Required Cafteria food. A stand against "obesity."

Chicago school bans home made lunches.

Wow..... Because school lunches are known for thier nutritional value and quality, right?

This is clearly just a BS excuse to force kids to pay for school lunches. But this fails on so many levels.

1). Kids who won't eat the stuff I'n the cafeteria will go hungry hurting educational performance.

2) Jewish and Muslim students will suffer if there's any pork

3) Some people simply can't afford daily lunches.

4). Cafeteria food is (generally) terrible for your health.

You realize that public school cafeterias have ridiculously strict nutritional requirements they have to adhere to, right? At least, in most places they do; I couldn't comment on Chicago in particular. And while they can turn a profit, it's only because they receive massive grants from a variety of places — money which can only go toward school food. They can't turn around around and use that money on books or teacher salary, for example.

Not saying that it's a good idea, mind, but it's not as LOL OBVIOUS MONEY GRAB as you seem to be assuming.

What about kids with allergies? Or those that can't have gluten? Is every meal these schools provide going to have vegetarian options, nut-free options, sugar-free options, and gluten-free options? This wasn't well thought-out and doesn't seem worth the financial cost, or the managerial headache.

Edit: I should read articles before commenting on them. What's going to happen is parents getting doctors notes saying their kid has an allergy so they can pack their kids a damn bologna sandwich and juicy juice.

edited 12th Apr '11 12:53:40 PM by Bur

I'd assume they would — despite what people like to think, not everyone in a position of authority making a decision you don't agree with is a complete idiot. Allergies I'm certain they'd take care of; religious or idealistic dietary requirements I'm less sure of, but I'd imagine they would... and if they didn't, the students (or more likely, their parents) would be entirely justified in demanding them.

Hmm, my sister certainly couldn't attend the school. She's allergic to soy, which means that she probably couldn't have anything but ice water for lunch if she were forced to comply with a no-lunch-from-home rule.

Never mind, missed that one part.

edited 12th Apr '11 1:02:59 PM by carbon-mantis

Based off my own cafeteria experiences there should be allergy free(by default) and non religious options(just out of how many choices), but I have no clue what the hell gluten is. LAUSD.

From the first paragraph of the article:

That said, if my kids were going there, I'd come up with some bullshit allergy note so I could keep sending them to school with their own lunch. IMO, this looks to be a straight-up money grab from the parents.

Gluten is a particular type of protein. In terms of food allergies, it's basically synonymous with wheat.

This is a money grab so obvious I'm surprised it has to be said.

I do not think it is.

Oh, good memories of biting into a chicken nugget in middle school and finding a pus-filled abscess, and one of my friends finding two inches of brain stem. Not to mention how the high school basically served nothing but hamburgers, fried chicken sandwiches, and milk.

Cafeteria food is probably even less healthy than a diet of nothing but Lunchables.

edited 12th Apr '11 1:34:10 PM by Pykrete

It's misguided at best. Cafeteria food at the public level is one size fits all. Of they're serving pizza, they're serving pizza. Some kids are picky and won't eat certain foods. Of Thr policy is "eat cafeteria or starve" I think a good percent will pick "starve". At that point they'll spend the latter half of the day malnourished. Then they'll binge (which is never good) on the exact same unhealthy food they couldn't eat at school but sans parental supervision

Wait...wasn't it not long ago that schools allowed soda machines and dessert bars stocked with brand names in their cafeterias?

Given that the solution appointed is school food, I do not think health is a valid counterpoint (even though there are health standards, I've not known a school meal to be genuinely healthy for me, unless it was an exception to the standard).

Eh. I don't eat in school anyway: this would not effect me if it was imposed in my school.

That, and we had a Little Caesar's and a pretzel stand by high school. Both got more business than the cafeteria. And were probably healthier too.

edited 12th Apr '11 1:47:08 PM by Pykrete

To be fair to the schools, health issues in the food are usually due to serious budget issues. It's not that anyone wants kids to pig out, but healthy food does cost more, and the extra budget, obviously, just isn't there right now.

That's not to say that this kind of action is excusable, of course.

You want to take a stand against obesity? Make the students take a stand. Then have them sit down and stand back up. Repeat until perspiration is achieved. Then do it again. In other words, allocate the budget to physical education, you cheap fucks.

edited 12th Apr '11 1:39:37 PM by KitsuneInferno

Budget for physical education? For aerobic works? Thats like 100 bucks max.

Can't seem to find any hard statistics, but for the record...

It's not good for you, and that's the first three results for school lunch statistics on Google.

EDIT: Here's the site of the people who run it all.

edited 12th Apr '11 1:44:12 PM by Usht

I guess I'd be going hungry then.

I must be the only person who actually liked* cafeteria food. Of course, it wasn't either that or box lunches with a soggy peanut butter & jelly sandwich.

well, except the coleslaw. It looked like baby vomit.

The food in the caf was the shit my friend. Best thing ever. I miss it so.

My school lunch was sponsored by Subway and actually lead the school to reporting that it made kids thinner, but I don't think there's been too many other schools to do that and more so, how much what you guys ate were fries, burgers, and the like?

Yep. My school cafeteria food made Mc Donald's delicious by comparison.

I had home made sandwiches.

And for the most part none of our school dinners were "bad" some of them were a bit unappitising and the chips were a bit too thick, but otherwise they were just food.