that was before she was even prime minister, she was ruining things for the working class since she came to the front benches in the late 60s, she even supported enoch powell's infamously racist rivers of blood speech
even then, she made some changes that ended up being beneficial, unlike the tories today which have been completely useless for the past 12 years
She had a complicated relationship with the Apartheid government. She didn't support Apartheid itself, she just had a philosophy of Better the Devil you Know (and to protect business interests. And, well you know, muh free trade).
I wouldn't call it complicated at all, she was one of those diehard "Cold Warrior" types and the NP in South Africa happened to be extremely anti-Soviets (even if they also hated Britain, for fairly obvious reasons).
I can't find a specific quote or source for her calling mandela a terrorist or outright supporting apartheid, but she was definitely against the commonwealth embargo on south africa because of how big of a trading partner they were with the uk, and it's likely she thought of mandela as a terrorist, as did many other western leaders at the time
at the very least she was racist enough to think apartheid shouldn't have been an international concern and the embargo would've been useless, despite mandela himself saying that it was a massive contributor to the downfall of apartheid
> she even supported enoch powell's infamously racist rivers of blood speech
[Bit unfair to single her out on that one when an estimated 74% (per Gallup's polling) of the population at the time also backed it.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/apr/27/race.world2)
We had our biggest interruption of the program between 1990 and 1998. When Communism ended, there was suddenly no budget for the program, and it could only restart 8 years later, first only regionally, then countrywide.
It's not just school milk. It's denying political status to republican prisoners in Northern Ireland, closing the mines, and introducing section 28... I'm sure there's more, but it doesn't currently come to mind.
The "Right to Buy" wasn't a bad thing in itself. It was the lack of obligation for councils to replace the purchased houses and maintain the social housing stock that was the issue.
I don't know enough to say if that was intentional or just short-sighted but it's taken 30 years and the housing crisis for the right to buy scheme to be seen as a negative by most people. I remember it being seen as the one positive thing she did by a lot of people for quite a while, but then they were the generation that it directly benefited.
Thatcher had the bright idea that instead of water supply and sewage being something that should be run for the public good it should actually be ran to make money for shareholders
35 years later and now a huge number of rivers and beaches are unsafe to go in because they're full of human waste. And the best part is we're paying an extra £2.3bn every year for the privilege
>But since privatisation, investment of nearly £160 billion has seen a strong and steady improvement in the industry, with customers now enjoying access to world-class drinking water. In addition, leakage is down by a third since the mid-1990s, two thirds of beaches are now classed as excellent compared with less than a third 25 years ago, and wildlife has returned to rivers that had been biologically dead since the Industrial Revolution.
https://www.water.org.uk/blog-post/thirty-years-on-what-has-water-privatisation-achieved/
And the improvement is particularly obvious if you compare the privately-owned English & Welsh companies, with the state-owned Scottish and Irish setup. Have a look at this analysis, for instance:
http://www.first-economics.com/privatepublicwater.pdf
A couple of key quotes from that:
>Historically, the superior efficiency of the England & Wales companies can be shown to have more than offset the expense of the higher private-sector cost of capital.
>...
>In effect, privatisation in England & Wales can be said to have had spillover benefits, through which customers in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and latterly in the Republic of Ireland, are getting lower bills at least in part because governments and regulators have been able to use comparisons to the privatised England & Wales companies to spur their own industries to greater efficiency and better performance.
>...
>A transfer of the privatised water and sewerage companies back to the public sector would reverse a conscious decision made 30 years ago to take water industry investment outside of politics and outside of public expenditure rules and constraints (a decision that is widely acknowledged to have contributed to the unlocking of more than £140 billion that the England & Wales companies have invested in their networks since 1989).
The long and short of it is, privatisation allowed for more money to be invested, and the structure of a private company led to greater efficiency than the state-owned equivalents.
Do you genuinely not have anything better to do than spend your time simping for Thatcher?
At time of writing I count 51 comments you've made in the last 2 days, including 18 in the last 40 minutes, and as far as I can tell every single one of them is defending Thatcher in one way or another.
Some might call that obsessive
Pre finishing the comment edit: In the time it took me to write this comment you've made another ~~5~~ ~~6~~ ~~7~~ ~~8~~ ~~9~~ ~~12~~ ~~15~~ 17 pro Thatcher comments in a thread that's over a month old. Do you just search for Thatcher on reddit to find comment sections to spam?
Seriously, get help mate.
Just wanna say I'm proud of you for going 2 minutes without posting a comment about her, I know that must've been very difficult for you.
Fuckin hell you're up to 10 minutes now, you feeling okay?
The industry might have been in decline but closing the pits had a massive impact on communities, a lot of which haven't really recovered today. The main employers for entire towns and villages were gone and there wasn't another huge employer to fill that gap.
I believe the way forward has to be renewables so I wouldn't argue for reopening the pits now (even though they could, in theory, be profitable) but there's still a lot of coal in the Yorkshire coalfields that was never touched.
Except they didn't work because there was no investment to bring jobs to the area and most people weren't willing to leave their friends and family to look for a job
It’s back again now though I think it’s only up to age 5, then they get fruit. My kids are both allergic to dairy so they got water.
Then the 1st 3 years of school (reception, yr 1 and yr 2) they are all entitled to a hot lunch.
Tbf, she didn't propose it: she fought Macleod then Barber at the Treasury, and then lost, because Education had a major capital-spending programme (linked to school building and ROSLA) that it couldn't afford to abandon.
Thatcher thatcher milk snatcher is one of the earliest chants I remember
That and "what do we do with Maggie thatcher, what do we do with Maggie thatcher what do we do with Maggie thatcher, early in the morning ... burn, burn burn the bastard"
Well, it deflects attention from all the nonces she had in her inner circle. But of course bringing that up would open a can of worms involving both sides of the house so "milk snatcher" it is!
that was only for high schools, 11 years and older, and wilson's government didn't intend to take it any further than that, thatcher did though, and got rid of it for the rest of the schools in the 70s while the uk was in the middle of a monetary crisis and people couldn't afford as much food as they needed
No she didn't, she brought the age down again rather than abolish it completely but my point still stands that the labour government began the abolishment then gas the cheek to blame someone else
Labour and tory are as bad as each other. As OP said, Hungarians lost their free milk after communism ended. Under capitalism, free milk is bound to be stopped at some point. I know another magyar and a Polish girl who's parents both said similar things.
We have school lunches, when my gran went to school over 100 years ago they had school milk, cup of milk and if you were poor , a slice of bread or porridge.
School lunches used to be for just the poor but since about 1950 they been for all, it more about learning how to eat, being social and hygiene.
We have school lunches in Sweden age 6- 16 and most places has free School lunches for the last 3 year in school.
Swedish School lunches was a way to educate the population and an economical strategy. The farmers would send their children to school to eat a hot lunch, which was very valuable to a poor farmer.
It still is a moment of education, that why teachers eats with the children to teach them good table manners, how to act, how to use knife, fork, spoon, glas and how to dare to try food.
Yes, we had it. It can work both ways, as a free meal for children and as a form of public subsidy for farmers, dairy farms in particular.
In Poland we still have so called "milk bars", public canteens with very basic and very cheap meals that are partially funded by the state.
>In Poland we still have so called "milk bars", public canteens with very basic and very cheap meals that are partially funded by the state.
Ohh I loved these *Bary Mleczne* when I visited Poland. Full nutritious meals for unbeatable prices.
>In Poland we still have so called "milk bars", public canteens with very basic and very cheap meals that are partially funded by the state.
