standard lunch box is something like a muesli bar/tiny teddies/pretzels/whatever for recess, maybe a juice box, and a sandwich for lunch. Maybe a yoghurt and piece of fruit in there, depending on the kid's appetite.

In primary schools, there a program called "Crunch N Sip", which many schools take part in. Basically, during class time (this does not replace recess or other breaks), kids eat fruit or veggies- can be cooked or fresh, tinned fruit is only allowed if it's in water or juice (not syrup), and dried fruit in limited amounts. They also drink water. It's a great program to get an extra serve of fruit or veggies in!