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All praise to the lunch ladies

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Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#101

Post by gusgus01 »

dpark wrote: post #18
Animats wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The view from the other side: NeverSeconds.[1] Each day in 2012-2014, a middle school girl in Scotland took a picture of her school lunch and wrote a review on her blog, including number of hairs and insects. The headmaster of the school told her to stop taking pictures of her lunches. So she published a note, "Goodbye". That got some small publicity. Then the local town council backed up the headmaster. More publici…

So this is interesting but I would hardly call it “the other side”. This isn’t a battle between lunch ladies and students. Even here the girl was not asking for them to stop serving the food. Rather she said they should serve more and also improve it. > She added: “I'd like them to serve more, and maybe let some people have seconds if they want to ... and not serve stuff that's a wee bit disgusting.” https://web.arch…

I think this girl has a better understanding of lunch time dynamics than you. It's almost an objective, base point that any food is better than no food, which is why she would advocate for serving more and also improving it. A huge emphasis on improving it.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#102

Post by pqtyw »

komali2 wrote: post #97
maxlybbert wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [Original, emphasis added]: the only reason we have school lunch programs in the US at all is because the Black Panthers started a free breakfast program for black children in the 70s > [Response, emphasis added]: The first school lunch programs started with private initiatives in the 1890s . The first major federal program for student lunches was the National School Lunch Program enacted in 1946 Are you saying tha…

> the only reason we have school lunch programs in the US at all is because the Black Panthers started a free breakfast program for black children in the 70s > The first school lunch programs started with private initiatives in the 1890s. The first major federal program for student lunches was the National School Lunch Program enacted in 1946 How does the existence of a food program in the 1890s, or 1946, automatical…

> automatically invalidate the notion that the promulgation

Goes the other way around too? Regardless government continuing doing what they were already doing for the past half century seems reasonable. Without any additional evidence that seems like an inherently much more valid argument that attributing it to the Black Panthers. So equating them seems disingenuous...

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#103

Post by pqtyw »

Spivak wrote: post #24
michaelrpeskin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did "free" lunch for all here a couple of years ago. The idea is great, execution is terrible. You can't get a la carte free, only the full "FDA approved" lunch is free. So if you forget a drink, or just want to add a snack to your own packed lunch, you go get the whole thing and throw everything else away. The elementary school tried adding the "share table" where you can put anything you don't want so that someo…

I mean this is the nanny state at its best. Getting in the way of progress because you refuse to meet people, in this case kids, where they actually are. The challenge should be minimizing the amount of waste—cook literally anything where the kids will clean their plates then try to nudge toward healthier options while keeping your waste % low. Let them take any subset of the lunch as they please, prune dishes kids e…

> literally anything where the kids will clean their plates then

Feeding kids sugar and hen nudging them to eat slightly less sugar while still providing inherently unhealthy meals seems suboptimal. Them cleaning their plates is not an inherently a good thing. Rather the opposite.

> making sure they eat the "right" things.

Certainly better than feeding them the wrong things? though.

It's not like starvation or malnourishment is the main issue when a significant proportion of children are overweight. Them eating crap is...

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#104

Post by khannn »

speed_spread wrote: post #79
Auracle wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand why Michelle Obama’s plan included low salt. It’s not like kids have major hypertensive issues.

Because it conditions your expectations of tasting salt everywhere, which is what industrial food provides. Good food should taste great even if it's low on salt.

It takes something like a week to acclimate to lower salt intake. Not hard at all, it's like coming down on caffeine or weed. Salt is very important in pasta to keep the shape of the noodle. Whole wheat pasta alone is a giant step up in health outcomes, especially considering school kid's famous preference for McD's, which has a ton of sodium. I also want to link the John Stewart rant about Olive Garden not salting the pasta, but can't find it.

Ever wondered why hospital food tastes bad? It's cooked en masse without salt so that people with a sodium restriction (heart healthy) can eat the same meat as everyone else. The sodium denaturizes the meat and affects flavor greatly.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#105

Post by em500 »

rkomorn wrote: post #30
jimbokun wrote: post #4

Indeed. Occasionally I will see posted the beautiful school lunches given to children in many European countries. Nutritious, appetizing, made from scratch. These lunch ladies are the ones fighting to be allowed to do the same things for the children in their communities in the USA. But getting ham strung by the whims of federal politics and the crippling fear that someone somewhere might be given something for free…

> Occasionally I will see posted the beautiful school lunches given to children in many European countries. Nutritious, appetizing, made from scratch. Man, comments like these compared to my 10+ school years in France really make me wonder wtf happened in my 3 different schools' cafeterias. My 3 and change years in 2 US schools definitely had tastier food. IDK if my expectations of food in France (my home country) we…

In the Netherlands no elementary schools have any cafeteria, kitchen or lunch area at all. Kids bring their own lunchbox, with usually some sandwiches, fruit and water, and eat inside the classroom.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#106

Post by em500 »

ilamont wrote: post #35

Growing up near Boston, my public elementary school built in the 1920s didn't have a proper kitchen or even a cafeteria because kids at one time always brought meals from home and ate at their desks. Indeed, we did too, bringing metal lunchboxes or brown bags, until the mid-1970s. At that point, something changed and we all ate together in a repurposed room in the basement, eating the same unhealthy and unappetizing…

Elementary schools without any kitchen or cafeteria, kids bringing meals (bagged sandwiches) from home and eating at their desks, is still the standard in probably 95%+ of the elementary schools in the Netherlands in 2025.

It's not clear to me if there is any problem to be solved here.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#107

Post by dyauspitr »

speed_spread wrote: post #79
Auracle wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will never understand why Michelle Obama’s plan included low salt. It’s not like kids have major hypertensive issues.

Because it conditions your expectations of tasting salt everywhere, which is what industrial food provides. Good food should taste great even if it's low on salt.

It’s hard. Salt is kind of magical. My night time snack is some vegetable, air fried with some salt, olive oil and some lemon. It’s not too much salt but I would have a hard time eating it without the salt.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#108

Post by dyauspitr »

poink wrote: post #80
speed_spread wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it conditions your expectations of tasting salt everywhere, which is what industrial food provides. Good food should taste great even if it's low on salt.

It feels like you’re using “industrial food” as a pejorative, but the best chefs in the world also do not skimp on salt

The best chefs in the world generally don’t make healthy food, they make food that tastes good. High end restaurants usually use a lot of salt and butter.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#109

Post by bitdivision »

userbinator wrote: post #84
sevg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the best chefs in the world also do not skimp on salt Chefs use lots of salt to optimize for taste rather than health. (And restaurants don’t have to declare how much salt was in your meal.) That’s why it’s a bad idea to eat out and/or get take-away every day. Your salt intake would be extremely high.

Look at the graph of life expectancy vs. average sodium intake by country, and you may be surprised.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33351135/ Correlated with life expectancy

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#110

Post by userbinator »

bitdivision wrote: post #109
userbinator wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the graph of life expectancy vs. average sodium intake by country, and you may be surprised.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33351135/ Correlated with life expectancy

Thank you, that's a newer study but the same conclusions.
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