12 ms·

The Real Problem with Lunch

139 points by wallflower 11y ago

FussyZeus 11y ago
I think this is a huge marketing problem, stemming from the ability for large companies to market directly to children, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the U.S. is one of the few industrialized nations (if not the only, I couldn't find another in a quick search) that has ZERO regulation in terms of what and how companies can advertise to children (outside of bans on cigarettes and alcohol of course.) Kids are extremely easy to manipulate with ads because they don't have the experience and the awareness to understand the differences between the shows they're watching and the ads they're consuming.
- roymurdock 11y ago
  I remember watching a ton of sugary cereal commercials as a kid. I'm pretty sure Kellogs was banned from advertising cereals that did not meet some minimum health requirement in 2007. [1] With that said, it's ultimately the parent's responsibility to make sure the kid is eating healthy foods. I was recently at an amusement park cafeteria and I saw lines out the door of parents and their children holding huge green refillable cups, waiting for their turn at the Coke fountain drink machines. Many of the kids were clearly overweight. It struck me as terribly sad and unfair that the kids did not know any better than to enjoy sugary drinks, but that the parents knew exactly what they were feeding their children and just didn't care. [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kellogg-wont-market-sugary-cereal-to-kids/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kellogg-wont-market-sugary-cerea...
  - mikeash 11y ago
    Don't be so sure the parents are aware of the problem: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/05/12/95-percent-of-parents-think-their-overweight-children-look-just-right/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/0...
    - adekok 11y ago
      My experience in California was light years from my experience in France. The bulk of school lunches provided by the parents were low-grade junk food. Sugar, snacks, and empty calories. The kids with vegetables and a balanced diet were in the minority. I saw an article while I was in California about a high school of last resort for juvenile delinquents. The reporter visiting it was shocked that the school was quiet, and the kids were well behaved. The reason (according to the principal) was largely diet. The school had a cafeteria with organic food (some subsidization). About 1-2 months after a new kid entered the school, the behavor problems went away. I can't find the link now, but I did find some related ones: "Dietary management of juvenile delinquency", http://www.feingold.org/Research/PDFstudies/Feingold-delinq79.pdf http://www.feingold.org/Research/PDFstudies/Feingold-delinq7... "Nutritional influences on aggressive behavior", http://orthomolecular.org/library/articles/webach.shtml http://orthomolecular.org/library/articles/webach.shtml
  - Renaud 11y ago
    The issue is that kids that grew up without a healthy approach to food become the very parents that perpetuate the behaviour; they just don't know any better because they haven't been exposed to good eating habits, either at home, on the tv or at school. It's a social thing. The parents are clearly responsible for educating their kids, but as a society we shouldn't think it's OK to advertise and serve dangerous crap to kids and just assume that this doesn't affect behaviour (the very purpose of advertisement is that it affect people's behaviour, I always found it strange that we then blame them for being influenced). You have to start very early to educate kids senses to appreciate flavours more subtle than fat, salt and sugar. When Jamie Oliver attempted to change the horrendous 'meals' served to kids in the UK, he hit this very issue: lots of kids preferred to eat their crisps and junk food rather than the balanced, healthy and tasty meals prepared for them by a top chef (meals that didn't cost more than the crap they were usually served). Contrast that to the meals served in schools in France: they are balanced, varied, there is always some choice. You will always find a choice of starter, main course, cheese/yoghurt and dessert. These kids find it normal to eat their vegetables. Parents wouldn't have it otherwise. In France at home, most people actually cook. Everyone orders pizza once in a while, but the vast majority of meals are actually cooked from fresh. It's not a money thing: you can get cheap produces. It's a cultural thing: cooking is fun, it's a skill people pass down the generations, it's time well spent, it's something to be proud of, it's a part of normal life.
    - knughit 11y ago
      In the USA we believe that once you turn 18 you are an adult and responsible for yourself, and have no right to blame your upbringing (parents, and schools, and doctors) for any of your mental, health, and economic deficiencies. And that's the problem with USA.
  - HarryHirsch 11y ago
    The problem is that obesity increases risk for all sorts of conditions: heart disease, arthritis, type-2 diabetes and all the problems that that brings on (neuropathy, retinal degeneration, kidney failure), nevermind the stigma from being too fat. And so on. It's easy to say that it's the parents' fault that their children are overweight, but everyone else gets to deal with the fallout. With childhood obesity rates approaching 30 % in places, the extra burden on the medical system is staggering. Horace was very much to the point when he said it's your problem when the neighbour's apartment is on fire.
- maxaf 11y ago
  My child doesn't watch TV, and is surrounded by ad blockers of all possible varieties. Consequently she rejects food that she can't break down easily into ingredients with plain English names. The more general problem with America is the prevalence of business models that depend on sales of people's attention. "If it's free, you're the product" is such an integral part of living in the US these days that most people don't even realize how deeply in hock they are. Cutting the cord, abandoning traditional TV programming (including daytime content-less shows and infomercials) and fighting the good fight against ads will eventually leave consumers free to make their own decisions. I'm worried only that it might take too long: the genetic damage to humanity will already be done.
- such_a_casual 11y ago
  > they don't have the experience and the awareness to understand the differences between the shows they're watching and the ads they're consuming citation? There's no way anyone under 18 just lacks the ability to distinguish between commercials and the program they're watching. Source: was once a kid
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    >distinguish between commercials and the program // Perhaps the parent means the purpose for the programs and the commercials - as in that the commercials aren't just there to entertain you but to manipulate you in to wanting a particular product. Mind you essentially you can say the program is just there to soften you up and create a method to feed your brain the marketing message of the commercials ...
    - such_a_casual 11y ago
      My disbelief still stands. What is the age range for human beings who can't distinguish between commercials and programs? You don't think kids get irritated when they're shows are interrupted by commercials? To me this just comes across as an excuse for bad parenting. There were junk food commercials on tv when I was a kid, but I didn't get to have them, because I didn't have money to buy them.
  - Joof 11y ago
    Anecdote, yu-gi-oh; bey-blades; etc. People in general don't really realise the impact that advertising has on them even if they are aware of them.
- magicmu 11y ago
