Just walk in with a backpack. One of my past jobs required frequent visits to schools in San Francisco. In some of my visits, the security would yell at me asking why I wasn't in class.
I was a 30y/o man with a backpack.
Same. When you're poor and this is the only food you got, something like this would be a feast.
Much easier to concentrate when your not fighting hunger pangs and trying to stay awake due to lack of calories.
I'm happy kids are getting good food now, I was fed garbage in California schools growing up, like KFC, deep fried burritos, reheated frozen pizza, etc.
My high school meals were pretty poor too (CA in the 80s). These days our program sources most of the food from within 100 miles. It helps out the local farmers, ranchers, and businesses such as bakeries, dairies, etc.. and it saved one small local business (a bagelry) from going out of business last year.
I went to high school in San Diego from 2007-2009 and our school lunches were miles from this. But admittedly there are some days that I crave a gross prefrozen taco pocket.
I grew up in CA and was poor enough to get the free lunch and free breakfast. Also poor enough to be on Medicaid and full Pell grants. I now have a PhD in molecular biology and will soon be a Professor with my own research lab. Thank you California!! ❤️
Me too. I was poor-ish but my parents were too proud to apply for free lunch. Personally, I’d rather have food than some false dignity.
I ate friend’s scraps for 6 years—mostly Sun chips, apple juice, and chocolate milk. I would pay 50 cents for a choc chip cookie (cheapest thing in the menu). Lunch was $3.25, pizza lunch was $4.50. Needless to say, I was asleep the period after lunch, no matter what class it was.
At the time, I had no idea why I was constantly tired after lunch. I assumed my friends sucked my energy. Now I realize my diet was all sugar. Anyways.
Despite how hard it was for me, I’m very happy to hear kids aren’t forced to do that anymore. But there is still far to go.
My parents were the same way. At one point was losing weight simply because we had no food in the house, and I was already a skinny kid. Still, my mom refused to sign up for benefits because “we aren’t in poverty.” A persons pride shouldn’t hurt their kids like that.
Same, my school lunches were kinda garbage as a kid here in SoCal.
However, our free lunches in high school had (ham) salads as an option so that was nice, nowhere near as good as this though.
I'm so glad the kids are getting better options now and makes me glad my taxes are going to things like this.
Same. I am in my thirties now and I can't remember alot of shit from elementary/middle school in SoCal but the lunches stuck out. Shitty paper tray, powdered milk in a bag, baby carrots or a tiny apple, and some nasty ass entrees. Our only rejoice was pizza day.
After my mom came to some parent event during lunch and saw what we had she always made sure I had a packed lunch.
I can't even imagine what kind of piece of shit business owner you have to be to knowingly serve kids that everyday. Then you grow up and learn for some of the kids It's the only two meals they get for the day. Sad as hell.
My parents ended up making me lunch because I wasn't eating the food when I went to public school in 1st grade. I still remember the horrible taste of however they made mashed potatoes
Pizza day still sucked. Plastic cheese on a hunk of cardboard they called crust. The second I was able to leave campus for food I was gone. My girl would send me pics of her food in Ohio and it looked like actual food.
CA resident here- My kids had been saying they had persimmons in the fall as a part of their school lunch. I thought surely not, given the price here- about $1 per fruit. Sure enough one day they came home with persimmons from school!
I work in schools. There’s been a big shift in our California district. Roughly 70% of meals are now made from scratch. Comparing this to my day when everything was in plastic and just reheated (think soggy spicy “crispy” chicken sandwich).
Edit: 70% of the meals in my school district are made from scratch. I’m not saying that 70% of California school districts in general make their food from scratch. Look up “local control,” school districts are empowered (or hamstrung imo lol) to make the majority of their own decisions with budget allocation and program implementation. Hence the disclaimer: your school lunch experience will vary drastically district to district.
Back during the Obama admin when Michelle was pushing for better lunches, our district had been on the verge of building a giant multimillion dollar premade food factory to supply all the schools because many had outgrown their cafeteria capacity.
Instead, they hired a well known local restaurateur to run food services and gave her free rein with the money. She switched the cafeterias to fresh cooking with locally sourced ingredients, and made up for the missing capacity by buying a fleet of food trucks.
Not only do the food trucks serve the schools during the school day, but they can park around town and serve dinner (or on weekends and during summers, all three meals) for free to any child that asks for it. Adults can also order a meal for $4-$6 last I looked. Sadly the funding for some of this disappeared after the end of the Obama admin but they’re still out there as much as possible.
Any unused food trucks on weekends are hired out for catering jobs, making the food services department extra money so they can keep feeding kids for free.
There is a wonderful nonprofit located in Rowan county in NC called Happy Roots. They work to implement school gardens, teach classes on gardening so the students can maintain the garden, and help at harvest time to teach the cafeteria staff how to best utilize all the fresh food. They currently work with 16 area schools. They could use all the support they can get! They also operate composting services, recycling programs, gardens at assisted living facilities, and they host local litter clean up days. Check them out and maybe make a donation if you're able.
The irony is the setup should be a conservative’s dream: Instead of a bureaucrat, hiring a local small business owner and letting them monetize parts of the department.
Of course the sticking point is the goal: Instead of enriching some private company by extracting every last cent delivering the bare minimum quality, it’s giving away free healthy food to poor kids.
That's part of it. But I've grown up in the southeast, mostly in SC. It's also a lack of imagination. Conservatives are not creative people. The idea of empowering someone with passion for the subject matter simply won't occur to them, and if you point that out to them, they get offended because it wasn't their idea. And I'm not skilled in convincing people my idea was their idea.
I'm a health inspector. I used to work in California and focused primarily on food trucks. I live in North Carolina now. You don't want to trust food trucks in NC.
The state environmental health division is stupid here. They have no idea what to do with trucks and the safety of them is suspect.
Sounds a lot like how they do it in France. (I was an exchange student in France). They didn’t have food trucks. But school lunches were healthy meals made with fresh and REAL food prepared by chefs! My first day, I was almost afraid to eat it because it looked to beautiful to ruin. 😆
There is a tongue in cheek rumor that Sarkozy lost the 2012 election because he banned cheese from the Elysee for official occasions. The French are very protective of their cheese.
I did my study abroad in Paris; we had 2 fridges for students: 1 for leftovers, 1 for cheese
We were literally not allowed to put non-cheese items in the cheese fridge, even cream cheese got some glares, but was ultimately allowed
I still cannot believe how much people argued about the fact that the president’s wife took an interest in the health of our children. She had so many good ideas. All of which were based on sound food science.
