Pragmatic answer: It's really hard to figure out how much food is needed without creating huge amounts of waste. Our school district had free-for-all lunches

Pragmatic answer: It's really hard to figure out how much food is needed without creating huge amounts of waste. Our school district had free-for-all lunches and dinners for the last couple of years due to covid. Take as much as you want, no questions asked. It resulted in a huge waste of food. I was at one distribution spot daily and they'd be cheerfully pressing bags on me, "Take one! Take ten! It will all get thrown away otherwise" On taco day I'd grab a few because one kid liked them but that was it. Even with the ones I took, the apples got throw out and the chocolate milk got thrown out. This year it is only free lunch and the kids have a lunch code, so at least they know that they don't need more than the number of students at the school. I suspect there are still a lot of leftovers at the end of the day. Most of the kids I know still bring their own - the biggest beneficiaries are working parents who don't have the energy to pack lunch every day. There could be government agencies that hand out something like MREs I suppose. It wouldn't be very appealing and I'm sure there would be lots of complaints, but it might keep people from starving.