Fed up with Lunch: The School Lunch Project

To those who are helpfully suggesting that if these lunches are so bad, parents should just fix something at home or serve a good and big breakfast: that may have worked for your family, but school hot lunch programs serve many students for whom this is one of their only guaranteed meals of the day.

19 million children in America qualify for free or reduced-price lunches at school and depend on these meals. The real tragedy here isn't that kids are forced to eat crap, it's that the programs are so under-funded that we force them to rely on this crap for nutrition because "oh, their parents should just make them something to take in if they don't like it."

At the El Paso TX high school where I teach, it's expected that a lot of the students will go to the restaurants and places nearby to eat. They have an hour to do so. As for the rest of us who eat cafeteria food, including much of the staff, some of the dishes are bland, including the burgers which are cardboard, but there are plenty of vegetable choices, fruit choices, entree choices, etc. And there's the snack bar which serves fruit, icees, ice cream and other treats. While it isn't fine dining, I definitely believe the food selections differ from school to school. We just have a bonus in living on the border, which nets us some great cheese enchiladas and breakfast burritos.

In elementary school, I went to a small private school with delicious homemade lunches. In junior high and high school, I went to public school and the lunch system went through at least 4 major changes in the system. These lunches look...unhealthy...

What is wrong with packing a lunch???

So, mom, get your ass out of bed an hour earlier and make your kids some lunch. While your at it, COOK them some breakfast, too.

the school lunch program is ridiculously complex. there are food accountants to keep track of things.

additionally, it's not run by the USDA, it's run by the Dept. of Defense. the DoD took over in the 70s.