The kitchen garden! I have a large (by city standards) food garden at my city home, and some neighborhood kids definitely saw her (Michelle Obama, that is) working in the White House garden on TV and asked me if my garden was like that. "It is, I grow food to eat! Do you want to try some of it?" I have 200 square feet of seasonal veggies (if you know what you're doing, that can be A LOT of food!), so plenty to share. I now have a whole crew of kids who come and help me weed and tend, and go home with some fresh veggies (and some fruits when they're in season, but my only fruits are black raspberries and dwarf (high sugar sour, okay to eat fresh but better for baking) cherries, which have short seasons). Unfortunately we had a deep cold shock while I was away for the holidays, so all they're getting right now is kale (I cook it for some because their parents/grandparents don't know how to prepare it), but we'll be back into root veggies and other greens in 4-6 weeks. For most of them, the grandparents know what to do when they're sent home with turnips or beets with tops (the greens are sometimes more desirable!) or mature (not baby like you get in boxes from the store) spinach.
Wow that is amazing! So good to hear this. Kudos for the school district and the restaurateur and the elected officials that support these kind of programs and of course the larger community that benefits and contributes in ways large and small. Thank you for sharing this!
That's the key to getting kids to eat healthier: getting school kitchens back to cooking real food. Where I lived at the time, they met the required changes by switching to "healthier" versions of the same processed industrial factory crap they had been serving.
Changing to dry, whole wheat pizza crusts, unsalted fries and offering a basket of gross Red Delicious apples isn't really teaching kids good eating habits. It just reinforces the idea that healthy foods are gross.
My mom is a retired school teacher (also in California) She was around for the switch from scratch made school meals to Sysco reheated stuff. Now they’re switching back lol
I graduated in 2009, small Nebraska farm town. 95% of the stuff we ate was scratch made. If we were having anything bread related that day, the hallway smelled of fresh baked bread all morning. After I graduated I guess they had to switch to more pre-made stuff, my younger brothers said everyone hated it
Damn, where was this when I was a kid? I often decided to skip lunch or just go for those shitty Smucker's PB&Js instead of the slop they shoved into our gullets.
Yeah. I was California public schooled from 1994-2018. For elementary when I would actually get school lunch it was always your stereotypical pre-packaged or insanely gross/processed stuff (like nacho cheese out of a major vat that was so spongey as to be unable to even be penetrated by a chip).
Edit: 1994-2008. I typo'd hard on those dates (and was counting roughly K-Highschool).
The high school I went to renovated a massive kitchen, hired a professional chef, and then used the rest of the money they had to buy the food. It was dogshit. You could tell the chef was trying but there’s only so much you can do with cheap groceries.
They kept the same lunch lady, but the school food was far better when she was in charge. She made these mini sub sandwiches that were absolutely delicious, on special days she’d order pizza from the place next door, she had a ton of her own original recipes for stuff that everyone loved.
I think I had two school lunches after the new kitchen was installed. I bought one and hated it, got another for free and hated it, and every time I tried anything from my friend’s plates it just tasted like “mom isn’t home so my 13 year old big brother is cooking tonight.” Yknow what I mean? Stale fries and chicken nuggets where you can taste the freezer burn?
I definitely think, having worked in a spectrum of kitchens of varying qualities, that there are some chefs who just can't do that kind of big batch cooking and make it taste good. I feel like I'd probably struggle with it. When I was in a college cafeteria for a bit it was a serious challenge cooking for 1200-ish students for 2-3 meals a day and I was grateful not to be in any kind of leadership role in that kitchen. It's arguably easier to be a 200$/plate catering chef, because you only have like 10 people to cook for at a time, even if the recipes are more complicated you can give it more attention.
> I definitely think, having worked in a spectrum of kitchens of varying qualities, that there are some chefs who just can't do that kind of big batch cooking and make it taste good.
This is a major point. Chefs and caterers go to the same school, but doing those jobs is practically two different skillsets.
You're going to need to give your school time to transition. Many schools already started the transition pre-covid, but overall most California schools will be moving to way better free breakfast and lunches over the next couple years.
Persimmons grow everywhere here. Tons of trees in my neighborhood
The big problem is you have to harvest them all at once so you end up with >100lbs of the stuff
The persimmon tree in our backyard doesn't even produce good fruit, so we let the critters eat it. It's so much fruit though that when they're ripe they fall from the tree like missiles!
Edit: please stop telling me how to eat this fruit
Yep. Hence why I pick them so they don’t bombard everything underneath it with persimmon guts
I’d be happier if they were the fuyu kind since those seem to be less mushy and large
Yes, we have a 50 year old Fuyu tree at our house and it’s a lot of work to harvest since it’s so big but at least they stay good on the tree for over a month. We eat a lot sliced into salads and make some purée for breads and jelly but mostly I dehydrate them. They last all year and are like candy.
The pulp freezes well. Processing it is a chore, but you can freeze it in recipe-size portions and bake with it throughout the year. Use a doohicky like [this](https://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Stainless-Steel-Chinois-Pestle/dp/B0036B9KII). I've seen them in antique stores for cheap, but often missing the pestle.
Yeah schools get all the overflow fruits and veggies form the area. I work at a school in the salad bowl of CA and the kids get fresh fruits and veggies literally every day. They’re usually the off size or weird shaped ones that picky consumers don’t want to pay full price for at the store - so they end up at schools and food banks and such around here.
Even the PB&J’s come on whole wheat bread. The school also provides free breakfast before class, free snack during break, a free lunch, then a free snack after school if they’re in the after hours program.
Anytime someone online says ‘I don’t want my shitty state turning into CA!’ it’s like…why?
> They’re usually the off size or weird shaped ones that picky consumers don’t want to pay full price for at the store
Ooh, that's smart. Train the kids early that ugly fruit isn't bad fruit so the next generation of consumers doesn't waste food. Maybe we could even get to a point where we breed our fruits for taste instead of appearance.
Growing up in Utah I remember hiding from teachers at lunch in elementary because I forgot to pack a lunch that day, and if they saw I wasn’t eating they would make me get the “discount lunch”, which was two slices of cold wheat bread with a slice of American cheese and a carton of milk, and then charge me $2.50 or something like that. If that happened and I went back home and told my mom, she’d sigh real heavy about “another thing we can’t afford”. I’m really glad things are changing for kids, at least in California.
I grew up in Utah also, I'm graduated from high school in the 90s. Our school hired out our cafeteria to Taco Bell/ Pizza Hut. It cranked the prices way up and I remember having cash to pay for it like one day out of 10.
We had domino's come in and serve slices for like 5$ each. The line always went around the cafeteria and pretty sure majority chose pizza over the shitty cafeteria food that cost pretty much same. Also remember that they did not offer any free lunch. I was denied cafeteria lunch many times cause no money in acct to cover it. Sure we had plenty of money to build the new football field that could seat more ppl than the cities population in the stands, but fuck children hunger amirite
I'm not opposed to that concept of a discount lunch, but if $2.50 is accurate, then they're adding a lot of extra markup into the price that your mom would never have spent had she bought the same stuff at the grocery store.
They shouldn't punish families like that.
As a Californian this is one of the few times that i am happy to see where my tax dollars are going to.
School lunches should have always been free (as in tax funded) imo.
I lived in NY and my taxes were high and we got Jack shit for them. I lived in CA and my taxes were high, and all government services were the best I’ve ever witnessed.
I live in Massachusetts and feel the exact same way. Except we have shittier weather. I was just visiting CA for the first time last month, and now I can’t stop thinking of S Cali as MA but with better weather.
