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All praise to the lunch ladies

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Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#111

Post by forgotoldacc »

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.

Ideally it should taste good. But elementary school lunch isn't exactly fine dining. Some shortcuts are taken and kids are often picky eaters. Salted vegetables are a step up from dinosaur shaped nuggets and pizza, so it's a better middle ground than unsalted food that goes straight to the trash.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#112

Post by zamadatix »

Auracle wrote: post #74
bellboy_tech wrote: post #59

School Bus drivers should be one of the highest paying jobs. Start there. Everything is so upside down. The children's caregivers, teachers, etc. should be the best people society can produce. From there greatness will be incubated.

Why? My mom drove school bus. It allowed her to work a part time job and stay at home with us kids when we were young. The drivers seemed split between people like her and older people that probably already had the right license, and it was a nice part time job for them too. I don’t disagree we should have better teachers by paying them more to widen the potential pool but that would need to go hand in hand with actu…

It varies by region, but a lot of areas have a difficult shortage which results in really long routes or troubles when a bus breaks down/several drivers are out. Different states/areas also have different laws on when that means bus service just isn't available. There is, of course, a floor for the requirements of a driver, which drives these to get worse when salary (and therefore job interest) is lower.

Half a lifetime ago now, my bus route in high school took 1.5-2 hours to get me ~4 miles from the school after some route consolidations (I got stuck on the end of the combined route where they were about to return to the bus depot - depending on the year that meant either getting up really early or getting home really late). If the weather was good I could just bike it, but that certainly wasn't always the case in Michigan.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#113

Post by zamadatix »

Baeocystin wrote: post #20

I used to get the poor kid's meal when I was very young. They made us stand as a group aside in a line and let all the other kids get their full-sized meals first, then would give us our half-sized shitty sandwich after everyone else walked passed and stared at us. Fuck every single adult involved in that kind of cruelty. That being said- the bit of light in this story is the lunch ladies who went out of their ways t…

It reminds me of a similar discussion here around overdue lunch fees, graduation, and how ridiculously small the amount ends up being for an entire school at the end of the year (I think the article was about the person just walking in and paying it all).

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#114

Post by seer »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #99
buu700 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High salt intake is only an issue on a high-carb diet or with inadequate hydration. Otherwise, consuming adequate salt/electrolytes can actually be a bit of a chore. Like saturated fat, salt has been incorrectly demonized in the course of propping up ill-conceived modern dietary standards.

Salt pills were a thing for people working in hot climates. The military requires electrolyte augmentation in such conditions. These days we use fancier electrolyte blends but it is still largely salt. If you are on a multi-day fast it is the primary thing you need to replenish aside from water. I do some pretty serious backcountry trekking in the summer. You can feel when your electrolytes are low after several hour…

The idea came from linking salt to heart failure, but last I checked the link was a confounding variable - e.g. bad diet leads to problems that themselves lead to high cholesterol. It was not the salt in the food but the quality of the nutrition itself.

However blaming salt was quick and easy so that’s what the people with money did.

Historically speaking salt has been such a scarce and valuable resource. I have read accounts how in the balkans people would resort to selling kids to slavery just so the family could have enough salt to survive (sacrificing one kid to save the rest).

When I started reading about how salt was bad for you it never made any sense.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#115

Post by theoreticalmal »

jancsika wrote: post #13
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…

Wikipedia: "number of hairs" You: "number of hairs and insects" Citation, please?

Cmon dude

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#116

Post by morningsam »

em500 wrote: post #105
rkomorn wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Same in Germany, and not just for elementary schools but also secondary schools. At least that's how it was decades ago when I was a student, maybe it's different now.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#117

Post by constantcrying »

The modern bourgeois obsession with valorizing the easiest unskilled jobs, done by people with zero abilities and ambition, is so bizarre.

No, putting food out for kids is not a glamorous or praiseworthy job. It is one of the easiest jobs in the world, requiring no skills or education or even any particular amount of effort. And because you live in the richest part of the earth you get comparatively extremely well rewarded.

I don't fault people for doing jobs like this, it obviously pays and you can go home and do something else after it. But praising them for it seems utterly ridiculous.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#118

Post by mschuster91 »

Auracle wrote: post #69
AstroNutt wrote: post #66

Great read! I sent this story to my girlfriend who works as a lunch lady in a small West Texas town for the last 10 years. She said they are still able to provide nutritional food for the kids. Her mother had an aunt that worked at the same school in the 50's and 60's and they made everything from scratch. Vegetables were bought locally too. She also mentioned the kids hated the whole wheat pasta and breads when Mich…

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

> It’s not like kids have major hypertensive issues.

"Low salt" was a fad in the 2010's, it cropped up everywhere. It's not particularly her fault for going with the mainstream of the time.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#120

Post by chris_wot »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #78
thaumasiotes wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So what? If you think that problem exists in the first place, you still have no choice but to address it by doing something that is possible to do.

> address it by doing something that is possible Yes, a military study was conducted that found it unproductive to do the impossible…

Hey, the U.N. recently wrote a report that most U.N. Reports aren’t read. It happens.
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