  What you're saying (and the somewhat muted point in the article) about advertising is totally true, but I don't think it just applies to children. People are hugely susceptible to advertising, which is why it is, and always has been, extremely effective if done correctly. It's especially disturbing when children are specifically targeted by advertisements pitching products are that demonstrably harmful, but it's not the exception. I think that one of the main reasons that most parents don't heavily discourage or forbid their children from watching these ads is that they themselves aren't aware of the broader picture. In that vein, I think education is just as important, if not more-so, than regulation of advertisers.
guyzero 11y ago
US government policy in a nutshell: increase standards, don't increase funding.
- repsilat 11y ago
  US schools have among the highest per-student funding in the world. Funding has been steadily increasing for decades, though test scores haven't budged: http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/cracking-books/trends-american-public-schooling-since-1970.png http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/cracking-books/t... Perhaps that money should be going into school lunches instead of wherever it is going at the moment...
  - ethbro 11y ago
    > instead of wherever it is going at the moment... Testing?
    - Pxtl 11y ago
      Sports?
  - Spooky23 11y ago
    A lot of that is different accounting. In most US states, schools are nominally independent bodies of government, they carry all of the costs of facilities, pensions, etc. They also need to comply with all sorts of cost enhancing building and labor standards. So in my city, the school collects $28k/pupil. That includes something like $150M in debt for buildings, salaries, 20% of salaries for pension obligations, 15-20% for employee healthcare, key expenses for the various charter schools, etc. They also need to deal with compliance issues. Because some redneck place in Mississippi would give poor kids a slice of Bologna and stale bread, there are prescribed calorie and nutrition standards that get audited. So you can't prepare fresh foods.
    - knughit 11y ago
      The bans on fresh foods are due to lobbying by national good companies to regulate against local competitors. It isn't because of citizen complaints.
vacri 11y ago
It's a bit of an odd article, that assumes the blame is on the food prep departments. "The US has food far below France's quality, but the departments only get $3/head instead of $7/head". All this means is the problem isn't in the departments, but in the willingness to fund appropriately. It's probably also not fair to compare pretty much anywhere to France, given France's extreme cultural connection to fine food (and hence pool of suitable school-level cooks).
- smileysteve 11y ago
  I actually don't understand the $3/head part without any examples for the smaller state portion. If a state matches $2-3 then the difference with $7 is negligible. Beyond this, I want to add that, if we're complaining about the overhead and staff, Chipotle (ignoring recent ecoli outbreaks) and similar have very fresh options ->$6.
  - knughit 11y ago
    What do you do with the "negligible" 15-30% of your money?
    - smileysteve 11y ago
      Save it, reinvest it? From a more corporate standpoint, at $7 a meal, schools are entering competition with "gourmet" fast food options, of which 15-30% is going towards profit margins. If mall food courts at all compete nutritionally with school lunches, then, at $6-$7 a meal, schools should charge (at market, not cost) for the space and restaurants should have profit margins.
jay_kyburz 11y ago
We don't do school lunches here in Australia. My parents packed me lunch every day for 10 years, and I'll do the same for my kids. It's really no big deal.
- iambateman 11y ago
  Probably not for you, but if you were a single parent with two jobs trying to get two kids to the bus each morning, packing a lunch would be a lot more difficult.* Especially to make a lunch healthy. * to be clear, I am not that person. Just saying.
  - grecy 11y ago
    Why would anyone need two jobs? shouldn't one pay a living wage? Maybe the problems run deeper
    - cmurf 11y ago
      Definitely deeper. The U.S. worker has seen 35 years of wage stagnation. Economic growth is fairly restricted to those with college degrees. And those aren't free.
- chm 11y ago
  It can be for some kids. I see no reason a child should have to eat less healthy than any other at a public school. I'm a reasonably good cook (definitely "above average", but nothing spectacular). I would much prefer my kids' meals to be prepared by someone whose job it is to cook than me, for the simple reason that I doubt I'd have much time to prepare whole meals every evening. For me, it would be worth the price.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    Furthermore, both you and parent are assuming that you have the capability to prepare meals for your children. In the US, at least, a majority of public school students are eligible for free or reduced price lunch assistance ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-u... ). Which means they likely don't have a sustainable "home preparation" alternative option. As someone with a mom who taught kindergarten for 30 years, it's not uncommon for school meals to be the only reliable meals in a child's life in certain areas. (Hence offering breakfast)
eliben 11y ago
This sounds misleading. They mention the French version is a high-end school for high-income parents. But this isn't how the public school system works in the US, right? Wouldn't it be more fair to compare to a high-end private school in the US, where I'm sure the lunch budget ends up at more than "a dollar + change for student"?
- adekok 11y ago
  All French public schools have an in-school cafeteria where food is prepared fresh every day. High income parents get billed for this, or they can supply lunch themselves. Low income parents didn't pay.
  - walterstucco 11y ago
    that's common in many European countries, especially southern countries. What they call lunch in France, in Italy we call it "a snack" ;)
- rtpg 11y ago
  I've done a Texas HS cafeteria, a French public HS , and a French private HS The private HS had the best food, but the meal was about $8 a day, and I lived close by, so I would often eat at home. I could make comparably healthy foods at home for $4 or so I think The french public highschool was about $4.50. People complained about the food , but I had a little appetizer, main plate, and dessert. And it was usually all "real food". The kind you could eat forever and be fine. Main plate was usually some meat/fish + a little veggies. In Texas I had a lot of mashed potatoes and chicken nuggets. I have no clue how my body didn't completely fall apart . but hey, it was $2. BTW French Uni also had a cafeteria . for about $5 I could have a lunch similar to HS (if a bit more on the greasy side). A lifesaver for a college student too lazy to buy proper food. There are important details (hard to get a lot of good fresh fish in the middle of Nevada), but the school meal thing really is another example of how the US really isn't as rich as it likes to portray itself.
adekok 11y ago
I spent years living in France, and my daughter went to kindergarten and grade one there. The lunches were insane. A 3 year-old can expect a five course meal every day. Prepared fresh on-site. Different every day of the month. The school district would mail a calendar of lunches to the parents every month. I still have some. The parents care about the food their children eat. They're willing to pay a little more for good food at school. As a computer programmer, I earned an above average salary, and paid small amounts every semester for better food. IIRC, it was about $200. And definitely way below $1K. My daughter loved her lunches, and I was happy to not have to make something with the French parents would then laugh at. ;) The French attitude is "we live to eat". They say every other country "eats to live". That definitely shows in the different attitude towards the school lunches.
- gkanai 11y ago
