20 years ago, the school where I worked made a lot of fresh food. They found what our kids ate and they made those recipes more often. Since then, they cut the number of personnel who work in the kitchen and as a result went to more processed foods that just need to be heated up. We also used to have someone who washed the trays and silverware, but his position got cut, too, so now they use cardboard trays and plastic silverware.

Anonymous wrote:All of you saying it's too expensive- you should see the lovely meals my preschoolers eat in preschool compared to the dog food given to my elementary schooler. And all the preschoolers eat it and enjoy it.

Obviously the preschoolers meals are mass produced, but can you imagine the outrage if my 2 year old was served a honey bun? I think the 2 year old teachers would have a heart attack if they had to put up with the behavior of 2 year olds who all ate a honey bun. They'd be bouncing off the walls. My 2nd grader routinely eats honey buns for breakfast, donuts, etc. In our school everyone gets a free lunch, so everyone is served "breakfast" as they walk through the door in the morning. Even the juice has got to go. My preschoolers are never served juice or chocolate milk. They get milk or water, just like parents serve at home.

+1
Breakfast is the worst. Why don’t they just serve cheerios and white milk??

FCPS has tried some new menu items this year - my kid has reported seeing dumplings (chicken or vegetable), a meatball sub sandwich, and chicken wings for hot lunch, plus the increase to the salad bars. But the food just isn’t very good and now he doesn’t order too often anymore.

I second a PP - the cafeterias used to be actual kitchens when I was in school. No they weren’t cooking anything fancy, but they were actually COOKING. There was a beef stew that was really popular, we also got stuff like Swedish meatballs with egg noodles, tacos with freshly cooked ground beef, I grew up in the Midwest so we had fish or meatless Fridays all year. of course there were the infamous rectangular school pizzas and questionable chicken patty sandwiches too. Now all the food just gets reheated. There are no cooks. If you got the grab and go frozen meals a few years ago during Covid you would know. It’s the same stuff. It really limits their options.

The current attacks on social programs make Reagan's reclassification of ketchup as a vegetable to reduce food costs look quaint

How ? Because they can and do.

The powers that be want kids to starve, keep them stupid and sick. Why do you think so many kids get sick during the school year ?

It's the parasites in the food and unclean water.

I fought the schools for years because I made my kids lunches. They had fits about this but I won. There's no telling what's in the food.

I don’t know how to fix the school lunch issues (particularly given there are barely even kitchens at schools anymore). However- I wish they’d just move to serving mostly cold lunches, given they really don’t have the proper facilities to serve tasty and edible hot food anyway. It is all soggy, dried out and/or tastes microwaved. They’d be better off serving a few types of cold sandwiches or wraps with an alternative like cheese sticks or hummus and crackers + salad and/or fresh cut veggies/dip + fresh cut fruit and call it a day IMHO. Maybe a simple soup (chicken noodle etc) if kids are an age where it can be served safely. Easy enough to keep warm. That is healthier and more appealing than soggy chicken nuggets or faux hot pockets (and is the type of stuff parents send in packed lunches anyway). If kids truly won’t eat any of that, then they obviously are not hungry IMHO and if it gets thrown out- whatever. Throwing in the towel and serving soggy French fries and nugget type junk for every meal is not the right answer.

All of you saying it's too expensive- you should see the lovely meals my preschoolers eat in preschool compared to the dog food given to my elementary schooler. And all the preschoolers eat it and enjoy it.

Obviously the preschoolers meals are mass produced, but can you imagine the outrage if my 2 year old was served a honey bun? I think the 2 year old teachers would have a heart attack if they had to put up with the behavior of 2 year olds who all ate a honey bun. They'd be bouncing off the walls. My 2nd grader routinely eats honey buns for breakfast, donuts, etc. In our school everyone gets a free lunch, so everyone is served "breakfast" as they walk through the door in the morning. Even the juice has got to go. My preschoolers are never served juice or chocolate milk. They get milk or water, just like parents serve at home.

Anonymous wrote:Major problems with our school lunch program:
1) the ridiculous notion that the money for it needs to cover all the operating and staffing costs too vs just the food for kids getting free lunch.

2) the shift away from staffing so that all the food has to be microwaveable rather than actually cooked fresh. My grandma was a lunch lady and they used to actually cook the food in the kitchen way back when.

+1

When I was growing up (was in public elementary school in the 80s), we had lunch ladies and they actually cooked the food in the kitchen. Typical big batches of foods one would serve to a crowd and holds well (spaghetti and salad, ground beef tacos, meatloaf and mashed potatoes, casserole etc…sometimes whole turkeys etc with fixings). Some “kid favorites” (grilled cheese with tomato soup or that sheet pan style homemade pizza cut up in squares) also. Nearly everything was served hot/made as fresh as possible (that day) and was very much edible (even if it was not something I personally cared for).

My own kids would be so much happier with the above, and would choose to eat hot lunch most days. But at our school it is all premade microwaved “kid food” that tastes bad. Dried out burgers and chicken sandwiches with soggy French fries etc. The burgers are also weird (the kids claim the meat is something weird). Nachos with neon orange cheese and so on.

I don’t know why they got away from in house kitchens but it was not a good move at all.

I teach in Fairfax at an ES and the lunches don’t look anywhere near what those pictures show. The salad bar is good (I’ve eaten it) and the vegetables I’ve seen the food service workers chopping look fresh. The hot foods are better than they used to be.

Because if they feed them actual dog food, what will the dogs eat?

I work at an elementary and have spent a lot of time in the lunch room. The schools have to walk a fine line balancing cost, nutrition, and things the kids will actually eat and not just throw away. If it doesn’t look good enough to a kid, they throw it out and all that money is lost, and all the teachers have to suffer hangry kids the rest of the day.

Blame American eating habits, not schools.

Anonymous wrote:Well...for millenia poor people ate far worse than what we serve in the US in public school. In many countries lunch wasn't a meal - it was two meals a day max.

Should we do better? Sure. But are we worse than what's happened throughout history? No.

Sure. But malnutrition and actual starvation were much more common then too. You’re settling a pretty low bar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because people hate taxes. No one cares about the poor when they might have to pay a slight % more.

^This is stupid. Nourishing meals do not have to cost more. These kids are accustomed to junk food, and if they don't get it in the cafeteria line they'll skip the cafeteria food and head for the vending machines.

Not PP. But what you wrote is stupid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because people hate taxes. No one cares about the poor when they might have to pay a slight % more.

Maybe some of that tax money should be kept here to feed kids instead of giving freebees to illegals or funding unending wars in foreign countries that line defense contractor pockets.

We know you don't care about kids because your own post advocated against feeding kids here, troll.

School funding and military funding are wholly unrelated.

The school food corporate caterer pockets.

Major problems with our school lunch program:
1) the ridiculous notion that the money for it needs to cover all the operating and staffing costs too vs just the food for kids getting free lunch.

2) the shift away from staffing so that all the food has to be microwaveable rather than actually cooked fresh. My grandma was a lunch lady and they used to actually cook the food in the kitchen way back when.