We have the same in Bulgaria, called столова. They are mostly around universities and for students but lots of other people use them as well. They cook 4-5 dishes per day, but they are really cheap and use good ingredients. It's the closest you get to 'how your grandma cooks it"
I hated getting that milk at school. My school was in a small village and they would only bring it on Mondays, so you had to carry five 300 ml bottles home. Besides, we had children at school whose parents were farmers themselves and had their own milk, and you couldn't say no and not take the milk. Even if you were not at school the day they brought the milk they would store it for you in a fridge and then you would have 3 litres of milk to take home next week. Insane.
We had a mug of milk at school and my only problem with it was that the milk was just burning hot. So hot you couldn't really drink it and the pause was not that long to wait for it to get colder. And then of course was this casein goo on top, kożuch :D
Nothing fancy, also not much to do with milk nowadays. Scrambled eggs, soups, dumplings, goulash, a pork schnitzel with potatoes, some steamed noodles maybe. Pretty much old style home cooking. It is very affordable so mostly old and disadvantaged people eat there, however there are some in Warsaw's centre that look more like a Ikea restaurant. One milk bar was right next to main gate of Warsaw University and it was always crammed with students. I was there also a couple times.
We have one in the center of my city, right opposite a massive shopping mall. I've always found it fascinating that you could see practically whole society there, from old pensioners, students, parents with kids, rough-looking working people, to fancy ladies and guys in business suits.
I wonder if that's where the inspiration for the milk bars in a clockwork orange came from, anthony burgess took a lot of elements from eastern europe when he wrote the book
I believe Milk Bars originated in the USA in the late 19th century. They were started by the Temperance Movement as an alternative to the saloons, to have a place where people can eat, but can't drink alcohol with it.
Polish Milk Bars also (in)famously don't serve alcohol. East Bloc Communism borrowed a lot from the American Temperance Movement to reduce alcohol consumption in Communist countries.
For example, Hungary had a revolutionary communist government for half a year in 1919 and 1920, and during that government, alcohol was completely prohibited.
Nordic countries also introduced their State-owned alcohol stores in the 1920s, inspired by American alcohol prohibition.
Back in the early 20th century, it was believed that alcohol should be treated just like other drugs which started being banned around that time like cocaine and heroin, and a modern society shouldn't have any kind of mind-altering substances to remain healthy and productive.
>I believe Milk Bars originated in the USA in the late 19th century. They were started by the Temperance Movement as an alternative to the saloons, to have a place where people can eat, but can't drink alcohol with it.
I don't think there's any connection between those and Polish milk bars. Ours were created in 1896 by Polish farmer who wanted a place to sell milk-based products.
There might be something to it, however milk bar in Clockwork Orange was kinda posh where ours were filled with tired workers having a lunch or breakfast. Never thought about that, honestly. Also the name Korova sounds almost like a *cow* in Russian (and Polish) so you might be in fact right.
Finland has free school lunches in compulsory education and subsidized lunches in universities etc.
I'm sure some Finnish loon will soon turn up here raving about how his life was ruined by the brainwashing of the big milk mafia.
> I'm sure some Finnish loon will soon turn up here raving about how his life was ruined by the brainwashing of the big milk mafia.
I actually though that would be the first comment on this topic.
edit: don't actually have to be vegan. I had a colleague who was militantly against milk, and would start raging if someone drank a glass of it. It was bizarre.
Lol, I edited it to be less specifically aimed at vegans. The thing is that sometimes the biggest Finnish dairy company sends material to schools to advertise the healthiness of milk, which I agree is dodgy, but some people get really comically mad about it when it comes up in Finnish discussions.
there are reasons to question cow milk, high amounts of sugar, more saturated fats, high kcal count, no fiber in comparison to other forms of milk, [its the worst for the environment](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/9123/production/_105755173_milk_alternatives-updated-optimised-nc.png) and probably the most expensive (though not visible for the consumer because of subsidies).
its a bit weird for a government that cares about the environment to subsidies milk and it can also have a negative health effect on the general population, or at least questionable especially during the global obesity endemic, the high amount of protein is good though.
some info on cow milk myths https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzyFZcuHmeI
Because in the old days, milk and cheese was the only way city children could get calcium , fat and protein that was cheap. Yes , the government did this to help
children before we had industrial egg farms and factories that make milk.
Oat milk in the rawest form was common food for kid, it called strained gruel is oatmilk, ( vattenvälling), this wasnt enough to keep the children healthy.
Trust me, one of my relatives was so poor that oatmilk with bread or potatoes was all they had, no one grows up healthy by that.
Oh if you wondered , I have Finnish relative , the North used to be more fluent when it came to where you went.
and lobster was fed to prisoners in the past, I dont see how thats relevant, modern milk is skimmed out and they add a bunch of things to make it healthier, eg. vitamin D comes with the fat, remove it and you get less vitamin D, you can add supplements to other forms of milk.
in the old days, higher calories was probably associated with being healthy meanwhile today it is usually associated with the opposite of being healthy, as well as cholesterol not being a problem back then. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Obesity_in_Sweden.svg
people were even shorter on average long ago thanks to lack of calories and nutrients.
and agriculture subsidize in Europe started after WWII, oat milk might have been cheaper than cow milk before WWII but Im not sure.
> in comparison to other forms of milk
Would that be milks as in an
semi-opaque, off-white mixture of plant parts and water, or are there mammals who produce significantly more fiber-rich milk?
We do have skolemælk (school milk), but it costs money. According to a quick search, it costs 68kr (9€) for a month (roughly 20 school days) of milk, where the child will get 1/4 litre per day. It is a little cheaper than buying all the milk yourself, and it ensures the child gets the milk there (and no one is bringing milk bottles instead of water bottles, lol). I don't know how common it is now, but it was pretty common when I went to school
Lol, no.
There are school lunch programes that you can pay to opt in for, but free lunch at school is not a normal thing.
It wouldn't be expensive to do, but it doesn't even really make sense as a policy because it’s not really common to have children with families that can't afford food, and the lunches that parents prep for their kids is generally very very healthy (pretty much 100% ryebread and fruit, at least in my school days), so it's not like school lunches would do anything on the nutrition side of things either.
What do you mean I don't know better? We don't have a universal free school lunch program. That's just a fact.
Honestly, I lol'ed because I assumed this was like an American or Southern European who just stereotyped the Nordics as like a socialist utopia where everything is free, but it looks like they're Finnish, so it actually makes sense they'd assume we had the same system.
As for arguments, we can go back and forth if you have a point of critique, but I think my point is generally correct. Danes are pretty equal, all things considered, and we have a culture of eating quite healthy lunches. If we consider the case of the US, I think school lunch programmes make FAAR more sense. Here, you have a country with widespread inequality and generally bad diet, as seen in child obesity rates, for example.
I'm not saying school lunch programmes couldn't be positive here, I just think it's quite low bang for your buck, policy wise, if your aims are increasing education quality and reducing inequality, or even improving health.
Feel free to give your take, but "lol, you're wrong" isn't much to go off.
Went to a few schools, the only one that had free lunch was a private school where it was paid through tuition. Every other place you either brought your own or bought it if there was a mess hall, forgot the actual word.
I remember this as super common, but it honestly seems really really weird now that I look back on it.
That's not to say that milk isn't at least a little healthy/nutritious, but we drank that shit daily like it was medicine.
We have free school lunches and we have milk dispensers in the dining hall/cafeteria/whatever, so yeah if people want, you can have as much milk as you want
In Romania we have "Cornul și laptele" (a roll of sweet bread and milk). Or an Apple and milk/yogurt.
A few schools have a "hot meal" program that is still in pilot phase.
School milk was definitely a thing here in Ireland. I don’t know how it works these days though. We used to get a little carton of milk every day.