  > The French attitude is "we live to eat". They say every other country "eats to live". Japan also lives to eat and their public school lunches are very healthy and nutritious. The children often also partake in the preparation of the meals in part, so they get that learning as well.
  - hanniabu 11y ago
    That actually seems like a great idea. Not enough kids know how to cook and I feel this is a reason a lot of the younger generation eats out rather than at home. Having a class rotation where every day of the month (or week, depending how big the school is) a different before-lunch class will instead go to the cafeteria and prep meals would be awesome. Students would get to learn and the school may be able to cut costs by hiring less lunch attendants. Of course kids would have to wash their hands and be trusted not to taint the food, but that goes for current lunch attendants as well.
    - ethbro 11y ago
      Colleges have a hit or miss on this. A lot of liberal arts colleges still seem to have student employment opportunities in the dinning hall. In my large public university? Sodexo and poorly paid off site employees for 100% of staff. Another failure of unmodelled externalities in capitalism, I think. If a kid's lunch costs $5 to involve them in the preparation process on site vs. $2.50 for a minimum cost contractor preparation... which is the better deal?
ryan-allen 11y ago
When I went to school in the 80s and 90s (I live in Australia), our parents had to send us to school with our own lunch. We had cafeterias but they were by and large for treats not for day to day lunch. I don't understand why taking their own lunch is not an option if the food served is so abysmal?
- Renaud 11y ago
  The issue with kids having lunch boxes prepared by their parents is that the kids are completely dependent on their parent's abilities to serve them a balance diet. They don't get a chance to try and discover anything else.
  - reddytowns 11y ago
    A bigger issue with trying to force meal choices is that you are then attempting to raise the kid instead of allowing the parents to do so. Just because you don't agree with how a parent decides to feed their child, doesn't give you the right to arbitrarily take away their choice.
    - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
      >Just because you don't agree with how a parent decides to feed their child // It's not a simple decision - here in the UK I would have my kids eat school meals most days (perhaps miss the meal they anticipate to be least appetising and instead make their own). Instead they have packed lunch [aka bagged lunch] nearly every day because we can't afford the school dinner. I'm afraid it is really necessary to provide a decent school meal for many children in order to ensure they have some chance at a moderately healthy meal once a day.
    - Renaud 11y ago
      You always have the option of preparing food to your kids. If you feel what you give them is better than what they get at school then of course, it's a no brainer. On the other hand, if it's chore to take the time to prepare and cook their meals, and if school was presenting an affordable alternative, why wouldn't use it? No-one is forcing the kids to eat at school, no-one is taking away the parent's choice.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
zappo2938 11y ago
A few years ago, disillusioned with the fine dinning industry, I walked away from being a chef. Not working in Miami with summer coming, I wrote emails to summer camps with sailing programs trying to get a job as a sailing instructor. Kingly Pines Camp in Maine responded to my email saying, "I won't lie to you. We still do need a sailing instructor, but if you are working here you will be cooking." So I went to Maine for the summer. All the other camps in the lakes region started to outsource their dining to the Aramark corporation. Kingly Pines didn't want to go that route. How does an institution like a summer camp provide three meals plus an afternoon snack a day for $5 per person? The camp has average 200 campers under the age of 15 and 100 staff. Also, everybody is very, very physically active so people are hungry. That's a food budget of $1500 a day. The decision was to make everything from scratch. There were only three of us in the kitchen The food director who was in charge of the pizza station at U of Maine during the winter was awesome. I appreciate that he listened to me because I was coming from the best restaurants in Northern California. We created a salad bar with 5 different types of homemade salad dressing. We baked our own meats for cold cuts. It's not difficult to make home made roast beef and turkey breasts before using a slicer to cut them. The tiramisu caused a riot. Instead of Dinty Moore beef stew, we purchased two top rounds. It's one thing to make beef stew with carrots and potatoes but my recipe uses parsnips, celeriac, turnips, and potatoes. Why only make one type of lasagna if you can make three different types? I bet I could get your kids to eat roasted portobello mushroom goat cheese lasagna. Once a week we would make several different facaccia pizzas. The camp's philosophy is to challenge children to do things they haven't done before whether to get up on water skis for the first time or get to the top of a rock climbing wall, to explore their world, and to learn to be independent. That philosophy was extended to eating too. By the end of every session many the kids even the most reluctant faced with peer pressure to try new things -- it works two ways -- had become gourmands. Turns out that we spent $4.25 a day per person well under budget. The last day of each session when the parents picked up their children we had a big lunch for everybody as the camp did activities that included all the campers and parents for the day. I would say things to the dinning director like buy me four sides of salmon, a couple bags of spinach, and a box of puff pastry. So we were making prime rib and salmon in croute. One of the parents was just amazed and asked if the campers eat like this and his daughter said yes, every day. Children are curious and if they trust the cook to serve them something that isn't dull and bland,they are open to the experience of good and interesting food. If someone is serving me canned vegetables and overcooked broccoli that was engineered to have an extended shelf life not for flavor, I'm not going to want to eat veggies either! If you have kids, have a look at Kingsly Pines camp. [1] http://www.kingsleypines.com/ http://www.kingsleypines.com/
bbarn 11y ago
The other thing to remember, in the U.S., is that parents are constantly in a one-up war with each other. The two sides of that spectrum are "my kid's got the best lunch for him ever" and "my kid's got the most awesome lunch the other kids will be jealous of". This is why packed lunches should be flat out banned, in my opinion, but I concede that it's a parent's ultimate choice in how they raise their child. On the flip side of that, it's also their responsibility to do more than write articles about the poor state of food and actually try to do something about it. I'm far too lazy to find the reference, but I recall that empowering the children to do it themselves has worked more than once.
- 67726e 11y ago
  You want to ban lunches because someone might feel bad about it? I went to the wealthiest (public) schools in the wealthiest town in the wealthiest county in my state. A place where kids got on that MTV Sweet 16 show, and not once was this ever a thing. This is the same argument they used for uniforms, that people would get made fun of. Never once saw that either. It's a joke. Sorry not everyone is wealthy, but that is a solution looking for a problem.
- analog31 11y ago
  I've got two kids in school, and have honestly never seen that kind of competition. We pack lunches for our kids. Typical fare is a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Sometimes it's leftovers, and maybe cut-up vegetables if we run out of fruit. We bake our own bread. If parents were competing over lunches, I'd see pictures of those lunches on Facebook, because that's how parents compete nowadays -- like the pictures that people share when they summon up the courage to cook a meal at home.
