The Scary Things Schools are Feeding Kids These Days

1. bean
   August 19th, 2008 at 1:46 pm

   I once met a girl who was from Harrisonburg, VA. This explains a lot.

2. eni
   August 19th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

   The only things on that list I would consider eating are those pizza cheese sticks and the "Italian" dunking sticks or whatever. Thank god for bagged lunches.

3. Jerry Arreola
   August 19th, 2008 at 1:58 pm

   As a current high school student in F-dub, WA, I got to say that I've eaten lunches like those. They are really lame and unappetizing which makes me wonder why back in the day, I ate all that crap anyways. *chill down through spine*

4. CheeseDuck
   August 19th, 2008 at 2:00 pm

   Yum!

5. Patrick Nice
   August 19th, 2008 at 2:42 pm

   Pretty much unrelated, but the "caption me photo" on the right menu bar of the linked article/site was interesting.

6. Aar000n
   August 19th, 2008 at 2:51 pm

   I still don't understand how kids eat that crap... The only time I've ever eaten part of any school lunch was in elementary school when I lost my own lunch and I tried eating a few chicken nuggets.
   At least normal junk food tastes better, but this shit is nasty and bad for you. So let's feed it to kids every day. Great idea.

7. Sofar
   August 19th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

   Cafeteria food ain't what's making kids fat, no one eats that stuff.

8. MoniA
   August 19th, 2008 at 4:45 pm

   I think cafeteria food certainly DOES make kids fat! In the 9th grade I spent a year in PA with my grandparents. We had greasy pizza almost every other day at school. You could turn it on it's side and watch the grease run off. I went from being a skinny kid to not so skinny that year and had to start dieting. And from what I recall, pretty much everyone ate the food. I also remember them serving us milkshakes every day. I'm mostly vegan now and happy about that decision.

9. Neatoramawontsendmeapassword
   August 19th, 2008 at 6:08 pm

   Can I go barf now? (I did get a kick out of the little turds that were abbreviated "BM", though.)

10. Akiro
    August 19th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

    I have worked in several schools, and that food really does not seem too bad. Schools have nutritional guidelines these days, hence vegetables next to just about everything. Also what was up with that frozen juice pop?!? Can't the schools around here get those?

11. Justin
    August 19th, 2008 at 7:01 pm

    on the other hand, learning to eat this crap makes you a less picky eater.

12. Sammy
    August 19th, 2008 at 8:51 pm

    I am a high school student in VA (not this county, but right next to it) and students are offered salads, sandiwches, or whole wheat pizza. The food pictured is the worst Ive ever seen, and would only be served once a month or so.
    I enjoy school food! I normally pack lunch, just because its faster, but I would eat school food

13. MoonCake
    August 19th, 2008 at 11:08 pm

    there are definitely salads available in [most] schools, but the selection is disappointing. they also had fruit cups, but were usually expensive for the little amount of actual fruit you got. i went to a pretty nice school and even though we had a lot of money being pumped into it, they still felt it necessary to serve pizza, mozerella cheese sticks with dipping sauce, nachos/pretzels with cheese dipping sauce, large baskets of french fries, over-processed "side-items" like chips, cookies, candy, entire racks of ho-hos and zebra cakes... i mean the selection of crap food was endless. but of course, healthy eating is a lifestyle and self discipline. kids are supposed to have discipline instilled by their parents. if they're good parents, the kids will likely be good too. habits flourish, you just have to make sure you know which is the right one to continue. keep in mind, 70% of the adult population in this country is considered "obese." the kids are obese because their parents are obese. none of us have to worry about it, really, if we're good parents and teach the right lessons. eating is one of the most important things to survival. if you don't eat right, you won't survive the way you're supposed to.

    but cafeteria food is terrible. i gained a lot of weight when i was in junior high because i thought (for some reason) french fries and soda weren't bad for me. pffffhhh.. they were so tasty though. i didn't learn until college that the reason all this commercial food tastes so good is because of all of the fake sugars (HIGH-FRUCTOSE corn syrup. regular corn syrup is fine because it's real and that's what your body was made to process), partially-hydrogenated oils (sunflower, safflower, canola, soybean.. they're bad because those who figured out the chemical equation figured out that they could make a cheap, flavor-enhancing oil by NOT completing the chemical composition, hence "partially". your body doesn't process "partial" anything. FULLY-hydrogenated oils aren't as bad though, because their process is complete), other preservatives, artificial flavors, some colors, amidst so many other additives. the only reason they're bad for you and there is such a problem with them is because they are in absolutely everything that is mass-produced.