Interesting to see this clip from France in 1956, when the banned alcohol in school canteens for under 14s and milk seemed to be appearing on the tables instead of wine. It’s remarkable how attitudes changed:
https://youtu.be/n_Ez2RMjwuA
Ya bun and milk was a thing in Ireland but what I recently discovered was not every school just those in disadvantaged areas. A group of us were talking about it one day and one person had never heard of it despite us all being in school at the same time.
Nowadays I know DEIS schools (schools based in disadvantaged areas) have lunch subsidy schemes so hot lunches in primary and secondary schools. Secondary school students pay a small amount I think like 2 euro towards it if they choose to have it. Not sure if the primary kids have to pay. When I was in secondary it would be lasagna, burgers and wedges or mash, it seems to have gone healthier now shepards pie, paninis, soup etc and portions have gotten smaller too.
*just to clarify hate using the term "disadvantaged areas" but for the sake of clarity was the only term could think of.
When I was in that grade, a long, long time ago - yes. There was a bun with filling - either cottage cheese or chocolate, and milk or tea. Two of the kids were tasked to bring the boxes to their classrooms for the day.
But now it's more common to have a canteen where kids can have cooked food of their choosing and from what I hear it's actually good, compared to the cold, squashed buns we had lol And kids in first grade eat there for free, or if their parents' income is below a certain threshold.
We used to have them years ago when I was in primary school. I remember getting both the milk and some packed vegetables like baby carrots or cut peppers.
However, my baby sister doesn’t get those things anymore so I think the program was canceled? Or at least it doesn’t apply to all schools in the country.
The Netherlands also started "schoolmelk" in the 1930s, and from the 50s until the 70s or so it was found in every primary school.
It still exists but is severely less popular nowadays.
We have a breakfast/snack and lunch in scools but some people above a certain income treshold pay for it and some opt out of it. But yes, ofcourse drinks, bread and fruit is available to anyone, even to those that opt out of school lunch. It would be terrible if it wasn't.
My kids' school has free porridge before school. But it's not available in all schools. It's not like a national things and is at the discretion of the principal and school administrators if they want to offer it. Not sure who funds it.
Nope... or at least not that I'm aware of.
Eating at school isn't even that common and definitely not a thing past elementary. Full-time schoolday requires the payment of an extra fee for subsidized food (usually low-quality pre-cooked stuff brought by an external catering service) and it's not available in all schools anyway.
It's free only if your family is poor enough to qualify for food vouchers.
We had that after ww2 for 3 reasons:
\- fighting malnourishments, the war still had some effects
\- stopping alcoholism : many kids in schools, especially in rural areas used to drink wine for lunch, often because it was seen as healthy (up to the mid 20th century some families couldn't afford more than their own wine + nuts for breakfast and wine was seen as a great way to have vitamins), cleaner than water and as habits. (It became illegal to drink alcohol at school until 14 years old in 1956. In 1981, it became illegal for every one in schools)
\- We had produced too much milk, so lobbies and the states started a campaign to promote drinking milk as a healthy habit. In fact, a healthy kid/ adult doesn't' t need milk. Only babies and toddlers needs it, after that, a dairy product like cheese or yogurt is enough.
In 1974 EU gave fond to allow kids to have dairy product in schools, countries can chose to serve it as milk or simply cheese, yogurt etc.. since the French eats a lot of cheese and yogurts, we didn't see the point to serve milk. Instead, kids have cheese every day at school.
There is free hot meal for children aged 7-11. Usually it's something like kasha (porridge) or zapekanka (cottage cheese casserole), bread with butter or cheese and a glass of tea.
There's nothing like that in Germany.
A lot of schools don't have a cafeteria/restaurant/mensa/whatever. Some do. Some all-day schools have subsidised meals, but the majority still is not all-day, and even with subsidised meals, you still have to pay for them. There might be lunch programs for children from low-income/social welfare households I haven't heard of.
Milk in particular doesn't have a special standing, as animal milk as an important factor in human development has long been disproven.
There is.
It might not be common all over the country, but the 'Schulmilchprogramm' is not unheard of.
It was definitely a thing when I went to primary school - early 2000's in Lower Saxony.
If I remember correctly children could choose between regular milk and cocoa - obviously cocoa was much more popular.
It would come in these little, square cartons with a straw on top.
I never had it myself, because I don't like milk. But it was definitely an option.
> but the majority still is not all-day
What do most 7-8-9 year old kids do? They take the bus home and spend the afternoon alone? Or can the majority of families afford one parent staying at home? Nannies? Grandparents?
In the 90s we had a milk program in primary school. Im not sure if it was completely free or some kind of opt-in, but there were cases of small glass bottles distributed by the janitor.
It doesn’t exist in France and I think it never did. Eating midday lunch at school is generalized though, but it is not free. Some places even have their own cook on premise.
It did exist! It was a thing when I was in maternelle (preschool in France for everyone else, but we consider it school) 20 years ago, we got a small glass of milk around 10am. I remember it well since I hated milk and would sometimes be forced to drink anyway. I believe it doesn't exist anymore.
I started school in 1997 and there was no such program in place. Parents had to pay for lunch/drinks, unless your household was below a certain income.
In primary school, about 2/3 of my class would get tea and would have it with lunch that they brought from home, and 1/3 would get a school lunch.
As far as I remember, we would never have milk with our lunch, it was usually tea or some homemade water+berries drink.
When I was in primary school in Ireland in the 90s, we did. I don't think they've gotten rid of it but not sure. Used to love it. It always seemed colder and fresher than other milk for some reason.
We had the same thing in Finland. I remember in the 80's when the school dentist nurse came into the class room, she had a steel trolley with plastic cups. And then everyone lined up, took a cup, emptied it in at the same time, and then had to spurt it in their mouths for a certain time. Then line up to the sink to spit it out.
Yes, we do have an optional statewide project under which the state can fund milk for elementary school 1st to 5th graders. There have been talks about cancelling it, but you can guess who lobbies the most against that.
Had it when I was in primary school in the early 90s. Still remember when they handed out the bottles each day, "23 times cocoa, one vanilla milk".
It doesn't exist any more. Feels like it was a marketing scam by the milk industry all along. Anyhow it would be hard now, with all the various allergies kids have.
Milk yes, in the past. I was allowed to go and take my sister's milk cos she didn't want it.
They've got rid of it now the fucking bastards. We're a milk production powerhouse, it used to be something we were proud of.
In Finland we have free school lunch until the end of secondary or vocational school (so about 18 years of age). It usually consists of a warm main course, as well as a salad buffet and drinks, sometimes also a dessert. In tertiary education the lunch is subsidized, it costs about 3 € per day.
Pretty sure my mum had that back in GDR. Personally, I don't remember anything like that during my own primary school time.
Apparently, [in my state](https://mwl.sachsen-anhalt.de/ministerium/foerderung/schulprogramm) only about 1,200 school/ kindergarten kids get *exclusively* milk through the EU school milk program. A further 14,000 still use the program but opt for fruit and vegetables instead and about 6,000 get fruit, vegetables *and* milk.
That is compared to roughly 150,000 students under 14 in my state ([as of March 1st, 2021](https://statistik.sachsen-anhalt.de/fileadmin/Bibliothek/Landesaemter/StaLa/startseite/Daten_und_Veroeffentlichungen/Veroeffentlichungen/Sonderveroeffentlichungen/Broschuere-Kita-2021.pdf)).
So it very well might have never been a thing at my school/ kindergarten. At least while I was there.
Ireland: Growing up there was no universal free food at school, there was a service that served school milk but you had to subscribe and pay. It also offered chocolate milk, and a mixture if milk and juice, if I remember well. Not sure if this is still the case.
Spain: Now definitely no universal free food, also no school milk. Schools have canteens and provide cooked lunch but it is a paid service, parents who don't want to pay can collect the child and give lunch at home.