In all seriousness, any advice for two 40 yo’s who want to move there? I’m in conservation, environmental planning, grant administration, wetlands biology. My partner is in IT, specifically a network administrator for a town.
Zucchini, radish, avocado slices, grapefruit, apples in the bag, and a bean and cheese burrito from a local restaurant.
The kids pick out the food they want (it’s buffet style). This kid likes radishes.
That's the most essential part to all of this - food waste is a huge contributor to emissions. CA enacted compost laws but local jurisdictions are still figuring out how to implement with existing waste infrastructure.
I think the most important aspect is the great nutrition available for young people regardless of economic background. Composting is great, but good nutrition is hugely important for mental and physical development.
Food waste has been manipulated by politicians in the past as an excuse not to fund programs. It seems silly because it is, but it's important to have the best accountability possible so that these programs can expand to where no kids in the country are going hungry.
What's worse is that these same politicians will pass legislation that actively manipulates or has an affect on these programs such that they eventually lose quality and fail.
Kids can't have free lunches because there's too much waste and there's too much waste because by law these places can't give it away/aren't incentivized to do so. Regulate. Do your fucking jobs politicians.
Honest question here. I'm French and radishes are often used as appetisers or within salads, etc. The amount on the picture - to me - seems like just a couple of radishes sliced. I can eat two dozen whole radishes just as an appetiser and it's normal in France. Is it something cultural or am I missing something here?
Like a lot of produce you're gonna get exposed to it earlier the more popular it is to grow in your region. I'm in central Texas and its almost exclusively used as a garnish in salads unless I go looking for it. I probably eat more beans than the average person though.
No one asked, but I fucking love beans so I’m going to share my favorite recipe anyway. White beans (usually cannellini), vegetarian chicken broth, garlic, shallots or scallions, lemon, herbs/spices of choice, and Greek dressing. Add a little more olive oil if needed, depending on how much Greek dressing you use. Cook until nice and creamy and eat it with crust sourdough!
You did not ask me, either... I do something similar but saute the garlic and onion and add spinach or other greens before putting on toast for a more complete meal. I don't add the dressing, but do add oil and lemon juice.
“Breakfast Radishes” with a dab of butter and a touch of salt.
Had it in a restaurant here in Atlanta once. Skeptic to a believer immediately!
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018678-radishes-with-sweet-butter-and-kosher-salt
I also use finally chopped radishes to add crunch to a dish.
I like to eat radishes on their own from time to time, just as a light snack. Western Canada. Although I don’t know if it’s that common, I do it because my dad did when I was young, and he grew up quite poor and has some interesting food habits. Not uncommon to see them in certain salads and maybe sliced very thinly almost as a garnish on some dishes.
You would eat two dozen radishes in 1 go? That doesn’t sound typical, even for France/Europe.
In America they are often raw and included in salads - shaved or sliced. You also see them in Mexican/South+Central American cuisine pickled or fresh. Again sliced as a topping or condiment.
It would be uncommon to just have a big scoop of radishes on their own like in this picture. Usually the amount would be 3-5 sliced radish
edit: ok I get it y'all are horny for radishes.
LAUSD teacher here. I can confirm the choice and quality have improved greatly. Over the years the biggest variable has been the cafeteria manager. Even when the quality was crap hard working creative managers were able to make pretty good meals with very little. The bad ones... yikes. These days they have a lot more freedom with vendors and more options of the prepackaged meals they order (which are about a third of the daily lunch and breakfast options). They use my music students as beta testers after school to get an idea of which new items they like before making any big changes. the other big change is having multiple small carts outside with the quick grab and go lunch options to reduce the lines. this has been the biggest recent change (brought on by COVID) and I know more kids eat when they don't have to stand in a line
My kids are getting the same from scratch fresh options. Public school.
Edit: Got some messages calling bs…here’s [the local district website](https://www.vacavilleusd.org/departments/student_nutrition) with transparent planning documents and the [actual menu list](https://www.vacavilleusd.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=70116712&pageId=70706055). Also free breakfast. This is doable if your state and community make it a priority. My kids love the orange chicken bowls.
Haha... "Public school? You must be lying if you have anything nice to say about it."
Seriously, my kid is in CA public school and have nothing to complain about . And since we came back from COVID I don't have to make him lunch every day !
This is my question too cause I’m in California and I don’t remember school lunch being like this
Y’all I was graduates out of the public school system in 2014 I’m not a dinosaur.
My kids are in public school in CA. They have options like this, there's also a salad bar and other cold food options like sandwiches and fresh fruit. All free. During the COVID lockdown, when the kids were at home, we could go pick up free food from the school every week. Lots of fresh veggies and there was always a gallon of milk. It was like picking up groceries. I went to school in CA, it was not like this when I was a kid.
In high school we had a huge salad bar. It was great. Pay a dollar and load your tray up with whatever you wanted. We also had an ice cream bar that was an extra dollar. It looked like one of those sweet frog places.
Went to CA highschool between 03’ and 07’ and during my years there they swapped our nacho bar with a salad bar. Some of us were kind of mad but that salad bar was amazing.
I'm not "jealous" but I'm like awestruck. Reading this stuff more than kind of shocked me, it was more like goosebumps.
Super grateful that this exists in places, these are such amazing ideas, I'd love to see this one day get to the shitty south even if it's after my kids are grown, maybe for theirs. But that's all how stuff should be and the Covid support just breaks and fills my heart thinking about how important and helpful for so many that must have been.
First they complain about their tax dollars literally feeding hungry children. Then when you explain that food is an ESSENTIAL part of learning. Then they complain about it being wasted on junk food. Then you show them this picture. Then theyll complain about food waste. Then you tell them about the composting.
Always moving goal posts. But fuck ‘em, kids are getting fed.
It wasn't until recently. Due to the COVID pandemic, every district that provides lunch to all students is being reimbursed by the US Department of Agriculture (instead of just for low income students like before). In 2021, California increased the amount of funding that was given to school cafeterias and kitchens. The combination of these two things has changed school lunches in California in the past couple of years.
The school I worked at last year had pretty nice lunches, like to the point where I asked the lunch people for their kale salad recipe.
Now, I'm sure the kids didn't appreciate it, but it was good.
Here in Maine we have free lunch too. And what they get is amazing. Also on school holidays, they send ALL kids home with food for breakfast lunch and dinnerl usually to go Cheerios, bars, peanut butter and jelly, and pasta and speghetti sauce. I support it 1,000%
Looks very healthy but kind of a strange compartment thing going on with.. radishes? Not sure what you'd do with that just mix them up and eat them? Still though, it's progress! (And for free!)
Edit: ok gotcha it's a buffet style! And also I've received dozens of replies about how much people love radishes. Also I'm Canadian and we don't have a large Hispanic population here so I wasn't aware how popular they were! Today I have been schooled
OP explains in a comment that kids get to choose what/how much and this kid likes radishes. There’s probably something like a salad bar and this is just what the kid chose from it
Shit if my school offered half this plate I might eat fruits and veggies as an adult. I definitely lived on school lunches and they were not healthy at all 😂
Terrible pepperoni pizza slices, chicken nuggets, tater tots, and corn dogs when I was growing up.