    'they' are only worried about pumping orders out the door and making money, and they can sell it at a cheap price because they don't use real ingredients. that's why organic and all-natural foods are more expensive. but they're healthier not because they're low-fat or low-calorie (both of which are ALSO bad because when you take something away, you have to add something else. in this case with food, calories and fat are naturally occurring ingredients), but because "healthy" food doesn't mean anything until you relate it to how your body processes it. food isn't just this thing you stuff in the hole on your face that tastes yummy.. it's an important staple in your life. eat the right stuff and it will treat you right. but anyway.. i always get into food health stuff when it comes up.

14. Idil
    August 19th, 2008 at 11:09 pm

    Yeah I never ate lunch in high school. Didnt help with my concentration one bit

15. Idil
    August 19th, 2008 at 11:11 pm

    Oh and I actually binge-ate when i got home from school because i was so hungry from all the work suckng the energy out of me (i went to a really tough private school) and skipping lunch... that's how i started gaining lots of weight. After all the snack eating, was dinner in a few hours of course...

16. Nicholas Dollak
    August 20th, 2008 at 9:46 am

    I believe I only ate cafeteria food once, and then only because a friend didn't want to eat it. It was a slice of "pizza" (note quotation marks) with the most cardboard-y taste... From the first day of first grade to the last day of high school, I always brought lunch from home and never bought any cafeteria food. Admittedly, for most of elementary school I was curious, but that taste of what was mistakenly labeled "pizza" disabused me of any delusions I might have had about it.

    The yellow ooze that is identified as "cheese" in the pictures is actually not. As a cheese connoisseur, I can assure you of this.

    I teach nowadays, and have noticed that some school cafeterias are getting rather fancy and a few are even putting veggies on students' trays. Unfortunately, when serving cafeteria duty, I see a lot of food (including entire servings of fruit and veggies) wind up in the trash cans. While many people in the USA could certainly stand to eat less, it doesn't help if they're throwing away the food that's actually good for them.

    There's also just a lot of general ignorance about what food is and where it comes from. When I was in college, I would collect my lunch at the cafeteria and take it to my dorm room, so I could bring some with me to my next class and save the rest for later. Some guys thought this was funny (I guess their habit was to cut class for lunch) and of course had to investigate the contents of my tray. They were astounded to see nothing on it that they would eat. "Where's the meat?" they'd say. "I'm vegetarian," I'd foolishly answer. (I have an enzyme deficiency and can't digest meat.) "So, like, you eat only chicken?" they'd say, looking for the nuggets that they thought were chicken and finding none. "No; chicken is meat, therefore I can't eat it." They freaked out and insisted that chicken is not meat. I found this a profoundly idiotic claim, but still respected the intelligence I assumed they might have. So I decided to let them puzzle it out. "Think about it, guys," I said. "What is 'chicken' made from?" "Uh, it's just chicken," they said. "Whick comes from..?" "Well, they just MAKE it. At KFC!"

    These promising young college men honestly thought chicken was a man-made food created at Kentucky Fried Chicken stands. Very "Eraserhead." It grossed them out when I explained that chickens are a kind of bird. I should have told them it was made from people or something.

17. Patti S.
    August 20th, 2008 at 12:36 pm

    I remember recently watching one of the Sara Chronicles episodes where a guy developed a computer, called the Turk (I believe) that would create world weapons but was disguised as a chess-playing computer game. Yes, there should be an sequel to this.

18. s
    August 20th, 2008 at 1:04 pm

    I'm glad my mom never let me eat that junk when I was little. I think she was more trying to save money by packing my lunches and not giving me lots of extra snacks but I stayed slim throughout my school years and I'm glad she never gave me much junkfood. When I see obese children it's just sad that their parents don't care about their child's health.

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