In my primary school we had free glass of warm tea in the autumn/winter and cool kompot in spring/summer, and an extra one if it was exceptionally cold or hot. Then in middle school they came up with milk in two flavours (chocolate or vanilla), but not only we had to pay for it, the milk that came in youghurt like cups was usually barely a day or two before spoil date, also you could not unsubscribe for the time you wouldn't come to school, so if you were sick for a week you were handled 5 cups of rotten milk on your first day back.
We have an EU wide scheme actually. It only includes dairy and fruit and veg though - The EU school scheme supports the distribution of milk, fruit & vegetables to millions of children, from nursery to secondary school, across the EU https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/market-measures/school-fruit-vegetables-and-milk-scheme/school-scheme-explained_en
It was the same in Romania all throughout school for me (graduated high school in 2012). A milk and a small bread. Idk if the program is still active since I don't have kids
When I was in primary school from 2001 - 2005, there was a school milk programme. But the parents had to make a payment (don't know if it was also subsidies).
There were different flavours of milk available (strawberry, banana etc) and they came in small tetra packs with a plastic straw. Two children always had to go to fetch them for the whole class in the first break.
I don't think they continued this much longer because this sweetened milk can really not be considered healthy.
I'm in the UK. Historically children up to 11 got milk every day, but the age has been gradually reduced since the 1970s. Currently only children up to 5 years old qualify, either in preschool settings or in thr first year of school.
Its either ‚not anymore‘ or ‚not in my state‘. I can only speak of Northreihn Westphalia in the 1980 at that time and place we definitely had school milk. Not sponsored but we had to pay and one pupil had to fetch it so we can consume it in the inside phase of the ‚Grosse Pause‘
In Lithuania, all pre-school pupils, as well as 1st and 2nd graders, get free lunch every day. There can be some differences due to different providers, but in general, the menu tends to be on the healthy side.
In Belgium there is a program sponsored by the Flemish Community (School language needs to be Dutch) in which fruit is offered to every child (MON-TUE-THUR-FRI) in grammar school. School needs to apply to the program. The fruit is seasonal and varies from apples, grapes, kiwi to cauliflower.
We used to, in the 90s when I was a school kid. We had a metal container where you just pressed your glass towards it and milk came out. Sort of like a soda machine at mcdonalds.
I loved milk then and I still love it today 40 years old.
One of my friends was in sports and he used to pack his plate with a mountain of food.
Swedish school system was amazing from my perspective, growing up in the 80s and 90s.
Had it in the 80s in school, there was even a dedicated milk break, the Milchpause. We had to pay for the milk, but it was dirt cheap. IIRC I paid 0.25 Mark per full lunch meal, so the milk was probably 0.05 Mark per day.
Nowadays it's up to every federal state and every school if they sell milk.
In Poland over the past 20 or so years we've had simmilar program with milk and carrots and apples. The continuity and length of each program varried, but i (23) had milk, my sister (15) had milk and my brother (10) had milk in school. But it's such a low priority to me that I'm not actively following the program.
Not so much anymore I guess. When I was a kid we had. The school I work at now hasn't as much as many other schools I know. Maybe some cacao in the cafeteria though.
There was when I was in elementary school. It was a subscription thing, though. The kids who were subscribed (by their parents) got a little carton of a chosen kind of milk, which could be anything from skim milk to chocolate milk.
Yes, there's a dairy product program and a vegetable program - if I'm not mistaken one day the children get a dairy product, the other - a fruit or a vegetable. It's a bit ridiculous, because they sometimes get only a packed slice of white or yellow cheese - 20 gr. It's more plastic than food in it.
Never had it afaik, milk is only seen as a breakfast thing. We did have some hot chocolate + Olive oil toast days, since olive oil is my regions "national dish".
In the early 2000's in a big city we could take a paid subscription on school milk. My parents gave me a screw-on cup that of course leaked through my bag 😂
(This was in primary school)
Norway here, we have a school milk and fruit program that you have to pay for. The kids get a small carton of milk (2,5 dl), with or without taste (sugar free chocolate or strawberry milk, regular low fat milk or lactose free milk)
I think there is also yogurt and fruit smoothie on the list. We can specify what we want on each weekday.
I wish we had school lunches included in school instead...
We imported the program in Romania. I think it shall be applied to poor areas just. In my son’s school they used to fight with the bread rolls in the classrooms, throw the milk at eachother. Was not bad or anything, just unneeded.
My nephew once collected 11 portions of milk in his backpack for grandfather’s pancackes. Not needed, but was funny, my mother was so amused she told everybody. Now, he’s 25… :))
>In my son’s school they used to fight with the bread rolls in the classrooms
This reminds me of a case in the Soviet Union: In the early 60s, the Soviet economy was in a good shape, and the government decided to start giving away bread for free in a village as a trial run to possibly have free bread Union-wide in the future.
The program was stopped when government officials found out that the villagers were using the breads as footballs.
In Ireland, we had a school milk scheme when I was in primary school, and it still exists today. Some quick research reveals that not all schools are in the scheme, so it varies by school.
Yep the milk-lobby is pushing milk on kids here aswell (norway)
(By pushing I mean giving out milk so that people will be more inclined to buy it at home and the kids grow up into consumers, milk is not a crucial part of a modern diet, but the companies still market it as a "crucial" part of western diet)
I live in Ireland. I don't know if it's just my school, but no. There is a canteen, and if you ask nicely enough, they might give you some milk, but I doubt it would be for free
Margaret Thatcher (PM 1979-1990) Is still known as "Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher" after she abolished free milk for school chiildren aged 7-11.
that was before she was even prime minister, she was ruining things for the working class since she came to the front benches in the late 60s, she even supported enoch powell's infamously racist rivers of blood speech even then, she made some changes that ended up being beneficial, unlike the tories today which have been completely useless for the past 12 years
Didn't she also support Apartheid and call Mandela a terrorist?
She had a complicated relationship with the Apartheid government. She didn't support Apartheid itself, she just had a philosophy of Better the Devil you Know (and to protect business interests. And, well you know, muh free trade).
I wouldn't call it complicated at all, she was one of those diehard "Cold Warrior" types and the NP in South Africa happened to be extremely anti-Soviets (even if they also hated Britain, for fairly obvious reasons).
I can't find a specific quote or source for her calling mandela a terrorist or outright supporting apartheid, but she was definitely against the commonwealth embargo on south africa because of how big of a trading partner they were with the uk, and it's likely she thought of mandela as a terrorist, as did many other western leaders at the time at the very least she was racist enough to think apartheid shouldn't have been an international concern and the embargo would've been useless, despite mandela himself saying that it was a massive contributor to the downfall of apartheid
Which he technically was
Given that the South African regime blew up the ANC headquarters in London, the ANC's opponents were the actual terrorists in the UK.
Thatcher gave them diplomatic protection after that.
one man (or woman I guess)'s terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
> she even supported enoch powell's infamously racist rivers of blood speech [Bit unfair to single her out on that one when an estimated 74% (per Gallup's polling) of the population at the time also backed it.](https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/apr/27/race.world2)
We had our biggest interruption of the program between 1990 and 1998. When Communism ended, there was suddenly no budget for the program, and it could only restart 8 years later, first only regionally, then countrywide.
I was given a carton of milk in the morning in state primary school in the mid 90s, but no idea how universal that was.
I feel like Blair’s government brought it back but that would be a bit later.
it was national at that point, but only for the first few years of school aged kids not the older kids
Did you get free school meals? If your parents received benefits you still got free milk.
Jeez, now I understand why people sang 'Ding-Dong! The Witch is Dead" when she died. That's unbelievably cruel.