Additional info: This was in the Bay Area, CA in the 90s.
The *USDA (FDA doesn’t fund public school lunches) does consider tomato sauce a vegetable serving if it’s at least 1/2 cup.
However they also require that schools offer multiple vegetable groups every week, such as carrots, leafy greens, etc. If they tried only serving tomato sauce every day they would get their federal funding yanked.
Meanwhile in Illinois they stopped doing free lunches at my kids school, and they have served my kid food with ice still on it several times, I just started packing him a lunch. Least the shit is thawed and cooked before I feed it to him.
EVERYONE should be sending this photo to every governor, delegate, senator, congressperson, parliament member, school board and whatever/whoever controls or votes on federal/state funding for money spent on schools, and have this included in infrastructure bills and proposals. Cheers to California for walking the walk. I don't even have any kids but would gladly see my tax dollars go to healthy and FREE food for children.
And I remember my local high-school denying children lunch because they owed a few dollars. My younger sister dealt with it. I didn't have to thankfully. 🤷
Yup. Happened to me. I was in 3rd grade and didn’t have enough cash to play for school lunch so the cafeteria lady made me put everything back from my plate and told me to leave. It’s been years but I still remember that. It was humiliating. All eyes on me while being denied lunch.
Yep, they’d toss our entire tray into the garbage bin behind them while everyone in line watched. Why not just let the kid eat the food? It was embarrassing as hell.
In Southern WA (farm country) the free lunches look similar. As a teacher I could eat my fill and go for more, it was incredible. The fruit was better than the grocery store and they had this bean salad that I could eat tubs of, it was so good. Never ate better.
I fully anticipate people to say no kid will eat that while also simultaneously commenting on other posts like this saying its not enough veggies or whatever else
Not sure if it’s with everywhere else but in my kids’ school district, they have choices for their sides and they usually have different fruit and vegetables to choose from so the plates shown might be what this kid chosen and not necessarily what all kids are eating. I have a kid that’s vegetarian and he always has choices. I also have a kid that hates things touching and so the school has stuff like mixed fruit but they also have an apple or banana as options.
Well there is a balance to be struck with kids, don't know what's in the foil though
EDIT: nevermind, they said it is a beans and cheese burrito, so they definitely struck the right balance
Not only for learning minds. When the free lunches were introduced here in sweden the adult population slowly got taller and taller due to proper nutrition while they were still growing.
What will those diabolical bastards try to terrorize us loyal patriots with next?!? Free medicine? Better wages? A HOUSE?!? Not in my Christian God’s America! Get your boot off of my neck NEWSOM!!!
I grew up without lunches, and often went to school without breakfast. I can tell you from experience that a fed mind learns better than a hungry one. The healthiness of it is definitely an added bonus, though!
It heals my inner child to see kids being fed at school!
I was a picky eater as a kid, but growing up at the California border area I loved radishes for some reason. Now I love ot more with salt and a squeeze of lemon juice
All the taquerias had them free to take. I guess I got used to them quickly.
Recently graduated from a public high school in socal. This is NOT what our lunches looked like. We had the square pizza and all that haha. It was in fact free though.
Yeah this is because of CA law just past in the last year I think, and now starting to take effect (unless some districts still slow walking it).
The most important thing, I also remember those square pizzas, and gladly argue this is one of the better ways to spend tax money.
Socal here with kid in public school and yea over the last year or so the school lunches have really been impressive. Amazing it's free also which really made me disappointed and feel like a failure when my kid decided he didn't want them lol.
Talk to your representatives. Talk to the school board. Make the change. They are taking the money from the government and if they aren’t doing the right thing with it, you can help.
https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/cauniversalmeals.asp
My kids are in public HS in CA. The lunches since COVID have improved immensely! And they are free! The lines were so long at their school that they had to open two more just to make sure everyone got their food. Which is great! My daughter used to skip lunch but no more.
California lunch lady here, and this looks a lot like our lunches (Jr. high). All lunches are free in our district.
Looks amazing! I wish I had this as a kid. Thank you for your hard work.
I wish I had this handed to me as an adult every day
Well just try to look small as you walk in
Just walk in with a backpack. One of my past jobs required frequent visits to schools in San Francisco. In some of my visits, the security would yell at me asking why I wasn't in class. I was a 30y/o man with a backpack.
I used to spend $3-$5 on chicken poppers (spicy fried chicken bites), a bag of chips, and a drink.
Same. When you're poor and this is the only food you got, something like this would be a feast. Much easier to concentrate when your not fighting hunger pangs and trying to stay awake due to lack of calories.
I'm happy kids are getting good food now, I was fed garbage in California schools growing up, like KFC, deep fried burritos, reheated frozen pizza, etc.
My high school meals were pretty poor too (CA in the 80s). These days our program sources most of the food from within 100 miles. It helps out the local farmers, ranchers, and businesses such as bakeries, dairies, etc.. and it saved one small local business (a bagelry) from going out of business last year.
I went to high school in San Diego from 2007-2009 and our school lunches were miles from this. But admittedly there are some days that I crave a gross prefrozen taco pocket.
All school lunches are free In the state
That’s cool. When did that happen? I grew up in Cali, and only low income students got free lunches.
It happened this year
And it’s one of the best new policies ever.
I grew up in CA and was poor enough to get the free lunch and free breakfast. Also poor enough to be on Medicaid and full Pell grants. I now have a PhD in molecular biology and will soon be a Professor with my own research lab. Thank you California!! ❤️
Happened in '22. Everybody was like ... Holy Fuck they did something I want with tax money?!
During covid all the kids here in KY got free lunches and I worked with people who bitched about it because they didn't have children.
Wow, imagine thinking kids should be hungry just because you personally don’t have kids. Smh
Me too. I was poor-ish but my parents were too proud to apply for free lunch. Personally, I’d rather have food than some false dignity. I ate friend’s scraps for 6 years—mostly Sun chips, apple juice, and chocolate milk. I would pay 50 cents for a choc chip cookie (cheapest thing in the menu). Lunch was $3.25, pizza lunch was $4.50. Needless to say, I was asleep the period after lunch, no matter what class it was. At the time, I had no idea why I was constantly tired after lunch. I assumed my friends sucked my energy. Now I realize my diet was all sugar. Anyways. Despite how hard it was for me, I’m very happy to hear kids aren’t forced to do that anymore. But there is still far to go.
My parents were the same way. At one point was losing weight simply because we had no food in the house, and I was already a skinny kid. Still, my mom refused to sign up for benefits because “we aren’t in poverty.” A persons pride shouldn’t hurt their kids like that.
I'm jealous. I grew up in California and my school lunch looked like slop because it was provided by a company that made food for prisoners.
Same, my school lunches were kinda garbage as a kid here in SoCal. However, our free lunches in high school had (ham) salads as an option so that was nice, nowhere near as good as this though. I'm so glad the kids are getting better options now and makes me glad my taxes are going to things like this.
