School lunches in the US (SAT, tuition, high school, cost)
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Of course you can't believe that tv and movies are portraying what the US school food is like, that's just entertainment.
My school had great lunches, I actually wanted to eat them more often but my mom was super strict with food growing up and insisted on makine my lunch everyday so she would know exactly what I was eating.
My daughter's school also has a really good and healthy food menu. I let her buy lunch probably once or twice a week. The rest of the time I pack her a lunch.
From movies and tv shows, it seems that most elementary and high school kids in the US eat at an indoor cafeteria, with it's notoriously bad food. Often, the meal is served with a carton of milk. Is the cafeteria like a shop where you pay for the meals or is the food all free? Do children also eat meals at recess?
In Australia we have canteens or tuck-shops, typically outdoors, sometimes in an under-cover area, where we buy our food. We don't have a buffet style arrangement...for lunch at my primary school we had 'lunch orders', where we'd write what we wanted on a brown paper bag with the money and at lunch time they'd deliver it to class. Typical lunch items included meat pies, hot dogs, chicken rolls, pizza, spaghetti, burgers. In recent years I've heard they even serve sushi, showing how times have changed. At morning recess we had things like cheesies (like toasted bread with melted cheese), fruit, jelly.etc.
Many kids brought their own lunch/recess in a lunch box. Do many do this in the US as well?
I was in elementary school during the 90's in Chicagoland. Our school didn't have a cafeteria, we ate indoors in our classrooms from our desks. You had to bring your own lunch. Once a month, we had "hot lunch", which was chicken, burgers, pizza, or any warm meal. In order to get a hot lunch, your parents had to buy a series of vouchers for the hot lunches you wanted. When the day came, your name would be on a list of the students with purchased hot lunches and you would get your meal. Milk was distributed in the same way, except every day as opposed to monthly. You had to pre-pay the voucher and then a milk lady (usually a lady) would come and distribute it in the classroom during lunch hours. To be honest, all of this sounds really quaint now that I reflect. But it's also a big blur too. Btw, I sported a cool lunch box too.
In middle school, we had a cafeteria. You had to bring your own lunch, and again, we would have monthly (or bimonthly) hot lunches that worked in a similar fashion as described above. The school also had vending machines with unhealthy products. Unlike above, there were no milk services. I didn't sport any lunch boxes at this point, but I had one of those regular insulated lunch containers. I was too cool for lunch boxes it seems.
In high school, we had a cafeteria where you could purchase a lunch. There were three lines: a la carte, main, and snacks. The a la carte was soups, salads, and other smaller food items. The main line had the biggest portions of food and included the entree/side dish/drink. Desserts were separate. Main meals cost between $1-2. I forget how much exactly, but it was absurdly cheap. The snack line had...snacks. For the most part, the main line had unhealthy food comprising burgers, fritters, pizza, tacos, spaghetti, BBQ, or some random thing. Healthy decent food would be in the a la carte line, which usually was just salad. We also had a lady at the corner of the cafeteria in this wagon contraption who was known for her enormous freshly-baked cookies. These things were so bad for you, I think I got ill from one once because it was just so much cookie...but so good. We also had vending machines with unhealthy products. You could only eat inside the cafeteria; our school had gave off-campus privileges, so you could eat at home or in a local restaurant/fast-food joint if you wished.
Not sure about now. but I went to school in the 60's and 70's and our school lunches were, for the most part, crap. I remember one particular meal called farmer browns special. Nobody liked it, but it was that or nothing. Yep, we had it once a week, never mind that nobody could eat it, and it got thrown out every week.
I went to school in the 60s and 70s also. One meal served in our jr high cafeteria was tuna sandwiches: a hamburger bun with a tuna patty. The tuna was always in this little patty shape, and so resembled the saw dust on the floor of the woodworking shop right next to the cafeteria, that this yummy sandwich was always and forever known as the Sawdust sandwich. It had about as much taste as sawdust and mayo would have.
I don't remember how often we had this meal, but it actually got eaten. A bun tastes like a bun.
I only had to eat the slop in jr high. The food was not tasty at all and looked even worse. I brought lunch from home more often than not.
I've worked in schools in the past few years and have seen the lunches. If we would have been served some of that I would have eaten cafeteria food every day!
The food being fed to kids today in schools is not only disgusting but unhealthy. I have even read that prisoners are fed healthier options which have nutritional value as opposed to cafeteria food that is deep-fried, greasy, and filled with filler material and or leftover scrap meat.
To those people who complain about costs, this has to be one of the most pathetic reasons for not providing school kids with healthy options. I would not mind paying more for a healthy lunch than picking up greasy fast food because its economical.
The lunches in my school are great, and are provided by a private contractor. She makes wraps, paninis, usually an entree, decent burgers, and then drinks and snacks like at a deli. The best part is her homemade fruit salad.
Our students got to choose whether to eat outside or in, but as our school just got badly damaged in the hurricane and is uninhabitable, we are renting an old school that only has indoor facilities.
The lunches in my school are great, and are provided by a private contractor. She makes wraps, paninis, usually an entree, decent burgers, and then drinks and snacks like at a deli. The best part is her homemade fruit salad.
Our students got to choose whether to eat outside or in, but as our school just got badly damaged in the hurricane and is uninhabitable, we are renting an old school that only has indoor facilities.
"She"? How large is her operation? How small is your school?
Of course you can't believe that tv and movies are portraying what the US school food is like, that's just entertainment.
My school had great lunches, I actually wanted to eat them more often but my mom was super strict with food growing up and insisted on makine my lunch everyday so she would know exactly what I was eating.
My daughter's school also has a really good and healthy food menu. I let her buy lunch probably once or twice a week. The rest of the time I pack her a lunch.
If it is good and healthy why do you pack on other days?
If it is good and healthy why do you pack on other days?
It's very expensive to buy lunch every day.
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