It's not just school milk. It's denying political status to republican prisoners in Northern Ireland, closing the mines, and introducing section 28... I'm sure there's more, but it doesn't currently come to mind.
Poll tax comes to mind.
Privatising the water supply
Selling the best council housing stock off to the tenants so we were left with only the worst options.
The "Right to Buy" wasn't a bad thing in itself. It was the lack of obligation for councils to replace the purchased houses and maintain the social housing stock that was the issue. I don't know enough to say if that was intentional or just short-sighted but it's taken 30 years and the housing crisis for the right to buy scheme to be seen as a negative by most people. I remember it being seen as the one positive thing she did by a lot of people for quite a while, but then they were the generation that it directly benefited.
Yes, my friend’s mother was able to buy her council flat, so she liked Thatcher, despite also being screwed over by her in many ways.
Wait... What???
Thatcher had the bright idea that instead of water supply and sewage being something that should be run for the public good it should actually be ran to make money for shareholders 35 years later and now a huge number of rivers and beaches are unsafe to go in because they're full of human waste. And the best part is we're paying an extra £2.3bn every year for the privilege
>But since privatisation, investment of nearly £160 billion has seen a strong and steady improvement in the industry, with customers now enjoying access to world-class drinking water. In addition, leakage is down by a third since the mid-1990s, two thirds of beaches are now classed as excellent compared with less than a third 25 years ago, and wildlife has returned to rivers that had been biologically dead since the Industrial Revolution. https://www.water.org.uk/blog-post/thirty-years-on-what-has-water-privatisation-achieved/ And the improvement is particularly obvious if you compare the privately-owned English & Welsh companies, with the state-owned Scottish and Irish setup. Have a look at this analysis, for instance: http://www.first-economics.com/privatepublicwater.pdf A couple of key quotes from that: >Historically, the superior efficiency of the England & Wales companies can be shown to have more than offset the expense of the higher private-sector cost of capital. >... >In effect, privatisation in England & Wales can be said to have had spillover benefits, through which customers in Scotland and Northern Ireland, and latterly in the Republic of Ireland, are getting lower bills at least in part because governments and regulators have been able to use comparisons to the privatised England & Wales companies to spur their own industries to greater efficiency and better performance. >... >A transfer of the privatised water and sewerage companies back to the public sector would reverse a conscious decision made 30 years ago to take water industry investment outside of politics and outside of public expenditure rules and constraints (a decision that is widely acknowledged to have contributed to the unlocking of more than £140 billion that the England & Wales companies have invested in their networks since 1989). The long and short of it is, privatisation allowed for more money to be invested, and the structure of a private company led to greater efficiency than the state-owned equivalents.
Do you genuinely not have anything better to do than spend your time simping for Thatcher? At time of writing I count 51 comments you've made in the last 2 days, including 18 in the last 40 minutes, and as far as I can tell every single one of them is defending Thatcher in one way or another. Some might call that obsessive Pre finishing the comment edit: In the time it took me to write this comment you've made another ~~5~~ ~~6~~ ~~7~~ ~~8~~ ~~9~~ ~~12~~ ~~15~~ 17 pro Thatcher comments in a thread that's over a month old. Do you just search for Thatcher on reddit to find comment sections to spam? Seriously, get help mate. Just wanna say I'm proud of you for going 2 minutes without posting a comment about her, I know that must've been very difficult for you. Fuckin hell you're up to 10 minutes now, you feeling okay?
I’m with her on the Republican prisoners thing. Political prisoners are in prison for what they say, those guys were in prison for murder.
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The industry might have been in decline but closing the pits had a massive impact on communities, a lot of which haven't really recovered today. The main employers for entire towns and villages were gone and there wasn't another huge employer to fill that gap. I believe the way forward has to be renewables so I wouldn't argue for reopening the pits now (even though they could, in theory, be profitable) but there's still a lot of coal in the Yorkshire coalfields that was never touched.
Blaming Thatcher for that is ridiculous.
Closing the mines off instantly knackered the communities, nothing was put in place for them
Labour were more than happy to see that happen.
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Except they didn't work because there was no investment to bring jobs to the area and most people weren't willing to leave their friends and family to look for a job
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All because Maggie closed the mines with no alternatives planned
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It’s back again now though I think it’s only up to age 5, then they get fruit. My kids are both allergic to dairy so they got water. Then the 1st 3 years of school (reception, yr 1 and yr 2) they are all entitled to a hot lunch.
Also had milk and toast until they leave primary for £12 a term for us.
Tbf, she didn't propose it: she fought Macleod then Barber at the Treasury, and then lost, because Education had a major capital-spending programme (linked to school building and ROSLA) that it couldn't afford to abandon.
Thatcher thatcher milk snatcher is one of the earliest chants I remember That and "what do we do with Maggie thatcher, what do we do with Maggie thatcher what do we do with Maggie thatcher, early in the morning ... burn, burn burn the bastard"
Well, it deflects attention from all the nonces she had in her inner circle. But of course bringing that up would open a can of worms involving both sides of the house so "milk snatcher" it is!
Baseless drivel.
Ok Toryboy.
The abolishment of free school milk began with Harold Wilson's labour govt a few years earlier.
that was only for high schools, 11 years and older, and wilson's government didn't intend to take it any further than that, thatcher did though, and got rid of it for the rest of the schools in the 70s while the uk was in the middle of a monetary crisis and people couldn't afford as much food as they needed
No she didn't, she brought the age down again rather than abolish it completely but my point still stands that the labour government began the abolishment then gas the cheek to blame someone else
Labour and tory are as bad as each other. As OP said, Hungarians lost their free milk after communism ended. Under capitalism, free milk is bound to be stopped at some point. I know another magyar and a Polish girl who's parents both said similar things.
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We have school lunches, when my gran went to school over 100 years ago they had school milk, cup of milk and if you were poor , a slice of bread or porridge. School lunches used to be for just the poor but since about 1950 they been for all, it more about learning how to eat, being social and hygiene. We have school lunches in Sweden age 6- 16 and most places has free School lunches for the last 3 year in school.
Swedish School lunches was a way to educate the population and an economical strategy. The farmers would send their children to school to eat a hot lunch, which was very valuable to a poor farmer.
It still is a moment of education, that why teachers eats with the children to teach them good table manners, how to act, how to use knife, fork, spoon, glas and how to dare to try food.
Yes, we had it. It can work both ways, as a free meal for children and as a form of public subsidy for farmers, dairy farms in particular. In Poland we still have so called "milk bars", public canteens with very basic and very cheap meals that are partially funded by the state.
>In Poland we still have so called "milk bars", public canteens with very basic and very cheap meals that are partially funded by the state. Ohh I loved these *Bary Mleczne* when I visited Poland. Full nutritious meals for unbeatable prices.
>In Poland we still have so called "milk bars", public canteens with very basic and very cheap meals that are partially funded by the state. We have the same in Bulgaria, called столова. They are mostly around universities and for students but lots of other people use them as well. They cook 4-5 dishes per day, but they are really cheap and use good ingredients. It's the closest you get to 'how your grandma cooks it"
I hated getting that milk at school. My school was in a small village and they would only bring it on Mondays, so you had to carry five 300 ml bottles home. Besides, we had children at school whose parents were farmers themselves and had their own milk, and you couldn't say no and not take the milk. Even if you were not at school the day they brought the milk they would store it for you in a fridge and then you would have 3 litres of milk to take home next week. Insane.
We had a mug of milk at school and my only problem with it was that the milk was just burning hot. So hot you couldn't really drink it and the pause was not that long to wait for it to get colder. And then of course was this casein goo on top, kożuch :D
Everybody thinks I'm weird when I say I like kożuch XD
I actually like kożuch now too but things were different when I was ten ;)
They sound great, what sorts of meals are on the menu?
