I don't remember Wake County's school lunches being this bad.

http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/

I can't even tell what half the food is

Also, that Japanese lunch on there is bullshit. Either the guy works for a private school (very likely) or Hiroshima is swimming in money. In my school district the kids are lucky if they get more than a little bowl of rice and some miso soup these days

3/17/2010 11:13:26 PM

square pizza

3/17/2010 11:19:19 PM

Yum!

3/17/2010 11:19:42 PM

mmmmm...food that fits exactly into compartments

3/17/2010 11:25:10 PM

Sounds like they need to stop selling milk, and start selling mugs of SHUT THE FUCK UP!

3/17/2010 11:29:44 PM

Ah, I cherish the days of yore (middle school), when my milk came in bags and we called them breast implants and played with them as such.

School lunch has never been tolerable since I've been at school, except in high school when they brought in domino's pizza. If you ate the school-offered food items you would pretty much have diarrhea every single time and it would cost you a lot.

Also, those sweaty testicle potatoes are the bane of my existence.

3/17/2010 11:36:09 PM

Quote :

"Also, those sweaty testicle potatoes are the bane of my existence. "

But I'll bet it gave the ladies something to practice with.

HEY-OH!

3/17/2010 11:41:05 PM

oh sweet memories of waiting in the line with my little sixty cents...

although it sucked if it was your week to wash the tables

3/17/2010 11:45:26 PM

oh my christ, sweaty testicle potatoes.

[Edited on March 18, 2010 at 12:05 AM. Reason : .]

3/18/2010 12:05:05 AM

Square pizza was the shit. I still find myself craving it occasionally.

Nacho day was also good the once or twice a month it came through. Or at least, so I'm told, because I had 20 minutes for lunch and it was a 30 minute line to get nachos.

3/18/2010 12:07:39 AM

The burgers at Snoopys remind me of the public school lunch burgers.

3/18/2010 12:10:25 AM

why is everything looking prepackaged like TV dinners? I went to a crappy school out in the NC rural area - and we at least were served our food instead of getting a platter full of TV dinner boxes...

3/18/2010 12:45:32 AM

My guess would be Chicago has all their food made at a central processing center and it's sent out to the schools in those individual serving packages for better control.

3/18/2010 12:47:08 AM

Food's gotta stay cheap.

3/18/2010 12:47:38 AM

w00t farm subsidies!

3/18/2010 3:53:39 AM

GrumpyGOP knows what's up, in middle school and high school the square pizza was really fucking good. The NCSU dining halls used to serve them, but SOMEHOW they got all dried up and there seemed to be NO cheese on them--fail to see how they could be worse at making frozen pizza than the rest of the system.

3/18/2010 3:56:18 AM

Maybe they bought them from Acme Frozen Food

3/18/2010 4:01:29 AM

fountain

3/18/2010 4:03:04 AM

haha, the guy from japan kinda sounds like my brother when he had only been there a little while. now 4 years later, and being married to a japanese woman he hates the japanese school system. also, from what he's told me his school lunches never look like that either (he's teaches in hagiwara in gero)

3/18/2010 1:47:33 PM

What are his qualms with the system?

3/18/2010 1:48:54 PM

BACK IN MY DAY

KIDS TODAY

WHINNNNNNNNNNNNNE

3/18/2010 1:50:07 PM

I find it hard pressed to believe that kids didn't whine before 1990.

3/18/2010 1:50:57 PM

That was three separate statements, sorry.

3/18/2010 1:51:13 PM

i eat at taco bell almost once a day. and im fine. but i ate at fountain, and i got diarrhea.

not making that up

3/18/2010 1:51:26 PM

That's fucked up.

3/18/2010 1:51:48 PM

I am going to send this blog to my husband who is the executive chef for a catholic church. He also doe s the school lunch for the private school there. The kids get Chickfila delivered to their classroom once a week. Would love to see them react to square pizza or milk-in-a-bag.

3/18/2010 1:52:20 PM

Quote :

"What are his qualms with the system?"

basically, that the japanese school system is really only there to babysit the kids. they basically can't fail, they learn exactly what will be on a standardized test, nothing more, nothing less.

3/18/2010 2:03:14 PM

^ Yep that's basically it.

I love when I have physically and verbally disruptive kids in the class and I can't kick them out and send them to the vice-principal's office because "it wouldn't be fair to the kid." Well what about the other 39 kids who can't learn because of his bullshit behavior?!

3/18/2010 9:15:52 PM

I thought Japan's school system was supposed to be top notch.

3/18/2010 9:17:35 PM

my grandma was one of my lunchladies for a couple years

i got hooooooked the fuuuuuuuuck up lol

3/18/2010 9:17:46 PM

^^ That's what they want you to believe.

I had a student four years ago that couldn't write his own name. And he graduated high school

3/18/2010 9:20:10 PM

Stupid propaganda.

3/18/2010 9:20:48 PM

Quote :

"Sounds like they need to stop selling milk, and start selling mugs of SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

3/18/2010 9:33:02 PM

I hate Mrs.Q (the lady who writes that blog) - she has no idea what she's talking about.

