Pictures of school lunches around the world, and breakfasts

[halik]

Ha that Seattle picture is no way representative of the lunch in the us. I recall fries/pizza/tots every day.

 

[IEC]

I packed my own lunch with the exception of part of elementary school when I was on a free lunch program. Cheaper and more nutritious than the junk food most school cafeterias served (still serve?)

 

[slag]

When I was a kid, lunch and breakfast were never served in schools. My elementary and junior high didn't even have a cafeteria.

Standard issue lunch for me was a sandwich, fruit, a snack, and juice.

Sandwich was usually ham and cheese on a bun. If mom hadn't gone shopping, it was either cheese sandwiches on wonder bread, or PB&J. I hated cheese sandwiches. Still do.

If she was in a really good mood, sometimes I'd get pasta or soup, or Lunchables. I used to like the pizza ones.

When I was in high school, I used to go home for lunch and make myself something. It was nice being able to eat hot food.

Breakfast was usually oatmeal or cereal.

.. So.. you are a hundred years old?

My sisters and I went to school in the 70s and 80s. Always had school lunches at all levels.

 

[Exterous]

There are a few school districts doing a good job, some even in poor States. The vast majority feed our kids crap. Donuts, fruit drink (no actual fruit juice), hot pocket type obscenities a year or more out of date, fresh produce only once a week and, menus nutritionally balanced on a weekly basis rather than daily are the norm for most of the country. We feed prisoners better than elementary school children in this country and it's shameful.

While I certainly agree that some schools have problems but I will say that in my experience it is largely the schools consumer group that is the problem. The kids don't want non-crap so they don't buy non-crap but the schools still have to provide X amount of food even if no one buys it

For example: My wife's former school was forced to undergo a massive change in school lunches. Granted some of it was necessary because it was quite pitiful but after they offered things like fresh salads, some very very good hummus and veggies\bread (How do I know? We'll get to that later) and went to more reasonable sodium and fat levels in the other food offerings. Pizza was gone. Soda was gone.

What happened? School lunch revenue plummeted into the red and an obscene amount of food was thrown out. I know the hummus was quite good because I was given some before they threw out entire lots of it.

The kids refused to buy the food. No fatty burgers + no crappy pizza + no soda* = kids bring shit food from home

So they revamped the food again and its much closer to the original offerings and is at least break even but certainly much less healthy

*A black market for soda actually popped up. Some enterprising students would sneak in cans and sell them for quite the profit

 

[slag]

I don't see all that much point in lunch at school, depending on the schedule. IIRC high school was seven hours a day. Two hours of that was a double-length period where they did a lunch rotation (four lunches, 'cause 2000 people can't fit in a cafeteria very well).

Cut out the lunch and school can run 7AM-1PM. Fuck, I never get to take lunch before 1PM. Prepare them for the real world, where sometimes you're lucky to cram a sandwich down your throat at 3PM. While you work.

That's not the real world. If you have to cram a sandwich down your throat at 3 pm in your work environment just to have a meal, you're doing it wrong. Maybe thats what you like, to be working nonstop from dawn till dusk, but I don't live to work, I work to live and spend as little time as possible at my desk. There are too many other important things in this short time we have on earth to spend it working all the time.

 

[Anubis]

Don't forget the octagon shaped mexican pizzas. Mmmmmmm

lol i actually liked those

the rectangle pizza was like cardboard with cheese on it. i know we also had pasta or baked ziti that was decent, turkey and mashed potatoes was ok. fish sticks were nasty, had chicken nuggets. we coudl get some premade sandwhiches as well that were pretty bland.

basically most school lunches are whatever sysco is selling

 

[darkewaffle]

Those generally look better than what I remember. The stuff I remember most clearly eating for school lunches were donuts, breadsticks and pizza. Though it was also an a la carte offering so there was other stuff available - cant rightly remember what though.

 

[Legios]

Everyday I ask my kid what he had for lunch, (1st grade) it always boils down to how much milk he drank, 3 sometimes 4 of the .5 pints. Oh and tacos he always remembers tacos. It took 2 weeks to teach him that just because they give you the sectional trays that he didnt NEED to fill up every single section, just get a entree and healthy option and a dessert.

 

[mvbighead]

Way to cherry pick Seattle school lunches as representative of U.S. schools.

That's kinda what I am seeing here. A lot of cherry picking.

Pretty much any story should have no difficult time finding the means to prove the opposite is true of what the article is saying.

 

[RearAdmiral]

Does anyone remember lunch announcements for the day? Today's lunch will be................chicken fryz!

 

[sourceninja]

rectangle pizza > *

This. I ate nothing but this at lunch for 4 years.