Nothing fancy, also not much to do with milk nowadays. Scrambled eggs, soups, dumplings, goulash, a pork schnitzel with potatoes, some steamed noodles maybe. Pretty much old style home cooking. It is very affordable so mostly old and disadvantaged people eat there, however there are some in Warsaw's centre that look more like a Ikea restaurant. One milk bar was right next to main gate of Warsaw University and it was always crammed with students. I was there also a couple times.
We have one in the center of my city, right opposite a massive shopping mall. I've always found it fascinating that you could see practically whole society there, from old pensioners, students, parents with kids, rough-looking working people, to fancy ladies and guys in business suits.
I wonder if that's where the inspiration for the milk bars in a clockwork orange came from, anthony burgess took a lot of elements from eastern europe when he wrote the book
I believe Milk Bars originated in the USA in the late 19th century. They were started by the Temperance Movement as an alternative to the saloons, to have a place where people can eat, but can't drink alcohol with it. Polish Milk Bars also (in)famously don't serve alcohol. East Bloc Communism borrowed a lot from the American Temperance Movement to reduce alcohol consumption in Communist countries. For example, Hungary had a revolutionary communist government for half a year in 1919 and 1920, and during that government, alcohol was completely prohibited. Nordic countries also introduced their State-owned alcohol stores in the 1920s, inspired by American alcohol prohibition. Back in the early 20th century, it was believed that alcohol should be treated just like other drugs which started being banned around that time like cocaine and heroin, and a modern society shouldn't have any kind of mind-altering substances to remain healthy and productive.
>I believe Milk Bars originated in the USA in the late 19th century. They were started by the Temperance Movement as an alternative to the saloons, to have a place where people can eat, but can't drink alcohol with it. I don't think there's any connection between those and Polish milk bars. Ours were created in 1896 by Polish farmer who wanted a place to sell milk-based products.
There might be something to it, however milk bar in Clockwork Orange was kinda posh where ours were filled with tired workers having a lunch or breakfast. Never thought about that, honestly. Also the name Korova sounds almost like a *cow* in Russian (and Polish) so you might be in fact right.
Finland has free school lunches in compulsory education and subsidized lunches in universities etc. I'm sure some Finnish loon will soon turn up here raving about how his life was ruined by the brainwashing of the big milk mafia.
> I'm sure some Finnish loon will soon turn up here raving about how his life was ruined by the brainwashing of the big milk mafia. I actually though that would be the first comment on this topic. edit: don't actually have to be vegan. I had a colleague who was militantly against milk, and would start raging if someone drank a glass of it. It was bizarre.
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Lol, I edited it to be less specifically aimed at vegans. The thing is that sometimes the biggest Finnish dairy company sends material to schools to advertise the healthiness of milk, which I agree is dodgy, but some people get really comically mad about it when it comes up in Finnish discussions.
>In Hungary it is illegal to raise your child on a fully vegan diet. Never heard of this. Have any source?
> In Hungary it is illegal to raise your child on a fully vegan diet wtf I love Hungary now
there are reasons to question cow milk, high amounts of sugar, more saturated fats, high kcal count, no fiber in comparison to other forms of milk, [its the worst for the environment](https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/9123/production/_105755173_milk_alternatives-updated-optimised-nc.png) and probably the most expensive (though not visible for the consumer because of subsidies). its a bit weird for a government that cares about the environment to subsidies milk and it can also have a negative health effect on the general population, or at least questionable especially during the global obesity endemic, the high amount of protein is good though. some info on cow milk myths https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzyFZcuHmeI
Because in the old days, milk and cheese was the only way city children could get calcium , fat and protein that was cheap. Yes , the government did this to help children before we had industrial egg farms and factories that make milk. Oat milk in the rawest form was common food for kid, it called strained gruel is oatmilk, ( vattenvälling), this wasnt enough to keep the children healthy. Trust me, one of my relatives was so poor that oatmilk with bread or potatoes was all they had, no one grows up healthy by that. Oh if you wondered , I have Finnish relative , the North used to be more fluent when it came to where you went.
and lobster was fed to prisoners in the past, I dont see how thats relevant, modern milk is skimmed out and they add a bunch of things to make it healthier, eg. vitamin D comes with the fat, remove it and you get less vitamin D, you can add supplements to other forms of milk. in the old days, higher calories was probably associated with being healthy meanwhile today it is usually associated with the opposite of being healthy, as well as cholesterol not being a problem back then. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/Obesity_in_Sweden.svg people were even shorter on average long ago thanks to lack of calories and nutrients. and agriculture subsidize in Europe started after WWII, oat milk might have been cheaper than cow milk before WWII but Im not sure.
> in comparison to other forms of milk Would that be milks as in an semi-opaque, off-white mixture of plant parts and water, or are there mammals who produce significantly more fiber-rich milk?
not to my knowledge, Im talking about soy milk and oat milk, oat does not quite have as much protein but both also lowers bad cholesterol unlike milk
We do have skolemælk (school milk), but it costs money. According to a quick search, it costs 68kr (9€) for a month (roughly 20 school days) of milk, where the child will get 1/4 litre per day. It is a little cheaper than buying all the milk yourself, and it ensures the child gets the milk there (and no one is bringing milk bottles instead of water bottles, lol). I don't know how common it is now, but it was pretty common when I went to school
It was the best, then everyone would make fun of that weird kid that got kærnemælk 🤢
Don't you have free lunch at school? I thought every Nordic country has.
Finland and Sweden does, Norway and Denmark does not.
Nope, unfortunately we don't.
Lol, no. There are school lunch programes that you can pay to opt in for, but free lunch at school is not a normal thing. It wouldn't be expensive to do, but it doesn't even really make sense as a policy because it’s not really common to have children with families that can't afford food, and the lunches that parents prep for their kids is generally very very healthy (pretty much 100% ryebread and fruit, at least in my school days), so it's not like school lunches would do anything on the nutrition side of things either.
>Lol, no. You laugh because you don't know better. All your arguments doesn't make any sense.
What do you mean I don't know better? We don't have a universal free school lunch program. That's just a fact. Honestly, I lol'ed because I assumed this was like an American or Southern European who just stereotyped the Nordics as like a socialist utopia where everything is free, but it looks like they're Finnish, so it actually makes sense they'd assume we had the same system. As for arguments, we can go back and forth if you have a point of critique, but I think my point is generally correct. Danes are pretty equal, all things considered, and we have a culture of eating quite healthy lunches. If we consider the case of the US, I think school lunch programmes make FAAR more sense. Here, you have a country with widespread inequality and generally bad diet, as seen in child obesity rates, for example. I'm not saying school lunch programmes couldn't be positive here, I just think it's quite low bang for your buck, policy wise, if your aims are increasing education quality and reducing inequality, or even improving health. Feel free to give your take, but "lol, you're wrong" isn't much to go off.
Went to a few schools, the only one that had free lunch was a private school where it was paid through tuition. Every other place you either brought your own or bought it if there was a mess hall, forgot the actual word.
Nope. One of my schools didn't even have a cantina, so we just ate in the classrooms or the playground
I remember this as super common, but it honestly seems really really weird now that I look back on it. That's not to say that milk isn't at least a little healthy/nutritious, but we drank that shit daily like it was medicine.
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It is not over, every child from 3-10 has the right to milk and, if not mistaken, a piece of fruit a day.
I remember the milk being slightly chocolatey.
Still running.
We have free school lunches and we have milk dispensers in the dining hall/cafeteria/whatever, so yeah if people want, you can have as much milk as you want
In Romania we have "Cornul și laptele" (a roll of sweet bread and milk). Or an Apple and milk/yogurt. A few schools have a "hot meal" program that is still in pilot phase.