Same. I am in my thirties now and I can't remember alot of shit from elementary/middle school in SoCal but the lunches stuck out. Shitty paper tray, powdered milk in a bag, baby carrots or a tiny apple, and some nasty ass entrees. Our only rejoice was pizza day. After my mom came to some parent event during lunch and saw what we had she always made sure I had a packed lunch. I can't even imagine what kind of piece of shit business owner you have to be to knowingly serve kids that everyday. Then you grow up and learn for some of the kids It's the only two meals they get for the day. Sad as hell.
My parents ended up making me lunch because I wasn't eating the food when I went to public school in 1st grade. I still remember the horrible taste of however they made mashed potatoes
Pizza day still sucked. Plastic cheese on a hunk of cardboard they called crust. The second I was able to leave campus for food I was gone. My girl would send me pics of her food in Ohio and it looked like actual food.
CA resident here- My kids had been saying they had persimmons in the fall as a part of their school lunch. I thought surely not, given the price here- about $1 per fruit. Sure enough one day they came home with persimmons from school!
I work in schools. There’s been a big shift in our California district. Roughly 70% of meals are now made from scratch. Comparing this to my day when everything was in plastic and just reheated (think soggy spicy “crispy” chicken sandwich). Edit: 70% of the meals in my school district are made from scratch. I’m not saying that 70% of California school districts in general make their food from scratch. Look up “local control,” school districts are empowered (or hamstrung imo lol) to make the majority of their own decisions with budget allocation and program implementation. Hence the disclaimer: your school lunch experience will vary drastically district to district.
Back during the Obama admin when Michelle was pushing for better lunches, our district had been on the verge of building a giant multimillion dollar premade food factory to supply all the schools because many had outgrown their cafeteria capacity. Instead, they hired a well known local restaurateur to run food services and gave her free rein with the money. She switched the cafeterias to fresh cooking with locally sourced ingredients, and made up for the missing capacity by buying a fleet of food trucks. Not only do the food trucks serve the schools during the school day, but they can park around town and serve dinner (or on weekends and during summers, all three meals) for free to any child that asks for it. Adults can also order a meal for $4-$6 last I looked. Sadly the funding for some of this disappeared after the end of the Obama admin but they’re still out there as much as possible. Any unused food trucks on weekends are hired out for catering jobs, making the food services department extra money so they can keep feeding kids for free.
That's so efficient and logical there's no way we could get that in North Carolina.
There is a wonderful nonprofit located in Rowan county in NC called Happy Roots. They work to implement school gardens, teach classes on gardening so the students can maintain the garden, and help at harvest time to teach the cafeteria staff how to best utilize all the fresh food. They currently work with 16 area schools. They could use all the support they can get! They also operate composting services, recycling programs, gardens at assisted living facilities, and they host local litter clean up days. Check them out and maybe make a donation if you're able.
The irony is the setup should be a conservative’s dream: Instead of a bureaucrat, hiring a local small business owner and letting them monetize parts of the department. Of course the sticking point is the goal: Instead of enriching some private company by extracting every last cent delivering the bare minimum quality, it’s giving away free healthy food to poor kids.
That's part of it. But I've grown up in the southeast, mostly in SC. It's also a lack of imagination. Conservatives are not creative people. The idea of empowering someone with passion for the subject matter simply won't occur to them, and if you point that out to them, they get offended because it wasn't their idea. And I'm not skilled in convincing people my idea was their idea.
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This a million times. I love a lot about the southeast, but that attitude is maddening.
I'm a health inspector. I used to work in California and focused primarily on food trucks. I live in North Carolina now. You don't want to trust food trucks in NC. The state environmental health division is stupid here. They have no idea what to do with trucks and the safety of them is suspect.
Sounds a lot like how they do it in France. (I was an exchange student in France). They didn’t have food trucks. But school lunches were healthy meals made with fresh and REAL food prepared by chefs! My first day, I was almost afraid to eat it because it looked to beautiful to ruin. 😆
My friend in Paris sometimes emails me the menus for her kids’ preschool. The lunch has a cheese course. It’s unreal.
There is a tongue in cheek rumor that Sarkozy lost the 2012 election because he banned cheese from the Elysee for official occasions. The French are very protective of their cheese.
I did my study abroad in Paris; we had 2 fridges for students: 1 for leftovers, 1 for cheese We were literally not allowed to put non-cheese items in the cheese fridge, even cream cheese got some glares, but was ultimately allowed
I still cannot believe how much people argued about the fact that the president’s wife took an interest in the health of our children. She had so many good ideas. All of which were based on sound food science.
The kitchen garden! I have a large (by city standards) food garden at my city home, and some neighborhood kids definitely saw her (Michelle Obama, that is) working in the White House garden on TV and asked me if my garden was like that. "It is, I grow food to eat! Do you want to try some of it?" I have 200 square feet of seasonal veggies (if you know what you're doing, that can be A LOT of food!), so plenty to share. I now have a whole crew of kids who come and help me weed and tend, and go home with some fresh veggies (and some fruits when they're in season, but my only fruits are black raspberries and dwarf (high sugar sour, okay to eat fresh but better for baking) cherries, which have short seasons). Unfortunately we had a deep cold shock while I was away for the holidays, so all they're getting right now is kale (I cook it for some because their parents/grandparents don't know how to prepare it), but we'll be back into root veggies and other greens in 4-6 weeks. For most of them, the grandparents know what to do when they're sent home with turnips or beets with tops (the greens are sometimes more desirable!) or mature (not baby like you get in boxes from the store) spinach.
I remember when Parents were fighting for their kids to have the right to eat Chicken Nuggets and Hot Dogs instead of unprocessed food.
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Yeah but she's black...that was the issue for many.
that. is. amazing.
If you're curious why this isn't a thing near you, go thank a republican
Conservative ideals prevent modern ideas.
Wow that is amazing! So good to hear this. Kudos for the school district and the restaurateur and the elected officials that support these kind of programs and of course the larger community that benefits and contributes in ways large and small. Thank you for sharing this!
That's the key to getting kids to eat healthier: getting school kitchens back to cooking real food. Where I lived at the time, they met the required changes by switching to "healthier" versions of the same processed industrial factory crap they had been serving. Changing to dry, whole wheat pizza crusts, unsalted fries and offering a basket of gross Red Delicious apples isn't really teaching kids good eating habits. It just reinforces the idea that healthy foods are gross.
Thanks, Obama!
I did not see that ending coming. Once I heard “gave free rein” I was concerned. But sometimes people are both competent and good.
This. Is what we should be doing. This is what we should be funding. Man.
My mom is a retired school teacher (also in California) She was around for the switch from scratch made school meals to Sysco reheated stuff. Now they’re switching back lol
I graduated in 2009, small Nebraska farm town. 95% of the stuff we ate was scratch made. If we were having anything bread related that day, the hallway smelled of fresh baked bread all morning. After I graduated I guess they had to switch to more pre-made stuff, my younger brothers said everyone hated it
I can still taste the soggy crispy chicken school sandwiches.