sundvor 11y ago
As a Norwegian, my first (and so far only) trip to the US was in the (northern hemisphere) autumn of '99, for an Allaire developers conference in Boston. My first impressions when landing at New Ark airport was one of being flabbergasted by how utterly fat so many people were. In 20 minutes I very likely saw more grossly fat people than I had seen in the previous year in Norway. For me it really was the most bizarre thing. Now in my early 40s, my memories are vague on this matter, but I'm pretty sure Coca Cola and the likes were completely banned from my school canteens. There just wasn't that much junk food to be had either. I mean in general ... as for the schools, forget about it. Pizza would be a very special occasion. Whatever the US were doing, it was doing it completely wrong.
- learc83 11y ago
  The rest of the world is catching up. http://www.thelocal.no/20150506/norways-men-soon-to-be-among-europes-fattest-who http://www.thelocal.no/20150506/norways-men-soon-to-be-among... Most developed countries are about 20-40 years behind the US in obesity rates--if you look at overweight and obesity rates (and rate of change) in the US from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, they match pretty well with the same data from many other developed countries from the 2000s. US obesity and overweight rates have mostly stabilized and will hopefully decline, so maybe the same will happen elsewhere (maybe sooner?).
  - digbyloftus 11y ago
    Other countries are catching up in overweight and obesity but there's rarely data on BMI levels above that. Anecdotally it does seem like the US has much higher rates of super obese people at 50+ BMI. The mobility scooter using, as wide as 2.5 normal people kind. There's a stark difference visiting from here in Australia despite our similar overweight rates. I don't know if it's because your food is so much cheaper that people who have eating problems/don't care about their health and appearance can afford to crazy, or if it's cultural, but there's a class of super fats waddling around in the US that you really don't see in other countries.
    - cableshaft 11y ago
gommm 11y ago
As a slight counterpoint to this, I was born and raised in small villages in Normandy. I had good food in elementary school and high school. A bit on the oily side but still freshly prepared, relatively healthy and actually better and less oily than food I later had as an exchange student in the US. In middle school though, I had truly awful food. More than once the yogurts we were served were past the expiry date and we had a few cases of food poisoning. As a kid, I disliked the food so much that I usually just skipped lunch (I would go to the cafeteria because I had to and would just eat the bread and maybe the yogurts if they weren't expired), not good for growth... The problem of preparing fresh food for students is that it relies on having a Chef who is good at his job and organized enough to manage the food stocks and expiry dates. Also as an additional nitpicking, according to the article: > Contrast all this with France, where vending machines are banned on campus This is recent (2005 apparently) and that certainly was not the case when I was a kid, we had vending machines both in middle school and high school. Additionally to this, in high school, we had a bakery selling fresh warm pain au chocolat at 10am (not healthy but certainly delicious)
astrocat 11y ago
This entire debate over the quality of school lunch is myopic. School lunch food isn't the problem, American food culture is the Problem. I'd bet, (I have no data for this - I'm just a windbag of opinions) that in most communities (countries --> neighborhoods, whatever scope you want), school lunches will generally reflect the status quo of food quality in the community. Because if they didn't, parents would flip out. Status quo meals in Norway and France are pretty decent, I suspect. I've spent some time living in France and that certainly seemed to be the case. Status quo meals in the US? Terrible. The average American eats poorly - incredibly poorly - and it shows; in our health, waistlines, and, of course, in our school lunches. So the real challenge is to move the needle on American food culture. School lunches can and should be one vector for effecting that change, but we need to recognize and tackle the bigger picture. As others have mentioned, proper regulations on marketing to children is a must.
- soheil 11y ago
  They're both the problem. It's like saying there is no problem with guns, because guns don't kill; people do. You are right that there is indeed problems with American food culture, but that does not mean schools should automatically inherit those problems. In fact if we're gonna make things better it's always easier to start with children for they're considered the most precious.
  - herbst 11y ago
    In europe people expect that schools have proper food for their children, even if they cant provide it themself. Or better said especially then. Not all school models include eating, but those who do usually have a very high standard.
- Joof 11y ago
  I cook maybe 3 meals a week from stuff I find online. Maybe curry or stews or whatever sounds good that day. Otherwise it's pasta or sandwiches or something quick. My mom calls me a 'foodie' as if it's a pretty major differentiation. When I visit, I do the cooking. Cooking food (especially good tasting and healthy food) is relatively atypical among others that I know as well.
dweekly 11y ago
Somewhat surprisingly "95 percent of school districts in California...are successfully serving healthy meals that meet strong nutrition standards." Source: Pew Charitable Trusts, 2014 (cited by the NYT article) http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/phg/content_level_pages/other_resource/kshfkitscaliforniapdf.pdf http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/phg/co...
- nitrogen 11y ago
  Maybe the easiest way to meet exact numerical requirements is to serve chemical slop.
aianus 11y ago
You can eat an 800 calorie Soylent 1.5 meal for $3.08 all-in which is probably going to be healthier and less of a time-waste than either American or French school lunches.
- tmnvix 11y ago
  > a time-waste If this is how you view eating then Soylent is probably the best thing since sliced bread in your mind. For the rest of us... not so much.
  - gruez 11y ago
    If the school's budget was constrained, wouldn't it be better to serve nutritious (but tasteless) soylent than to serve whatever "regular" food that could be obtained at the same budget?
    - adrianN 11y ago
      I don't think that would be popular, neither with the parents nor with the kids.
  - aianus 11y ago
    Maybe your high school was different but as far as I remember we all scarfed down our brown-bagged sandwiches as quickly as possible to go play soccer or poker. Nobody wanted to spend their lunch time enjoying a drawn-out, healthy, cooked meal.
timwaagh 11y ago
the 'muricans can be counted lucky they even have (free) school lunch. where i live you don't and you bring your own bread or buy stuff. i think Michael Moore is pretty much cherry picking. france has huge problems in other areas (political islam & terrorism, unemployment, economy). norway is a petrostate.
danielovich 11y ago
Americans don't have a food-culture. Simple as that. That's the problem.
- herbst 11y ago
  I stumpled on a conversation about foreign food once and still laugh when i think about it. None of the listed _foreign foods_ from countries i know well enough even existed there. It was all just typical american food.
jld89 11y ago
The university meals in France where I studied where quite balanced. Maybe twice or thrice a month the food wasn't very good, like leftovers. But overall it was very good food and cheap at that. Of course a 5 course balanced meal.