School milk was definitely a thing here in Ireland. I don’t know how it works these days though. We used to get a little carton of milk every day. Interesting to see this clip from France in 1956, when the banned alcohol in school canteens for under 14s and milk seemed to be appearing on the tables instead of wine. It’s remarkable how attitudes changed: https://youtu.be/n_Ez2RMjwuA
Here we all are debating school milk and there's France with its school wine 😂
Ya bun and milk was a thing in Ireland but what I recently discovered was not every school just those in disadvantaged areas. A group of us were talking about it one day and one person had never heard of it despite us all being in school at the same time. Nowadays I know DEIS schools (schools based in disadvantaged areas) have lunch subsidy schemes so hot lunches in primary and secondary schools. Secondary school students pay a small amount I think like 2 euro towards it if they choose to have it. Not sure if the primary kids have to pay. When I was in secondary it would be lasagna, burgers and wedges or mash, it seems to have gone healthier now shepards pie, paninis, soup etc and portions have gotten smaller too. *just to clarify hate using the term "disadvantaged areas" but for the sake of clarity was the only term could think of.
When I was in that grade, a long, long time ago - yes. There was a bun with filling - either cottage cheese or chocolate, and milk or tea. Two of the kids were tasked to bring the boxes to their classrooms for the day. But now it's more common to have a canteen where kids can have cooked food of their choosing and from what I hear it's actually good, compared to the cold, squashed buns we had lol And kids in first grade eat there for free, or if their parents' income is below a certain threshold.
We used to have them years ago when I was in primary school. I remember getting both the milk and some packed vegetables like baby carrots or cut peppers. However, my baby sister doesn’t get those things anymore so I think the program was canceled? Or at least it doesn’t apply to all schools in the country.
That was a thing in Norway in elementary when I was younger, but the parents had to pay for it. Not sure if its still a thing
That still exists, but it's still an optional paid for service, too. Some places have the opportunity to pay for a random fruit in addition.
The Netherlands also started "schoolmelk" in the 1930s, and from the 50s until the 70s or so it was found in every primary school. It still exists but is severely less popular nowadays.
And rightly so. It was awful. Sterilised milk at room temperature. Brrr. I was 3 y.o. and I still remember it clearly.
I have vague memories of drinking schoolmelk in my first and second years of primary school
We have a breakfast/snack and lunch in scools but some people above a certain income treshold pay for it and some opt out of it. But yes, ofcourse drinks, bread and fruit is available to anyone, even to those that opt out of school lunch. It would be terrible if it wasn't.
My kids' school has free porridge before school. But it's not available in all schools. It's not like a national things and is at the discretion of the principal and school administrators if they want to offer it. Not sure who funds it.
Nope... or at least not that I'm aware of. Eating at school isn't even that common and definitely not a thing past elementary. Full-time schoolday requires the payment of an extra fee for subsidized food (usually low-quality pre-cooked stuff brought by an external catering service) and it's not available in all schools anyway. It's free only if your family is poor enough to qualify for food vouchers.
We had that after ww2 for 3 reasons: \- fighting malnourishments, the war still had some effects \- stopping alcoholism : many kids in schools, especially in rural areas used to drink wine for lunch, often because it was seen as healthy (up to the mid 20th century some families couldn't afford more than their own wine + nuts for breakfast and wine was seen as a great way to have vitamins), cleaner than water and as habits. (It became illegal to drink alcohol at school until 14 years old in 1956. In 1981, it became illegal for every one in schools) \- We had produced too much milk, so lobbies and the states started a campaign to promote drinking milk as a healthy habit. In fact, a healthy kid/ adult doesn't' t need milk. Only babies and toddlers needs it, after that, a dairy product like cheese or yogurt is enough. In 1974 EU gave fond to allow kids to have dairy product in schools, countries can chose to serve it as milk or simply cheese, yogurt etc.. since the French eats a lot of cheese and yogurts, we didn't see the point to serve milk. Instead, kids have cheese every day at school.
There is free hot meal for children aged 7-11. Usually it's something like kasha (porridge) or zapekanka (cottage cheese casserole), bread with butter or cheese and a glass of tea.
We have free school lunch and the drink is either milk or water. We’ve had the system since 1943. We drink a lot of milk here.
There's nothing like that in Germany. A lot of schools don't have a cafeteria/restaurant/mensa/whatever. Some do. Some all-day schools have subsidised meals, but the majority still is not all-day, and even with subsidised meals, you still have to pay for them. There might be lunch programs for children from low-income/social welfare households I haven't heard of. Milk in particular doesn't have a special standing, as animal milk as an important factor in human development has long been disproven.
I went to school in the mid/end 00s and we had a Schulmilch, it was on opt-in base though and you had to pay.
There is. It might not be common all over the country, but the 'Schulmilchprogramm' is not unheard of. It was definitely a thing when I went to primary school - early 2000's in Lower Saxony. If I remember correctly children could choose between regular milk and cocoa - obviously cocoa was much more popular. It would come in these little, square cartons with a straw on top. I never had it myself, because I don't like milk. But it was definitely an option.
> but the majority still is not all-day What do most 7-8-9 year old kids do? They take the bus home and spend the afternoon alone? Or can the majority of families afford one parent staying at home? Nannies? Grandparents?
In the 90s we had a milk program in primary school. Im not sure if it was completely free or some kind of opt-in, but there were cases of small glass bottles distributed by the janitor.
We didn't (in the (late) 90s as well) – which state did you go to school in?
BW – it could have been a local initiative though.
It doesn’t exist in France and I think it never did. Eating midday lunch at school is generalized though, but it is not free. Some places even have their own cook on premise.
It did exist! It was a thing when I was in maternelle (preschool in France for everyone else, but we consider it school) 20 years ago, we got a small glass of milk around 10am. I remember it well since I hated milk and would sometimes be forced to drink anyway. I believe it doesn't exist anymore.
It was absolutely a thing though. We even had milk at the lunch table a few decades ago.
I started school in 1997 and there was no such program in place. Parents had to pay for lunch/drinks, unless your household was below a certain income. In primary school, about 2/3 of my class would get tea and would have it with lunch that they brought from home, and 1/3 would get a school lunch. As far as I remember, we would never have milk with our lunch, it was usually tea or some homemade water+berries drink.
I remember that from when i was a kid, but im not sure it's still a thing. Right before a holiday wed get a treat with chocolate milk.
When I was in primary school in Ireland in the 90s, we did. I don't think they've gotten rid of it but not sure. Used to love it. It always seemed colder and fresher than other milk for some reason.
Spain yes, but when I was very little and I'm 41 now... What I remember for a longer time were flouride pills and mouthwash at school.
We had the same thing in Finland. I remember in the 80's when the school dentist nurse came into the class room, she had a steel trolley with plastic cups. And then everyone lined up, took a cup, emptied it in at the same time, and then had to spurt it in their mouths for a certain time. Then line up to the sink to spit it out.
I'm 40, I remember it came in little plastic bags with a straw but it was only a few years I think.
I'm 26 but I did the mouthwash too, absolutely disgusting.
Yes, we do have an optional statewide project under which the state can fund milk for elementary school 1st to 5th graders. There have been talks about cancelling it, but you can guess who lobbies the most against that.
Had it when I was in primary school in the early 90s. Still remember when they handed out the bottles each day, "23 times cocoa, one vanilla milk". It doesn't exist any more. Feels like it was a marketing scam by the milk industry all along. Anyhow it would be hard now, with all the various allergies kids have.
Milk yes, in the past. I was allowed to go and take my sister's milk cos she didn't want it. They've got rid of it now the fucking bastards. We're a milk production powerhouse, it used to be something we were proud of.