I know in NC there's a bunch regulations for serving lunch (and how the schools get funding)... ugh don't get me started, I'm on spring break.

fuck that dumb bitch

3/18/2010 9:42:57 PM

^ Please to elaborate.

3/18/2010 9:53:51 PM

in my adolescent nutrition class we spent a lot of time talking about this, here are some highlights:

-each meal must contain 1/3 of the RDA of kcals, protein, vitA, vitC, iron, and calcium
-each meal must reflect the dietary guidelines for americans, specifically <30% kcals from fat and <10% kcals from saturated fat
-schools have to submit a detailed nutrient analysis of their menus to the USDA, which has to be approved by a registered dietitian

I read the blog when she first started, but I haven't read it lately. hopefully she's gotten more info about school lunches since then. mrs.q is probably not familiar with all the regulations and policies that go into school lunches, i.e. national school lunch program, national school lunch act, special milk program (well... she is lactose intolerant )

there's also a lack of funding from the USDA to get the foods that mrs.q would like to see - which is why some schools bring in vending machines and stuff like chik-fil-a or domino's pizza... to get funds for better foods, but then the kids just buy that stuff and not the healthy foods

wake county actually launched a pilot program in a few elementary schools for healthier/fresh/local foods, but the program ended up costing about $300,000 MORE and the schools couldn't sustain the program

overall NC (wake county elementary schools specifically) follows more strict guidelines than the USDA requires (i.e. <100mg cholesterol; only cooking by baking, roasting, broiling, boiling, steaming and NOT frying; and milk 1% or less) and is probably doing a better job than the school where she teaches

I think she should concentrate more on how much EXERCISE these kids are getting and the physical education program at the school instead of demonizing the food, but I digress... time for bed

3/18/2010 10:46:03 PM

i heard something about this on NPR today.

they were talking about funding for school lunches and how they had to go to styrofoam plates instead of paying employees to wash plastic ones and make big cuts on food costs. they switched to a lot of pre-packaged foods to further cut down on employee wages. (cook times, etc) this happened a number of years ago though.

can't remember exact stuff.

3/18/2010 10:50:55 PM

^^ I definitely agree that the lack of PE and recess time is a bigger demon than the lunch issue and an easier one to fix.

3/18/2010 11:36:37 PM

The bottom line is that if you don't like what they're serving bring your own goddamn lunch. This is an important life lesson that all too many people have not clued into. I see too many people that feel like everything needs to be given to them and if it's not up to their standards then the thing to do is to whine like a little cunt.

3/18/2010 11:52:20 PM

Excellent point.

3/18/2010 11:52:46 PM

^^ I think the point is the kids who can afford to bring their own lunch do and the poor kids get the shaft nutritionally and in learning good eating habits.

But again, I don't remember Wake County having shitty school lunches so something tells me it's Chicago dropping the ball and not the entire country.

3/18/2010 11:55:11 PM

^^^Mrs. Q works at a school where more than 70 percent of the students receive free and reduced priced lunches.

Her point is that this is their only option.

But I agree that Mrs. Q is kinda annoying. She repeatedly admits that she doesn't know much about nutrition and doesn't have access to nutritional information about the food, but she shows the pictures and says shit like, "It tasted bad! I wonder what's in it!! "

[Edited on March 18, 2010 at 11:55 PM. Reason : sss]

3/18/2010 11:55:29 PM

Quote :

"I think the point is the kids who can afford to bring their own lunch do and the poor kids get the shaft nutritionally and in learning good eating habits. But again, I don't remember Wake County having shitty school lunches so something tells me it's Chicago dropping the ball and not the entire country. "

And I shall refer back to my post and add "if you can't feed 'em don't breed 'em" It shouldn't be up to schools to make sure every kid gets some top shelf lunch. In any case a fucking loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter is pretty cheap.

3/19/2010 12:01:57 AM

I don't think anyone's arguing that kids should be served gourmet meals on the government's dime. Just that the meals should be well-balanced and not fast food junk.

3/19/2010 12:05:05 AM

She has some legitimate points...

-- 20 minutes is not enough time to stand in line and sit down and eat properly
-- the oranges should be peeled and ready to eat
-- kids should be allowed to take food with them out of the cafeteria (like the apples and the oranges)
-- the food is not palatable so the kids don't end up eating it (they also develop aversion to food that they should love--like vegetables)
-- the way the food is prepared and served combined with the way it is often prepared at home promotes a perverted perspective on food

Another thing that's weird is the amount of calories to be served in a meal. Sure, there is an obesity epidemic among young people, but that's because they eat a lot of junk...so overweight children are often still nutritionally deprived...

I agree that it's important for kids to have a treat every now and then, but it makes sense to me that those treats should be once a month, not once a week or every other day. There simply isn't any room in these kids' diets to accommodate taters tots, french fries, tortilla chips/nachos, fruit cups, icees, cookies/brownies, etc... We shouldn't waste a single calorie on something that isn't packed with essential nutrients. If kids didn't have the option of dining solely on icees/tater tots, then they'd actually eat the large quantities of fresh veggies/fruit that I would serve. The ones who still refuse the healthy options will probably find a way to bring Great Value snack cakes from home, and in that case, we just saved taxpayer dollars by not wasting our time/money on filler foods.

3/19/2010 12:30:58 AM