139 points by wallflower 11y ago

I think this is a huge marketing problem, stemming from the ability for large companies to market directly to children, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the U.S. is one of the few industrialized nations (if not the only, I couldn't find another in a quick search) that has ZERO regulation in terms of what and how companies can advertise to children (outside of bans on cigarettes and alcohol of course.) Kids are extremely easy to manipulate with ads because they don't have the experience and the awareness to understand the differences between the shows they're watching and the ads they're consuming.

roymurdock 11y ago
I remember watching a ton of sugary cereal commercials as a kid. I'm pretty sure Kellogs was banned from advertising cereals that did not meet some minimum health requirement in 2007. [1] With that said, it's ultimately the parent's responsibility to make sure the kid is eating healthy foods. I was recently at an amusement park cafeteria and I saw lines out the door of parents and their children holding huge green refillable cups, waiting for their turn at the Coke fountain drink machines. Many of the kids were clearly overweight. It struck me as terribly sad and unfair that the kids did not know any better than to enjoy sugary drinks, but that the parents knew exactly what they were feeding their children and just didn't care. [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kellogg-wont-market-sugary-cereal-to-kids/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/kellogg-wont-market-sugary-cerea...
- mikeash 11y ago
  Don't be so sure the parents are aware of the problem: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/05/12/95-percent-of-parents-think-their-overweight-children-look-just-right/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/0...
  - adekok 11y ago
    My experience in California was light years from my experience in France. The bulk of school lunches provided by the parents were low-grade junk food. Sugar, snacks, and empty calories. The kids with vegetables and a balanced diet were in the minority. I saw an article while I was in California about a high school of last resort for juvenile delinquents. The reporter visiting it was shocked that the school was quiet, and the kids were well behaved. The reason (according to the principal) was largely diet. The school had a cafeteria with organic food (some subsidization). About 1-2 months after a new kid entered the school, the behavor problems went away. I can't find the link now, but I did find some related ones: "Dietary management of juvenile delinquency", http://www.feingold.org/Research/PDFstudies/Feingold-delinq79.pdf http://www.feingold.org/Research/PDFstudies/Feingold-delinq7... "Nutritional influences on aggressive behavior", http://orthomolecular.org/library/articles/webach.shtml http://orthomolecular.org/library/articles/webach.shtml
- Renaud 11y ago
  The issue is that kids that grew up without a healthy approach to food become the very parents that perpetuate the behaviour; they just don't know any better because they haven't been exposed to good eating habits, either at home, on the tv or at school. It's a social thing. The parents are clearly responsible for educating their kids, but as a society we shouldn't think it's OK to advertise and serve dangerous crap to kids and just assume that this doesn't affect behaviour (the very purpose of advertisement is that it affect people's behaviour, I always found it strange that we then blame them for being influenced). You have to start very early to educate kids senses to appreciate flavours more subtle than fat, salt and sugar. When Jamie Oliver attempted to change the horrendous 'meals' served to kids in the UK, he hit this very issue: lots of kids preferred to eat their crisps and junk food rather than the balanced, healthy and tasty meals prepared for them by a top chef (meals that didn't cost more than the crap they were usually served). Contrast that to the meals served in schools in France: they are balanced, varied, there is always some choice. You will always find a choice of starter, main course, cheese/yoghurt and dessert. These kids find it normal to eat their vegetables. Parents wouldn't have it otherwise. In France at home, most people actually cook. Everyone orders pizza once in a while, but the vast majority of meals are actually cooked from fresh. It's not a money thing: you can get cheap produces. It's a cultural thing: cooking is fun, it's a skill people pass down the generations, it's time well spent, it's something to be proud of, it's a part of normal life.
  - knughit 11y ago
    In the USA we believe that once you turn 18 you are an adult and responsible for yourself, and have no right to blame your upbringing (parents, and schools, and doctors) for any of your mental, health, and economic deficiencies. And that's the problem with USA.
- HarryHirsch 11y ago
  The problem is that obesity increases risk for all sorts of conditions: heart disease, arthritis, type-2 diabetes and all the problems that that brings on (neuropathy, retinal degeneration, kidney failure), nevermind the stigma from being too fat. And so on. It's easy to say that it's the parents' fault that their children are overweight, but everyone else gets to deal with the fallout. With childhood obesity rates approaching 30 % in places, the extra burden on the medical system is staggering. Horace was very much to the point when he said it's your problem when the neighbour's apartment is on fire.
maxaf 11y ago
My child doesn't watch TV, and is surrounded by ad blockers of all possible varieties. Consequently she rejects food that she can't break down easily into ingredients with plain English names. The more general problem with America is the prevalence of business models that depend on sales of people's attention. "If it's free, you're the product" is such an integral part of living in the US these days that most people don't even realize how deeply in hock they are. Cutting the cord, abandoning traditional TV programming (including daytime content-less shows and infomercials) and fighting the good fight against ads will eventually leave consumers free to make their own decisions. I'm worried only that it might take too long: the genetic damage to humanity will already be done.
such_a_casual 11y ago
> they don't have the experience and the awareness to understand the differences between the shows they're watching and the ads they're consuming citation? There's no way anyone under 18 just lacks the ability to distinguish between commercials and the program they're watching. Source: was once a kid
- pbhjpbhj 11y ago
  >distinguish between commercials and the program // Perhaps the parent means the purpose for the programs and the commercials - as in that the commercials aren't just there to entertain you but to manipulate you in to wanting a particular product. Mind you essentially you can say the program is just there to soften you up and create a method to feed your brain the marketing message of the commercials ...
  - such_a_casual 11y ago
    My disbelief still stands. What is the age range for human beings who can't distinguish between commercials and programs? You don't think kids get irritated when they're shows are interrupted by commercials? To me this just comes across as an excuse for bad parenting. There were junk food commercials on tv when I was a kid, but I didn't get to have them, because I didn't have money to buy them.
- Joof 11y ago
  Anecdote, yu-gi-oh; bey-blades; etc. People in general don't really realise the impact that advertising has on them even if they are aware of them.
magicmu 11y ago
What you're saying (and the somewhat muted point in the article) about advertising is totally true, but I don't think it just applies to children. People are hugely susceptible to advertising, which is why it is, and always has been, extremely effective if done correctly. It's especially disturbing when children are specifically targeted by advertisements pitching products are that demonstrably harmful, but it's not the exception. I think that one of the main reasons that most parents don't heavily discourage or forbid their children from watching these ads is that they themselves aren't aware of the broader picture. In that vein, I think education is just as important, if not more-so, than regulation of advertisers.

