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All praise to the lunch ladies

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Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#71

Post by thaumasiotes »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64
thaumasiotes wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US military (hell just about every army on the planet) spends a lot of money and effort into developing field rations that are palatable enough for infantry sections on the move to eat in it's entirety. Why? That's not even a real concept. If you want everyone to like everything they have, you can't do that without letting them trade away the stuff they hate.

> Why? You don’t want the dude trading away everything for desserts kapooting midway mission because his bowels are in uprising.

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.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#72

Post by krapp »

komali2 wrote: post #68
somerandomqaguy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not exactly easy. The US military (hell just about every army on the planet) spends a lot of money and effort into developing field rations that are palatable enough for infantry sections on the move to eat in it's entirety. I can't imagine developing it for far more numerous school children is going to be any easier.

Whenever I watch a video about American military nutrition, the only takeaway I have is "are these people incompetent?" Sailors in the USA navy get fat after their first deployment, common knowledge. Why? Because half the time their food is frozen chicken nuggets, frozen tater tots, etc, chucked into the oven, served bulk at mess. 2025's most well funded army, that's the best they came up with? Why not just freeze no…

>Hire a chief lunch lady who has the same job a head chef does - find the local produce and dairy and fish and meat, plan meals and portions, organize supply, and direct meals.

Who's going to pay for all of that? Not the American taxpayer, who would consider it theft and waste, and not the poor kids who actually need school lunches, and probably not their parents.

You'll wind up with a Macdonald's kiosk in every school cafeteria, and vending machines full of Monster energy drinks.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#73

Post by komali2 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #61
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.

Well, if we had much better school bus drivers than we have now, what benefits would we realize from the change?

We'd have more since it was a higher paying job. Man districts lack enough drivers resulting in longer routes, which takes time away from the kids to have a life outside school.

Also we'd have happier kids and drivers which is great. The driver is part of the social worker aspect of a school, breaking up post school fights or noticing if a kid gets out to walk into a dangerously degraded housing situation. Would be nice to have very well paid, well trained people doing that job.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#74

Post by Auracle »

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 actually being able to fire poor performers.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#75

Post by simmonmt »

komali2 wrote: post #70
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…

As an American if I paid the same taxes but the half that's spent on building -b2 bombers- fine, substitute for "devices used to kill people I'll never meet in countries I'll never see," instead went to giving kids so much food they threw half of it away, I would be ecstatic with this change in the distribution of my taxes.

They stopped building B2 bombers 25 years ago.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#76

Post by zdc1 »

lelandbatey wrote: post #43
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…

The blog in question, right when posting seemed to pick up: https://neverseconds.blogspot.com/2012/05/

The comparison school lunch from Finland looks lovely. It's a shame that many school lunches are meals that we wouldn't pick for ourselves.

It's a simple test: would I want that for my lunch? For most of the photos, it's a no.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#77

Post by maxlybbert »

komali2 wrote: post #65
opo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that is not true. 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. That has since been updated several times: the Child Nutrition Act in 1966, the Child Care Food Program in 1975, etc.

What you're saying doesn't contradict the argument that the goal was do outdo the black panther lunch programs. Certainly I'd like to read more about the idea before I buy into it, but it does make a lot of sense - schools in black neighborhoods are chronically underfunded and the black panthers were first and foremost a direct action and mutual aid group, and furthermore the USA government viewed them as a huge thre…

> [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 that the government started trying to one-up the Black Panther school lunches 30 years before the Black Panthers started offering them?

Is it possible that the people in charge of school lunches in the 1970s viewed the Black Panther program as some kind of competition? Sure. Was the 1970s Black Panther program "the only reason" the US started a national school lunch program in the 1940s? I don't see how that would be possible.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#78

Post by JumpCrisscross »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #71
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why? You don’t want the dude trading away everything for desserts kapooting midway mission because his bowels are in uprising.

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…

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#79

Post by speed_spread »

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.

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.

Re: All praise to the lunch ladies

#80

Post by poink »

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