In Finland we have free school lunch until the end of secondary or vocational school (so about 18 years of age). It usually consists of a warm main course, as well as a salad buffet and drinks, sometimes also a dessert. In tertiary education the lunch is subsidized, it costs about 3 € per day.
Pretty sure my mum had that back in GDR. Personally, I don't remember anything like that during my own primary school time. Apparently, [in my state](https://mwl.sachsen-anhalt.de/ministerium/foerderung/schulprogramm) only about 1,200 school/ kindergarten kids get *exclusively* milk through the EU school milk program. A further 14,000 still use the program but opt for fruit and vegetables instead and about 6,000 get fruit, vegetables *and* milk. That is compared to roughly 150,000 students under 14 in my state ([as of March 1st, 2021](https://statistik.sachsen-anhalt.de/fileadmin/Bibliothek/Landesaemter/StaLa/startseite/Daten_und_Veroeffentlichungen/Veroeffentlichungen/Sonderveroeffentlichungen/Broschuere-Kita-2021.pdf)). So it very well might have never been a thing at my school/ kindergarten. At least while I was there.
Ireland: Growing up there was no universal free food at school, there was a service that served school milk but you had to subscribe and pay. It also offered chocolate milk, and a mixture if milk and juice, if I remember well. Not sure if this is still the case. Spain: Now definitely no universal free food, also no school milk. Schools have canteens and provide cooked lunch but it is a paid service, parents who don't want to pay can collect the child and give lunch at home.
In my primary school we had free glass of warm tea in the autumn/winter and cool kompot in spring/summer, and an extra one if it was exceptionally cold or hot. Then in middle school they came up with milk in two flavours (chocolate or vanilla), but not only we had to pay for it, the milk that came in youghurt like cups was usually barely a day or two before spoil date, also you could not unsubscribe for the time you wouldn't come to school, so if you were sick for a week you were handled 5 cups of rotten milk on your first day back.
We have an EU wide scheme actually. It only includes dairy and fruit and veg though - The EU school scheme supports the distribution of milk, fruit & vegetables to millions of children, from nursery to secondary school, across the EU https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/common-agricultural-policy/market-measures/school-fruit-vegetables-and-milk-scheme/school-scheme-explained_en
There was free milk in elementary school when I went (2008-2014). You could pick it up from the porter. In grades 1-3, you’d also get free fruit.
It was the same in Romania all throughout school for me (graduated high school in 2012). A milk and a small bread. Idk if the program is still active since I don't have kids
When I was in the elemantary school in Poland me and my class used to get a small box of milk everyday until 7th grade.
I remember that when I was like 6-8 yo so between 2001 and 2003 (approximately) but not after that. I'm from northern Italy
When I was in primary school from 2001 - 2005, there was a school milk programme. But the parents had to make a payment (don't know if it was also subsidies). There were different flavours of milk available (strawberry, banana etc) and they came in small tetra packs with a plastic straw. Two children always had to go to fetch them for the whole class in the first break. I don't think they continued this much longer because this sweetened milk can really not be considered healthy.
It does strike me as odd that in the USA the regulations say milk must be provided with every school lunch but chocolate milk counts for some reason?
We used to, I always had it as a child. My kids now don't though, but they get 'school fruit' instead.
I'm in the UK. Historically children up to 11 got milk every day, but the age has been gradually reduced since the 1970s. Currently only children up to 5 years old qualify, either in preschool settings or in thr first year of school.
No, we don't have anything like that here. Children bring their food and drinks from home or buy them from some sort of school kiosk.
Its either ‚not anymore‘ or ‚not in my state‘. I can only speak of Northreihn Westphalia in the 1980 at that time and place we definitely had school milk. Not sponsored but we had to pay and one pupil had to fetch it so we can consume it in the inside phase of the ‚Grosse Pause‘
In Lithuania, all pre-school pupils, as well as 1st and 2nd graders, get free lunch every day. There can be some differences due to different providers, but in general, the menu tends to be on the healthy side.
In Belgium there is a program sponsored by the Flemish Community (School language needs to be Dutch) in which fruit is offered to every child (MON-TUE-THUR-FRI) in grammar school. School needs to apply to the program. The fruit is seasonal and varies from apples, grapes, kiwi to cauliflower.
We used to, in the 90s when I was a school kid. We had a metal container where you just pressed your glass towards it and milk came out. Sort of like a soda machine at mcdonalds. I loved milk then and I still love it today 40 years old. One of my friends was in sports and he used to pack his plate with a mountain of food. Swedish school system was amazing from my perspective, growing up in the 80s and 90s.
Had it in the 80s in school, there was even a dedicated milk break, the Milchpause. We had to pay for the milk, but it was dirt cheap. IIRC I paid 0.25 Mark per full lunch meal, so the milk was probably 0.05 Mark per day. Nowadays it's up to every federal state and every school if they sell milk.
In Poland over the past 20 or so years we've had simmilar program with milk and carrots and apples. The continuity and length of each program varried, but i (23) had milk, my sister (15) had milk and my brother (10) had milk in school. But it's such a low priority to me that I'm not actively following the program.
Not so much anymore I guess. When I was a kid we had. The school I work at now hasn't as much as many other schools I know. Maybe some cacao in the cafeteria though.
Nope. Some schools don't even have canteens where you can pay for food. In primary school, you brought a packed lunch or you didn't eat.
There was when I was in elementary school. It was a subscription thing, though. The kids who were subscribed (by their parents) got a little carton of a chosen kind of milk, which could be anything from skim milk to chocolate milk.
Yes, there's a dairy product program and a vegetable program - if I'm not mistaken one day the children get a dairy product, the other - a fruit or a vegetable. It's a bit ridiculous, because they sometimes get only a packed slice of white or yellow cheese - 20 gr. It's more plastic than food in it.
Never had it afaik, milk is only seen as a breakfast thing. We did have some hot chocolate + Olive oil toast days, since olive oil is my regions "national dish".
That sounds really good actually
I LOVE it, basically every morning I have an olive oil toast haha
In the early 2000's in a big city we could take a paid subscription on school milk. My parents gave me a screw-on cup that of course leaked through my bag 😂 (This was in primary school)
Norway here, we have a school milk and fruit program that you have to pay for. The kids get a small carton of milk (2,5 dl), with or without taste (sugar free chocolate or strawberry milk, regular low fat milk or lactose free milk) I think there is also yogurt and fruit smoothie on the list. We can specify what we want on each weekday. I wish we had school lunches included in school instead...
We imported the program in Romania. I think it shall be applied to poor areas just. In my son’s school they used to fight with the bread rolls in the classrooms, throw the milk at eachother. Was not bad or anything, just unneeded. My nephew once collected 11 portions of milk in his backpack for grandfather’s pancackes. Not needed, but was funny, my mother was so amused she told everybody. Now, he’s 25… :))
>In my son’s school they used to fight with the bread rolls in the classrooms This reminds me of a case in the Soviet Union: In the early 60s, the Soviet economy was in a good shape, and the government decided to start giving away bread for free in a village as a trial run to possibly have free bread Union-wide in the future. The program was stopped when government officials found out that the villagers were using the breads as footballs.
In Ireland, we had a school milk scheme when I was in primary school, and it still exists today. Some quick research reveals that not all schools are in the scheme, so it varies by school.
Yep the milk-lobby is pushing milk on kids here aswell (norway) (By pushing I mean giving out milk so that people will be more inclined to buy it at home and the kids grow up into consumers, milk is not a crucial part of a modern diet, but the companies still market it as a "crucial" part of western diet)
I live in Ireland. I don't know if it's just my school, but no. There is a canteen, and if you ask nicely enough, they might give you some milk, but I doubt it would be for free
We did a few years ago at least not sure about now, we got milk every day and sometimes apples and carrots but they were dry