guyzero 11y ago

US government policy in a nutshell: increase standards, don't increase funding.

repsilat 11y ago
US schools have among the highest per-student funding in the world. Funding has been steadily increasing for decades, though test scores haven't budged: http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/cracking-books/trends-american-public-schooling-since-1970.png http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/cracking-books/t... Perhaps that money should be going into school lunches instead of wherever it is going at the moment...
- ethbro 11y ago
  > instead of wherever it is going at the moment... Testing?
  - Pxtl 11y ago
    Sports?
- Spooky23 11y ago
  A lot of that is different accounting. In most US states, schools are nominally independent bodies of government, they carry all of the costs of facilities, pensions, etc. They also need to comply with all sorts of cost enhancing building and labor standards. So in my city, the school collects $28k/pupil. That includes something like $150M in debt for buildings, salaries, 20% of salaries for pension obligations, 15-20% for employee healthcare, key expenses for the various charter schools, etc. They also need to deal with compliance issues. Because some redneck place in Mississippi would give poor kids a slice of Bologna and stale bread, there are prescribed calorie and nutrition standards that get audited. So you can't prepare fresh foods.
  - knughit 11y ago
    The bans on fresh foods are due to lobbying by national good companies to regulate against local competitors. It isn't because of citizen complaints.

vacri 11y ago

It's a bit of an odd article, that assumes the blame is on the food prep departments. "The US has food far below France's quality, but the departments only get $3/head instead of $7/head". All this means is the problem isn't in the departments, but in the willingness to fund appropriately. It's probably also not fair to compare pretty much anywhere to France, given France's extreme cultural connection to fine food (and hence pool of suitable school-level cooks).

smileysteve 11y ago
I actually don't understand the $3/head part without any examples for the smaller state portion. If a state matches $2-3 then the difference with $7 is negligible. Beyond this, I want to add that, if we're complaining about the overhead and staff, Chipotle (ignoring recent ecoli outbreaks) and similar have very fresh options ->$6.
- knughit 11y ago
  What do you do with the "negligible" 15-30% of your money?
  - smileysteve 11y ago
    Save it, reinvest it? From a more corporate standpoint, at $7 a meal, schools are entering competition with "gourmet" fast food options, of which 15-30% is going towards profit margins. If mall food courts at all compete nutritionally with school lunches, then, at $6-$7 a meal, schools should charge (at market, not cost) for the space and restaurants should have profit margins.

jay_kyburz 11y ago

We don't do school lunches here in Australia. My parents packed me lunch every day for 10 years, and I'll do the same for my kids. It's really no big deal.

iambateman 11y ago
Probably not for you, but if you were a single parent with two jobs trying to get two kids to the bus each morning, packing a lunch would be a lot more difficult.* Especially to make a lunch healthy. * to be clear, I am not that person. Just saying.
- grecy 11y ago
  Why would anyone need two jobs? shouldn't one pay a living wage? Maybe the problems run deeper
  - cmurf 11y ago
    Definitely deeper. The U.S. worker has seen 35 years of wage stagnation. Economic growth is fairly restricted to those with college degrees. And those aren't free.
chm 11y ago
It can be for some kids. I see no reason a child should have to eat less healthy than any other at a public school. I'm a reasonably good cook (definitely "above average", but nothing spectacular). I would much prefer my kids' meals to be prepared by someone whose job it is to cook than me, for the simple reason that I doubt I'd have much time to prepare whole meals every evening. For me, it would be worth the price.
- ethbro 11y ago
  Furthermore, both you and parent are assuming that you have the capability to prepare meals for your children. In the US, at least, a majority of public school students are eligible for free or reduced price lunch assistance ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-us-public-school-students-are-in-poverty/2015/01/15/df7171d0-9ce9-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/majority-of-u... ). Which means they likely don't have a sustainable "home preparation" alternative option. As someone with a mom who taught kindergarten for 30 years, it's not uncommon for school meals to be the only reliable meals in a child's life in certain areas. (Hence offering breakfast)

eliben 11y ago

This sounds misleading. They mention the French version is a high-end school for high-income parents. But this isn't how the public school system works in the US, right? Wouldn't it be more fair to compare to a high-end private school in the US, where I'm sure the lunch budget ends up at more than "a dollar + change for student"?

adekok 11y ago
All French public schools have an in-school cafeteria where food is prepared fresh every day. High income parents get billed for this, or they can supply lunch themselves. Low income parents didn't pay.
- walterstucco 11y ago
  that's common in many European countries, especially southern countries. What they call lunch in France, in Italy we call it "a snack" ;)
rtpg 11y ago
I've done a Texas HS cafeteria, a French public HS , and a French private HS The private HS had the best food, but the meal was about $8 a day, and I lived close by, so I would often eat at home. I could make comparably healthy foods at home for $4 or so I think The french public highschool was about $4.50. People complained about the food , but I had a little appetizer, main plate, and dessert. And it was usually all "real food". The kind you could eat forever and be fine. Main plate was usually some meat/fish + a little veggies. In Texas I had a lot of mashed potatoes and chicken nuggets. I have no clue how my body didn't completely fall apart . but hey, it was $2. BTW French Uni also had a cafeteria . for about $5 I could have a lunch similar to HS (if a bit more on the greasy side). A lifesaver for a college student too lazy to buy proper food. There are important details (hard to get a lot of good fresh fish in the middle of Nevada), but the school meal thing really is another example of how the US really isn't as rich as it likes to portray itself.

adekok 11y ago

I spent years living in France, and my daughter went to kindergarten and grade one there. The lunches were insane. A 3 year-old can expect a five course meal every day. Prepared fresh on-site. Different every day of the month. The school district would mail a calendar of lunches to the parents every month. I still have some. The parents care about the food their children eat. They're willing to pay a little more for good food at school. As a computer programmer, I earned an above average salary, and paid small amounts every semester for better food. IIRC, it was about $200. And definitely way below $1K. My daughter loved her lunches, and I was happy to not have to make something with the French parents would then laugh at. ;) The French attitude is "we live to eat". They say every other country "eats to live". That definitely shows in the different attitude towards the school lunches.

