My youngest D went to a public (suburban) school where the lunches were healthy and tasty. Those types of lunches were due entirely to the creativity and dedication of the chef who ran (still does) the school lunch program. He went over and above to create this lunch program. A film maker did a documentary about him.
You can make cheap, crummy food palatable with lots of salt and sugar. So if school systems were providing the cheapest possible food full of sugar and salt, they may indeed have trouble making palatable food that meets reasonable health standards.
As I said earlier, my son’s middle school (which I also attended back in the dark ages) actually made scratch, healthy, palatable food. As a vegetarian child, I was well fed back then. The lack of flexibility has made a change in that particular school, which is what I said based on my own experience over three decades. Whatever goes on elsewhere is unknown to me, but this absolutely the situation in some schools. In a very large enterprise, unintended consequences are the norm.
School lunches have been bad most of the time in my experience. My D likes s few of the things they serve but she usually skips lunch. Because they start school so early she has lunch crazy early and isn’t usually hungry yet.
When she ride the bus and took longer to get home she would often pack a lunch.
zoosermom, my kid’s cafeteria experience was marginally better at her gigantic Brooklyn high school than it was at her Title 1 Chinatown elementary school where everyone got free lunch because the percentage of free-lunch-eligible kids was so high. But at both schools, serious overcrowding made if difficult to have any kind of pleasurable lunch experience.
I have read and heard (from parents, not from the department of education) about schools in gentrified Brooklyn neighborhoods taking the initiative to do better with school lunch during the past several years. But no personal experience.
although there was no racial diversity, our public school lunches were horrific and did result in segregation. It was clearly obvious who had free lunch because they were the only people eating the “salisbury steak” “turkey squares” gray hotdogs and brown green beans. it’s a real issue but not a new one. food in our current district is healthier but french toast sticks with corn syrup on the side are still a staple. very glad my kids do not depend on a school lunch…
“The Texas agriculture commissioner announced Thursday that he is lifting the ban on sodas and the use of deep-fat fryers in public schools.”
Sid Miller said his decision, which would go into effect July 1, 2015, returns control to school districts that were required more than a decade ago to get rid of such types of foods.
Maybe Texas schools can serve everything deep-fried and on a stick in order to save money on trays and utensils.
Frying something does not make it unhealthy, per se. Soda, on the other hand…
Maybe their plan is to save money on college educations by killing the kids off early.
@prezbucky, not just fried but deep-fried!
I’m choking here, @Hunt. No wonder I enjoy reading your posts so much. Sensible AND funny. 
Lack of exercise contributes more to obesity than what we eat yet regular phys ed is the first thing cut.
Perhaps a few laps around the school rather than cutting salt intake for little kids would be a better solution.
^^^Totally disagree. While I believe exercise is important for health, good nutrition is really the driving force behind being healthy. Even if you can burn off enough calories to say ‘thin’ - that doesn’t make you healthy.
That being said, yes, kids should be active too.
Re: Deep-frying – if they are using one of the healthier oils like coconut oil, it’s OK, assuming they do a fair job of draining/drying off the food once it is out of the fryer.
But the chances of them using coconut oil is pretty low, I would think…
In 1988 and 1989, kids from my private middle school were assigned to volunteer at a Chicago public school for the blind as part of our community service program. This was a school where free lunch was automatic. We were not allowed to bring food or drinks from home because they didn’t want us eating treats in front of the kids. Without exception, we went hungry rather than eat the scary green meat they served. Even the apples were vile. We’re talking about gross enough to get 13-year-old boys to choose to skip a meal, not just reheated frozen pizza or chicken nuggets gross. Yet we did not see one student at that school hesitating to eat the meal with gusto. It drove home the lesson to me that these were hungry children, and this was all they were getting to eat today.
So I’m glad to see attention paid to this issue, even if there are problems in the execution, and I don’t doubt there are problems in the execution.
But…how would they know?
Sorry, I didn’t read all the posts, but my ritzy NYC private school (it’s one of the schools gossip girl is based on) had really crappy food 10+ years ago. It was the same cafeteria for K-12. Starting in 7th or 8th grade you were allowed to go out to lunch in the neighborhood on thursdays, lots of kids did it, in high school you could do it every day - even more kids did it then. It’s definitely not catering to poor students that has made school food bad. Also, take a stab at whether or not you think the scholarship kids were more, equally, or less likely as the non-scholarship kids to eat out for lunch (keep in mind lunch was “free” for everyone since it was part of our tuition), so the segregation is not new either.
Hunt is correct…How would the kids from the school for the blind know if the volunteers were eating treats in front of them>?
I don’t doubt Hanna’s veracity. I just can’t resist a straight line.
They actually do have other senses.