 

[nageov3t]

we were never allowed to get school lunch, at least until I got to high school.

every day was a sandwich, bag of pretzels, some fruit, and a can of soda... looking back on it, I'm surprised I never got food poisoning. as an adult, I don't think I'd eat a sandwich that had been sitting unrefrigerated in a locker from 7 am - 12 pm.

by the time I got to high school, though, my mom had stopped giving a shit. at that point it became easier for her to just give me a couple bucks to buy lunch at school than pack something up. usually just got a big plate of fries for $1 at the cafeteria and saved the rest for comics/video games.

 

[feralkid]

shit shit shit shit, and more shit.

of course it's not any worse than the shit that the other 90% of Americans feast on day in and day out...

You seem to be an expert on shit.



Probably because you're so full of it.

 

[Anubis]

we were never allowed to get school lunch, at least until I got to high school.

every day was a sandwich, bag of pretzels, some fruit, and a can of soda... looking back on it, I'm surprised I never got food poisoning. as an adult, I don't think I'd eat a sandwich that had been sitting unrefrigerated in a locker from 7 am - 12 pm.

by the time I got to high school, though, my mom had stopped giving a shit. at that point it became easier for her to just give me a couple bucks to buy lunch at school than pack something up. usually just got a big plate of fries for $1 at the cafeteria and saved the rest for comics/video games.

food does not go bad that fast

 

[JoLLyRoGer]

You seem to be an expert on shit.



Probably because you're so full of it.

Keep those personal attacks going baby...

It makes you look intelligent and witty.

 

[Mr. Pedantic]

CHINA: Traditional breakfasts vary based on the region, but dim sum, small plates of food prepared in a variety of ways, is popular.

WTF. I've literally never ever had anything even resembling this at home.

COLOMBIA: A traditional breakfast in Bogota is changua, a milk, scallion, and egg soup.

Sure, if by scallions you mean coriander.

 

[Phanuel]

I always enjoyed being sat at a special table during elementary school because I was too lazy to bring lunch from home and wasn't given $2 or whatever by my parents to buy school lunch. So the principal would find me, pull me away from my friends and sit me by myself at a table.

I still don't understand the fucking point of that shaming maneuver. Fuck you school for being run by an asshole?

 

[fleshconsumed]

we were never allowed to get school lunch, at least until I got to high school.

every day was a sandwich, bag of pretzels, some fruit, and a can of soda... looking back on it, I'm surprised I never got food poisoning. as an adult, I don't think I'd eat a sandwich that had been sitting unrefrigerated in a locker from 7 am - 12 pm.

by the time I got to high school, though, my mom had stopped giving a shit. at that point it became easier for her to just give me a couple bucks to buy lunch at school than pack something up. usually just got a big plate of fries for $1 at the cafeteria and saved the rest for comics/video games.

ROFLMAO... the food does not go bad the second it is taken out of the fridge. The fact that you never got the food poisoning is the proof.

 

[mrjminer]

Am I the only person that liked the rectangular pizzas?

Tasted better than the shitty Pizza Hut (special "for-school-lunch" recipe, I'll call it) my school brought in and charged the same price per-slice as they did for the entire lunch.

 

[jaedaliu]

Am I the only person that liked the rectangular pizzas?

Tasted better than the shitty Pizza Hut (special "for-school-lunch" recipe, I'll call it) my school brought in and charged the same price per-slice as they did for the entire lunch.

a few others already said they did.

My favorite was when it was "pizza boat" which magically became "french bread pizza" when I got out of elementary school.

 

[BoberFett]

I never thought school lunch was that bad. Whether it was pizza, spaghetti, stroganoff, chimichangas, chow mein or what have you. I seem to remember they were always relatively well balanced with the main dish, a fruit or vegetable portion, another side starch like a breadstick or rice or whatever, plus a milk.

That Seattle lunch with the prepackaged cheese sandwich looks like crap though. Maybe school lunch quality has gone down.

 

[John Connor]

God I miss that greasy pizza and chicken nuggets... Fuck you Michelle Obozo!

But, I don't go to school anymore so no worries. LOL In high school we had Pizza Hut and a snack bar!

 

[mrjminer]

a few others already said they did.

My favorite was when it was "pizza boat" which magically became "french bread pizza" when I got out of elementary school.

Those were actually 10x better than the rectangle pizza at my school. They tasted almost exactly like the microwaveable Red Baron ones you can buy now.

 

[sdifox]

I used to get lunch delivered to me at lunch time. It helped that I lived like 100m from the school :biggrin:

 

[TwiceOver]

Chili and Cinnamon Roll day was my favorite.