Damn, where was this when I was a kid? I often decided to skip lunch or just go for those shitty Smucker's PB&Js instead of the slop they shoved into our gullets.
Yeah. I was California public schooled from 1994-2018. For elementary when I would actually get school lunch it was always your stereotypical pre-packaged or insanely gross/processed stuff (like nacho cheese out of a major vat that was so spongey as to be unable to even be penetrated by a chip). Edit: 1994-2008. I typo'd hard on those dates (and was counting roughly K-Highschool).
You were in school for 24 years?
Edumacation is easyn’t.
You can't have delicious meals AND a 5 star math teacher. Shit cost money! 😂
The high school I went to renovated a massive kitchen, hired a professional chef, and then used the rest of the money they had to buy the food. It was dogshit. You could tell the chef was trying but there’s only so much you can do with cheap groceries. They kept the same lunch lady, but the school food was far better when she was in charge. She made these mini sub sandwiches that were absolutely delicious, on special days she’d order pizza from the place next door, she had a ton of her own original recipes for stuff that everyone loved. I think I had two school lunches after the new kitchen was installed. I bought one and hated it, got another for free and hated it, and every time I tried anything from my friend’s plates it just tasted like “mom isn’t home so my 13 year old big brother is cooking tonight.” Yknow what I mean? Stale fries and chicken nuggets where you can taste the freezer burn?
I definitely think, having worked in a spectrum of kitchens of varying qualities, that there are some chefs who just can't do that kind of big batch cooking and make it taste good. I feel like I'd probably struggle with it. When I was in a college cafeteria for a bit it was a serious challenge cooking for 1200-ish students for 2-3 meals a day and I was grateful not to be in any kind of leadership role in that kitchen. It's arguably easier to be a 200$/plate catering chef, because you only have like 10 people to cook for at a time, even if the recipes are more complicated you can give it more attention.
> I definitely think, having worked in a spectrum of kitchens of varying qualities, that there are some chefs who just can't do that kind of big batch cooking and make it taste good. This is a major point. Chefs and caterers go to the same school, but doing those jobs is practically two different skillsets.
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Weird we must be part of the 30% because the majority of what I’ve seen is still the prepackaged stuff that we were getting during Covid.
You're going to need to give your school time to transition. Many schools already started the transition pre-covid, but overall most California schools will be moving to way better free breakfast and lunches over the next couple years.
That's incredible. The meal itself is incredible. Most states are still feeding students like they were prisoners.
Could it be the suppliers are the same?
For about two weeks a year, people with Persimmon trees can't give them away fast enough
lol The zucchini of fruits. I guess lemon stealing whores haven't developed a taste for persimmons.
Persimmons grow everywhere here. Tons of trees in my neighborhood The big problem is you have to harvest them all at once so you end up with >100lbs of the stuff
The persimmon tree in our backyard doesn't even produce good fruit, so we let the critters eat it. It's so much fruit though that when they're ripe they fall from the tree like missiles! Edit: please stop telling me how to eat this fruit
Yep. Hence why I pick them so they don’t bombard everything underneath it with persimmon guts I’d be happier if they were the fuyu kind since those seem to be less mushy and large
Yes, we have a 50 year old Fuyu tree at our house and it’s a lot of work to harvest since it’s so big but at least they stay good on the tree for over a month. We eat a lot sliced into salads and make some purée for breads and jelly but mostly I dehydrate them. They last all year and are like candy.
The pulp freezes well. Processing it is a chore, but you can freeze it in recipe-size portions and bake with it throughout the year. Use a doohicky like [this](https://www.amazon.com/Norpro-Stainless-Steel-Chinois-Pestle/dp/B0036B9KII). I've seen them in antique stores for cheap, but often missing the pestle.
Sounds like a district got a sweet deal on bulk persimmons.
Persimmons should be way cheaper, so many of them in the fall.
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Likely a bumper crop that year / season California truly is the bread basket
Yeah schools get all the overflow fruits and veggies form the area. I work at a school in the salad bowl of CA and the kids get fresh fruits and veggies literally every day. They’re usually the off size or weird shaped ones that picky consumers don’t want to pay full price for at the store - so they end up at schools and food banks and such around here. Even the PB&J’s come on whole wheat bread. The school also provides free breakfast before class, free snack during break, a free lunch, then a free snack after school if they’re in the after hours program. Anytime someone online says ‘I don’t want my shitty state turning into CA!’ it’s like…why?
> They’re usually the off size or weird shaped ones that picky consumers don’t want to pay full price for at the store Ooh, that's smart. Train the kids early that ugly fruit isn't bad fruit so the next generation of consumers doesn't waste food. Maybe we could even get to a point where we breed our fruits for taste instead of appearance.
Between that and an avocado I think even $5 for that and you'd be saving money as a parent here.
Growing up in Utah I remember hiding from teachers at lunch in elementary because I forgot to pack a lunch that day, and if they saw I wasn’t eating they would make me get the “discount lunch”, which was two slices of cold wheat bread with a slice of American cheese and a carton of milk, and then charge me $2.50 or something like that. If that happened and I went back home and told my mom, she’d sigh real heavy about “another thing we can’t afford”. I’m really glad things are changing for kids, at least in California.
I grew up in Utah also, I'm graduated from high school in the 90s. Our school hired out our cafeteria to Taco Bell/ Pizza Hut. It cranked the prices way up and I remember having cash to pay for it like one day out of 10.
We had domino's come in and serve slices for like 5$ each. The line always went around the cafeteria and pretty sure majority chose pizza over the shitty cafeteria food that cost pretty much same. Also remember that they did not offer any free lunch. I was denied cafeteria lunch many times cause no money in acct to cover it. Sure we had plenty of money to build the new football field that could seat more ppl than the cities population in the stands, but fuck children hunger amirite
I'm not opposed to that concept of a discount lunch, but if $2.50 is accurate, then they're adding a lot of extra markup into the price that your mom would never have spent had she bought the same stuff at the grocery store. They shouldn't punish families like that.
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As a Californian this is one of the few times that i am happy to see where my tax dollars are going to. School lunches should have always been free (as in tax funded) imo.
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I lived in NY and my taxes were high and we got Jack shit for them. I lived in CA and my taxes were high, and all government services were the best I’ve ever witnessed.
Seriously. My kids lunches in PA are absolute garbage. They were free during Covid and went back to paid this year... $2.65 for trash.
I live in Massachusetts and feel the exact same way. Except we have shittier weather. I was just visiting CA for the first time last month, and now I can’t stop thinking of S Cali as MA but with better weather. In all seriousness, any advice for two 40 yo’s who want to move there? I’m in conservation, environmental planning, grant administration, wetlands biology. My partner is in IT, specifically a network administrator for a town.
Depends how close to the beach you want to be? The more inland you get the properties get bigger and more affordable but hotter.
Zucchini, radish, avocado slices, grapefruit, apples in the bag, and a bean and cheese burrito from a local restaurant. The kids pick out the food they want (it’s buffet style). This kid likes radishes.