gkanai 11y ago
> The French attitude is "we live to eat". They say every other country "eats to live". Japan also lives to eat and their public school lunches are very healthy and nutritious. The children often also partake in the preparation of the meals in part, so they get that learning as well.
- hanniabu 11y ago
  That actually seems like a great idea. Not enough kids know how to cook and I feel this is a reason a lot of the younger generation eats out rather than at home. Having a class rotation where every day of the month (or week, depending how big the school is) a different before-lunch class will instead go to the cafeteria and prep meals would be awesome. Students would get to learn and the school may be able to cut costs by hiring less lunch attendants. Of course kids would have to wash their hands and be trusted not to taint the food, but that goes for current lunch attendants as well.
  - ethbro 11y ago
    Colleges have a hit or miss on this. A lot of liberal arts colleges still seem to have student employment opportunities in the dinning hall. In my large public university? Sodexo and poorly paid off site employees for 100% of staff. Another failure of unmodelled externalities in capitalism, I think. If a kid's lunch costs $5 to involve them in the preparation process on site vs. $2.50 for a minimum cost contractor preparation... which is the better deal?

ryan-allen 11y ago

When I went to school in the 80s and 90s (I live in Australia), our parents had to send us to school with our own lunch. We had cafeterias but they were by and large for treats not for day to day lunch. I don't understand why taking their own lunch is not an option if the food served is so abysmal?

Renaud 11y ago
The issue with kids having lunch boxes prepared by their parents is that the kids are completely dependent on their parent's abilities to serve them a balance diet. They don't get a chance to try and discover anything else.
- reddytowns 11y ago
  A bigger issue with trying to force meal choices is that you are then attempting to raise the kid instead of allowing the parents to do so. Just because you don't agree with how a parent decides to feed their child, doesn't give you the right to arbitrarily take away their choice.
  - pbhjpbhj 11y ago
    >Just because you don't agree with how a parent decides to feed their child // It's not a simple decision - here in the UK I would have my kids eat school meals most days (perhaps miss the meal they anticipate to be least appetising and instead make their own). Instead they have packed lunch [aka bagged lunch] nearly every day because we can't afford the school dinner. I'm afraid it is really necessary to provide a decent school meal for many children in order to ensure they have some chance at a moderately healthy meal once a day.
  - Renaud 11y ago
    You always have the option of preparing food to your kids. If you feel what you give them is better than what they get at school then of course, it's a no brainer. On the other hand, if it's chore to take the time to prepare and cook their meals, and if school was presenting an affordable alternative, why wouldn't use it? No-one is forcing the kids to eat at school, no-one is taking away the parent's choice.

deleted 11y ago

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zappo2938 11y ago

A few years ago, disillusioned with the fine dinning industry, I walked away from being a chef. Not working in Miami with summer coming, I wrote emails to summer camps with sailing programs trying to get a job as a sailing instructor. Kingly Pines Camp in Maine responded to my email saying, "I won't lie to you. We still do need a sailing instructor, but if you are working here you will be cooking." So I went to Maine for the summer. All the other camps in the lakes region started to outsource their dining to the Aramark corporation. Kingly Pines didn't want to go that route. How does an institution like a summer camp provide three meals plus an afternoon snack a day for $5 per person? The camp has average 200 campers under the age of 15 and 100 staff. Also, everybody is very, very physically active so people are hungry. That's a food budget of $1500 a day. The decision was to make everything from scratch. There were only three of us in the kitchen The food director who was in charge of the pizza station at U of Maine during the winter was awesome. I appreciate that he listened to me because I was coming from the best restaurants in Northern California. We created a salad bar with 5 different types of homemade salad dressing. We baked our own meats for cold cuts. It's not difficult to make home made roast beef and turkey breasts before using a slicer to cut them. The tiramisu caused a riot. Instead of Dinty Moore beef stew, we purchased two top rounds. It's one thing to make beef stew with carrots and potatoes but my recipe uses parsnips, celeriac, turnips, and potatoes. Why only make one type of lasagna if you can make three different types? I bet I could get your kids to eat roasted portobello mushroom goat cheese lasagna. Once a week we would make several different facaccia pizzas. The camp's philosophy is to challenge children to do things they haven't done before whether to get up on water skis for the first time or get to the top of a rock climbing wall, to explore their world, and to learn to be independent. That philosophy was extended to eating too. By the end of every session many the kids even the most reluctant faced with peer pressure to try new things -- it works two ways -- had become gourmands. Turns out that we spent $4.25 a day per person well under budget. The last day of each session when the parents picked up their children we had a big lunch for everybody as the camp did activities that included all the campers and parents for the day. I would say things to the dinning director like buy me four sides of salmon, a couple bags of spinach, and a box of puff pastry. So we were making prime rib and salmon in croute. One of the parents was just amazed and asked if the campers eat like this and his daughter said yes, every day. Children are curious and if they trust the cook to serve them something that isn't dull and bland,they are open to the experience of good and interesting food. If someone is serving me canned vegetables and overcooked broccoli that was engineered to have an extended shelf life not for flavor, I'm not going to want to eat veggies either! If you have kids, have a look at Kingsly Pines camp. [1] http://www.kingsleypines.com/ http://www.kingsleypines.com/

bbarn 11y ago

The other thing to remember, in the U.S., is that parents are constantly in a one-up war with each other. The two sides of that spectrum are "my kid's got the best lunch for him ever" and "my kid's got the most awesome lunch the other kids will be jealous of". This is why packed lunches should be flat out banned, in my opinion, but I concede that it's a parent's ultimate choice in how they raise their child. On the flip side of that, it's also their responsibility to do more than write articles about the poor state of food and actually try to do something about it. I'm far too lazy to find the reference, but I recall that empowering the children to do it themselves has worked more than once.

67726e 11y ago
You want to ban lunches because someone might feel bad about it? I went to the wealthiest (public) schools in the wealthiest town in the wealthiest county in my state. A place where kids got on that MTV Sweet 16 show, and not once was this ever a thing. This is the same argument they used for uniforms, that people would get made fun of. Never once saw that either. It's a joke. Sorry not everyone is wealthy, but that is a solution looking for a problem.
analog31 11y ago
I've got two kids in school, and have honestly never seen that kind of competition. We pack lunches for our kids. Typical fare is a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Sometimes it's leftovers, and maybe cut-up vegetables if we run out of fruit. We bake our own bread. If parents were competing over lunches, I'd see pictures of those lunches on Facebook, because that's how parents compete nowadays -- like the pictures that people share when they summon up the courage to cook a meal at home.

sundvor 11y ago

As a Norwegian, my first (and so far only) trip to the US was in the (northern hemisphere) autumn of '99, for an Allaire developers conference in Boston. My first impressions when landing at New Ark airport was one of being flabbergasted by how utterly fat so many people were. In 20 minutes I very likely saw more grossly fat people than I had seen in the previous year in Norway. For me it really was the most bizarre thing. Now in my early 40s, my memories are vague on this matter, but I'm pretty sure Coca Cola and the likes were completely banned from my school canteens. There just wasn't that much junk food to be had either. I mean in general ... as for the schools, forget about it. Pizza would be a very special occasion. Whatever the US were doing, it was doing it completely wrong.

learc83 11y ago
The rest of the world is catching up. http://www.thelocal.no/20150506/norways-men-soon-to-be-among-europes-fattest-who http://www.thelocal.no/20150506/norways-men-soon-to-be-among... Most developed countries are about 20-40 years behind the US in obesity rates--if you look at overweight and obesity rates (and rate of change) in the US from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, they match pretty well with the same data from many other developed countries from the 2000s. US obesity and overweight rates have mostly stabilized and will hopefully decline, so maybe the same will happen elsewhere (maybe sooner?).
- digbyloftus 11y ago
  Other countries are catching up in overweight and obesity but there's rarely data on BMI levels above that. Anecdotally it does seem like the US has much higher rates of super obese people at 50+ BMI. The mobility scooter using, as wide as 2.5 normal people kind. There's a stark difference visiting from here in Australia despite our similar overweight rates. I don't know if it's because your food is so much cheaper that people who have eating problems/don't care about their health and appearance can afford to crazy, or if it's cultural, but there's a class of super fats waddling around in the US that you really don't see in other countries.
  - cableshaft 11y ago

gommm 11y ago

As a slight counterpoint to this, I was born and raised in small villages in Normandy. I had good food in elementary school and high school. A bit on the oily side but still freshly prepared, relatively healthy and actually better and less oily than food I later had as an exchange student in the US. In middle school though, I had truly awful food. More than once the yogurts we were served were past the expiry date and we had a few cases of food poisoning. As a kid, I disliked the food so much that I usually just skipped lunch (I would go to the cafeteria because I had to and would just eat the bread and maybe the yogurts if they weren't expired), not good for growth... The problem of preparing fresh food for students is that it relies on having a Chef who is good at his job and organized enough to manage the food stocks and expiry dates. Also as an additional nitpicking, according to the article: > Contrast all this with France, where vending machines are banned on campus This is recent (2005 apparently) and that certainly was not the case when I was a kid, we had vending machines both in middle school and high school. Additionally to this, in high school, we had a bakery selling fresh warm pain au chocolat at 10am (not healthy but certainly delicious)

astrocat 11y ago

This entire debate over the quality of school lunch is myopic. School lunch food isn't the problem, American food culture is the Problem. I'd bet, (I have no data for this - I'm just a windbag of opinions) that in most communities (countries --> neighborhoods, whatever scope you want), school lunches will generally reflect the status quo of food quality in the community. Because if they didn't, parents would flip out. Status quo meals in Norway and France are pretty decent, I suspect. I've spent some time living in France and that certainly seemed to be the case. Status quo meals in the US? Terrible. The average American eats poorly - incredibly poorly - and it shows; in our health, waistlines, and, of course, in our school lunches. So the real challenge is to move the needle on American food culture. School lunches can and should be one vector for effecting that change, but we need to recognize and tackle the bigger picture. As others have mentioned, proper regulations on marketing to children is a must.

soheil 11y ago
They're both the problem. It's like saying there is no problem with guns, because guns don't kill; people do. You are right that there is indeed problems with American food culture, but that does not mean schools should automatically inherit those problems. In fact if we're gonna make things better it's always easier to start with children for they're considered the most precious.
- herbst 11y ago
  In europe people expect that schools have proper food for their children, even if they cant provide it themself. Or better said especially then. Not all school models include eating, but those who do usually have a very high standard.
Joof 11y ago
I cook maybe 3 meals a week from stuff I find online. Maybe curry or stews or whatever sounds good that day. Otherwise it's pasta or sandwiches or something quick. My mom calls me a 'foodie' as if it's a pretty major differentiation. When I visit, I do the cooking. Cooking food (especially good tasting and healthy food) is relatively atypical among others that I know as well.

dweekly 11y ago

Somewhat surprisingly "95 percent of school districts in California...are successfully serving healthy meals that meet strong nutrition standards." Source: Pew Charitable Trusts, 2014 (cited by the NYT article) http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/phg/content_level_pages/other_resource/kshfkitscaliforniapdf.pdf http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/phg/co...

nitrogen 11y ago
Maybe the easiest way to meet exact numerical requirements is to serve chemical slop.

aianus 11y ago

You can eat an 800 calorie Soylent 1.5 meal for $3.08 all-in which is probably going to be healthier and less of a time-waste than either American or French school lunches.

tmnvix 11y ago
> a time-waste If this is how you view eating then Soylent is probably the best thing since sliced bread in your mind. For the rest of us... not so much.
- gruez 11y ago
  If the school's budget was constrained, wouldn't it be better to serve nutritious (but tasteless) soylent than to serve whatever "regular" food that could be obtained at the same budget?
  - adrianN 11y ago
    I don't think that would be popular, neither with the parents nor with the kids.
- aianus 11y ago
  Maybe your high school was different but as far as I remember we all scarfed down our brown-bagged sandwiches as quickly as possible to go play soccer or poker. Nobody wanted to spend their lunch time enjoying a drawn-out, healthy, cooked meal.

timwaagh 11y ago

the 'muricans can be counted lucky they even have (free) school lunch. where i live you don't and you bring your own bread or buy stuff. i think Michael Moore is pretty much cherry picking. france has huge problems in other areas (political islam & terrorism, unemployment, economy). norway is a petrostate.

danielovich 11y ago

Americans don't have a food-culture. Simple as that. That's the problem.

herbst 11y ago
I stumpled on a conversation about foreign food once and still laugh when i think about it. None of the listed _foreign foods_ from countries i know well enough even existed there. It was all just typical american food.

jld89 11y ago

The university meals in France where I studied where quite balanced. Maybe twice or thrice a month the food wasn't very good, like leftovers. But overall it was very good food and cheap at that. Of course a 5 course balanced meal.