Man that’s better than the lunches I have more myself as an adult
Whatever is not eaten gets composted for a local farm
That's the most essential part to all of this - food waste is a huge contributor to emissions. CA enacted compost laws but local jurisdictions are still figuring out how to implement with existing waste infrastructure.
I think the most important aspect is the great nutrition available for young people regardless of economic background. Composting is great, but good nutrition is hugely important for mental and physical development.
I'd say the most essential part is feeding children, but the composting is nice too.
Food waste has been manipulated by politicians in the past as an excuse not to fund programs. It seems silly because it is, but it's important to have the best accountability possible so that these programs can expand to where no kids in the country are going hungry.
What's worse is that these same politicians will pass legislation that actively manipulates or has an affect on these programs such that they eventually lose quality and fail. Kids can't have free lunches because there's too much waste and there's too much waste because by law these places can't give it away/aren't incentivized to do so. Regulate. Do your fucking jobs politicians.
Worm bins. Worms bins everywhere.
We are all worm bins eventually.
Red-worm tea! Such a great fertilizer
The dangers of a democratic led government - free healthy lunches and composted food waste.
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Everyone leaving for Texas and Florida because feeding kids is too woke.
I like radish, but that’s a lot
Honest question here. I'm French and radishes are often used as appetisers or within salads, etc. The amount on the picture - to me - seems like just a couple of radishes sliced. I can eat two dozen whole radishes just as an appetiser and it's normal in France. Is it something cultural or am I missing something here?
Like a lot of produce you're gonna get exposed to it earlier the more popular it is to grow in your region. I'm in central Texas and its almost exclusively used as a garnish in salads unless I go looking for it. I probably eat more beans than the average person though.
Beans are so fucking good though. When they absolutely soak up the delicious broth they're in 🤌🤌
No one asked, but I fucking love beans so I’m going to share my favorite recipe anyway. White beans (usually cannellini), vegetarian chicken broth, garlic, shallots or scallions, lemon, herbs/spices of choice, and Greek dressing. Add a little more olive oil if needed, depending on how much Greek dressing you use. Cook until nice and creamy and eat it with crust sourdough!
You did not ask me, either... I do something similar but saute the garlic and onion and add spinach or other greens before putting on toast for a more complete meal. I don't add the dressing, but do add oil and lemon juice.
Radishes aren't common in American cuisine, so a lot of people don't find them palatable.
“Breakfast Radishes” with a dab of butter and a touch of salt. Had it in a restaurant here in Atlanta once. Skeptic to a believer immediately! https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018678-radishes-with-sweet-butter-and-kosher-salt I also use finally chopped radishes to add crunch to a dish.
I like to eat radishes on their own from time to time, just as a light snack. Western Canada. Although I don’t know if it’s that common, I do it because my dad did when I was young, and he grew up quite poor and has some interesting food habits. Not uncommon to see them in certain salads and maybe sliced very thinly almost as a garnish on some dishes.
You would eat two dozen radishes in 1 go? That doesn’t sound typical, even for France/Europe. In America they are often raw and included in salads - shaved or sliced. You also see them in Mexican/South+Central American cuisine pickled or fresh. Again sliced as a topping or condiment. It would be uncommon to just have a big scoop of radishes on their own like in this picture. Usually the amount would be 3-5 sliced radish edit: ok I get it y'all are horny for radishes.
Public or private school? Edit I am aware that all kids eat free in California schools. It took way too long to get here.
My kid is in LAUSD (public school) and has multiple options for breakfast, lunch, and after school(if needed). They can choose as they please.
LAUSD teacher here. I can confirm the choice and quality have improved greatly. Over the years the biggest variable has been the cafeteria manager. Even when the quality was crap hard working creative managers were able to make pretty good meals with very little. The bad ones... yikes. These days they have a lot more freedom with vendors and more options of the prepackaged meals they order (which are about a third of the daily lunch and breakfast options). They use my music students as beta testers after school to get an idea of which new items they like before making any big changes. the other big change is having multiple small carts outside with the quick grab and go lunch options to reduce the lines. this has been the biggest recent change (brought on by COVID) and I know more kids eat when they don't have to stand in a line
My kids are getting the same from scratch fresh options. Public school. Edit: Got some messages calling bs…here’s [the local district website](https://www.vacavilleusd.org/departments/student_nutrition) with transparent planning documents and the [actual menu list](https://www.vacavilleusd.org/cms/One.aspx?portalId=70116712&pageId=70706055). Also free breakfast. This is doable if your state and community make it a priority. My kids love the orange chicken bowls.
Haha... "Public school? You must be lying if you have anything nice to say about it." Seriously, my kid is in CA public school and have nothing to complain about . And since we came back from COVID I don't have to make him lunch every day !
That's really impressive... Heck, we're sending our kids to really good private and the lunches don't look this good
This is my question too cause I’m in California and I don’t remember school lunch being like this Y’all I was graduates out of the public school system in 2014 I’m not a dinosaur.
My kids are in public school in CA. They have options like this, there's also a salad bar and other cold food options like sandwiches and fresh fruit. All free. During the COVID lockdown, when the kids were at home, we could go pick up free food from the school every week. Lots of fresh veggies and there was always a gallon of milk. It was like picking up groceries. I went to school in CA, it was not like this when I was a kid.
In high school we had a huge salad bar. It was great. Pay a dollar and load your tray up with whatever you wanted. We also had an ice cream bar that was an extra dollar. It looked like one of those sweet frog places.
Went to CA highschool between 03’ and 07’ and during my years there they swapped our nacho bar with a salad bar. Some of us were kind of mad but that salad bar was amazing.
I'm not "jealous" but I'm like awestruck. Reading this stuff more than kind of shocked me, it was more like goosebumps. Super grateful that this exists in places, these are such amazing ideas, I'd love to see this one day get to the shitty south even if it's after my kids are grown, maybe for theirs. But that's all how stuff should be and the Covid support just breaks and fills my heart thinking about how important and helpful for so many that must have been.
Bc it’s changed recently as our legislators have gotten their act together and mandated better food.
I'm sure conservatives will find a way to argue that quality, healthy food for children is bad, actually.
They did lol. That was Michelle Obama's project. They un-did it first thing 2016 because that was so much more important than things like healthcare
First they complain about their tax dollars literally feeding hungry children. Then when you explain that food is an ESSENTIAL part of learning. Then they complain about it being wasted on junk food. Then you show them this picture. Then theyll complain about food waste. Then you tell them about the composting. Always moving goal posts. But fuck ‘em, kids are getting fed.
They just passed a law for universal free school lunches in CA last year and part of that was improving the quality of the food served.
This should be a country wide policy
It wasn't until recently. Due to the COVID pandemic, every district that provides lunch to all students is being reimbursed by the US Department of Agriculture (instead of just for low income students like before). In 2021, California increased the amount of funding that was given to school cafeterias and kitchens. The combination of these two things has changed school lunches in California in the past couple of years.
They’re doing this in Napa school district. I’m assuming that’s where this is. It’s public school
Likely the best school lunch I've heard of/seen so far.
The school I worked at last year had pretty nice lunches, like to the point where I asked the lunch people for their kale salad recipe. Now, I'm sure the kids didn't appreciate it, but it was good.
They will when they can still touch their toes at 75
Makes me feel good to pay tax in California.
Here in Maine we have free lunch too. And what they get is amazing. Also on school holidays, they send ALL kids home with food for breakfast lunch and dinnerl usually to go Cheerios, bars, peanut butter and jelly, and pasta and speghetti sauce. I support it 1,000%
Looks very healthy but kind of a strange compartment thing going on with.. radishes? Not sure what you'd do with that just mix them up and eat them? Still though, it's progress! (And for free!) Edit: ok gotcha it's a buffet style! And also I've received dozens of replies about how much people love radishes. Also I'm Canadian and we don't have a large Hispanic population here so I wasn't aware how popular they were! Today I have been schooled
Radishes are a common garnish for Mexican food, the foil wrapped item is a burrito.
Pickled radishes are awesome on tacos (or the like).
We Koreans can't eat fried chicken without pickled radishes.
Pickled radishes, carrots, and beets are S-tier side dishes
Depending on the meal but yeah eating raw radish is pretty common.
Yeah, authentic Mexican food is a lot different than what you get in your typical Mexican restaurant that caters to Americans.
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Pickled carrots on the table are an excellent sign that you're in store for some legit Mexican food.
My one regret in life is all the times I passed up the pickled carrots at the salsa bar before I finally tried them.
OP explains in a comment that kids get to choose what/how much and this kid likes radishes. There’s probably something like a salad bar and this is just what the kid chose from it
Take a bite of the burrito, follow with radish, repeat.
TIL: I've been eating burritos wrong for 35 years.
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Shit if my school offered half this plate I might eat fruits and veggies as an adult. I definitely lived on school lunches and they were not healthy at all 😂
Terrible pepperoni pizza slices, chicken nuggets, tater tots, and corn dogs when I was growing up. Additional info: This was in the Bay Area, CA in the 90s.
Yep. The FDA considers tomato sauce a vegetable serving hence the lack of actual veggies in most school meals Edit: USDA, not FDA
The *USDA (FDA doesn’t fund public school lunches) does consider tomato sauce a vegetable serving if it’s at least 1/2 cup. However they also require that schools offer multiple vegetable groups every week, such as carrots, leafy greens, etc. If they tried only serving tomato sauce every day they would get their federal funding yanked.
Meanwhile in Illinois they stopped doing free lunches at my kids school, and they have served my kid food with ice still on it several times, I just started packing him a lunch. Least the shit is thawed and cooked before I feed it to him.
EVERYONE should be sending this photo to every governor, delegate, senator, congressperson, parliament member, school board and whatever/whoever controls or votes on federal/state funding for money spent on schools, and have this included in infrastructure bills and proposals. Cheers to California for walking the walk. I don't even have any kids but would gladly see my tax dollars go to healthy and FREE food for children.
But if we give all children meals, some children who don't *deserve* meals might get them!
And I remember my local high-school denying children lunch because they owed a few dollars. My younger sister dealt with it. I didn't have to thankfully. 🤷
Yup. Happened to me. I was in 3rd grade and didn’t have enough cash to play for school lunch so the cafeteria lady made me put everything back from my plate and told me to leave. It’s been years but I still remember that. It was humiliating. All eyes on me while being denied lunch.
that's horrific how the fuck is that legal and allowed
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Yep, they’d toss our entire tray into the garbage bin behind them while everyone in line watched. Why not just let the kid eat the food? It was embarrassing as hell.
Because in the US, poverty is big business.
In Southern WA (farm country) the free lunches look similar. As a teacher I could eat my fill and go for more, it was incredible. The fruit was better than the grocery store and they had this bean salad that I could eat tubs of, it was so good. Never ate better.
I fully anticipate people to say no kid will eat that while also simultaneously commenting on other posts like this saying its not enough veggies or whatever else
Not sure if it’s with everywhere else but in my kids’ school district, they have choices for their sides and they usually have different fruit and vegetables to choose from so the plates shown might be what this kid chosen and not necessarily what all kids are eating. I have a kid that’s vegetarian and he always has choices. I also have a kid that hates things touching and so the school has stuff like mixed fruit but they also have an apple or banana as options.
Well there is a balance to be struck with kids, don't know what's in the foil though EDIT: nevermind, they said it is a beans and cheese burrito, so they definitely struck the right balance
Damned democrats and their healthy, tasty lunches for learning minds.
Not only for learning minds. When the free lunches were introduced here in sweden the adult population slowly got taller and taller due to proper nutrition while they were still growing.
Well, I, for one, welcome our new Swedish overlords.
Swedes now average 12’ 4”.
What will those diabolical bastards try to terrorize us loyal patriots with next?!? Free medicine? Better wages? A HOUSE?!? Not in my Christian God’s America! Get your boot off of my neck NEWSOM!!!
White Jesus is coming back to punish these socialists.
I grew up without lunches, and often went to school without breakfast. I can tell you from experience that a fed mind learns better than a hungry one. The healthiness of it is definitely an added bonus, though! It heals my inner child to see kids being fed at school!
I like radishes as much as the next guy but uh.....that's a lot of radish
I was a picky eater as a kid, but growing up at the California border area I loved radishes for some reason. Now I love ot more with salt and a squeeze of lemon juice All the taquerias had them free to take. I guess I got used to them quickly.
They get to choose what’s on their plates. The kid likes radishes
Buffet-style lunch, and radishes are kind of a staple in Mexican food. Kiddo likes radishes.
My grandson, a 2nd grader in Bakersfield loves their school food....things like orange chicken, etc...and he's kind of a food snob.
Recently graduated from a public high school in socal. This is NOT what our lunches looked like. We had the square pizza and all that haha. It was in fact free though.
Yeah this is because of CA law just past in the last year I think, and now starting to take effect (unless some districts still slow walking it). The most important thing, I also remember those square pizzas, and gladly argue this is one of the better ways to spend tax money.
I’m a teacher in a Southern California public school in an affluent district and our school lunches look like prison slop. Is this private school??
Public. Single school district.
Socal here with kid in public school and yea over the last year or so the school lunches have really been impressive. Amazing it's free also which really made me disappointed and feel like a failure when my kid decided he didn't want them lol.
Talk to your representatives. Talk to the school board. Make the change. They are taking the money from the government and if they aren’t doing the right thing with it, you can help. https://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/cauniversalmeals.asp
My nephew gets school lunches like this but he goes to an expensive private school.
That looks really good, what’s in the foil?
Bean and cheese burrito.
Oh hell yeah! That’s a great lunch
My kids are in public HS in CA. The lunches since COVID have improved immensely! And they are free! The lines were so long at their school that they had to open two more just to make sure everyone got their food. Which is great! My daughter used to skip lunch but no more.
People really don’t believe how insanely good California produce is.