Comment by astrocat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by astrocat | Hacker News Reader

This entire debate over the quality of school lunch is myopic. School lunch food isn't the problem, American food culture is the Problem. I'd bet, (I have no data for this - I'm just a windbag of opinions) that in most communities (countries --> neighborhoods, whatever scope you want), school lunches will generally reflect the status quo of food quality in the community. Because if they didn't, parents would flip out.

Status quo meals in Norway and France are pretty decent, I suspect. I've spent some time living in France and that certainly seemed to be the case. Status quo meals in the US? Terrible. The average American eats poorly - incredibly poorly - and it shows; in our health, waistlines, and, of course, in our school lunches.

So the real challenge is to move the needle on American food culture. School lunches can and should be one vector for effecting that change, but we need to recognize and tackle the bigger picture. As others have mentioned, proper regulations on marketing to children is a must.

They're both the problem. It's like saying there is no problem with guns, because guns don't kill; people do. You are right that there is indeed problems with American food culture, but that does not mean schools should automatically inherit those problems. In fact if we're gonna make things better it's always easier to start with children for they're considered the most precious.

In europe people expect that schools have proper food for their children, even if they cant provide it themself. Or better said especially then.

Not all school models include eating, but those who do usually have a very high standard.

I live in a town with an excellent, healthy food culture. The school lunches are terrible. The result is most everyone packs lunch for their kids. Eventually I hope to figure out why there hasn't been a movement to improve the lunches, but so far no one's really talking about it.

UK, Further Education College, 16, 17, 18 year olds...

Salad bar is getting popular at lunchtime although the potato salad and coleslaw get heavily used, low dressing alternatives less so.

I'm trying to get the students interested in porridge when they come in the morning instead of bacon and sausage sandwiches. We shall see!

Beans and chips is cheap so popular early evening (some students might get a 9 or 10 hour day depending on timetable and extra lessons they decide to take).

I went to a traditional English boarding school from the age of about 11 to 17.

When I was 16 they switched the dining hall from the full-on Harry Potter long tables and served food (served by students) to a cafeteria style. At the same time they changed catering managers and the new one wanted to improve food quality and get the pupils eating better.

What he did was really simple: he added a self-serve salad bar with as many refills as you liked.

What ended up happening was hulking great rugby players would collect their hot food, and then go to the salad bar and add vast piles of salad. Then they would frequently go back for more. I forget whether there were salad dressings or not. He may not even have reduced the portion sizes for the cooked food --- active children of that age use vast amounts of energy.

So the end result was that without any kind of pressure or active encouragement, he managed to get complete generations of children to train themselves to like salad.

My sixth form had beans and chips. Also, beans and sausage roll.

For me at the time it was the only viable lunch option due to cost.

There are probably various factors making this impossible, but I would expect that spending £5 per head on a decent lunch would return more than spending £5 on tuition. I could make up for large class sizes by sitting in the library or using the internet to study - a better lunch would have meant taking a weekend job (which I had anyway, but the proceeds went to savings...)

I agree with your basic point that beans and chips cost £1.50 and a warm meal with (say) chicken/starch/vegetables costs around £2.50. Some rebalancing of the subsidy would be a good idea.

'Tuition' costs (i.e. everything except the canteen subsidy) are a tad hard to fine tune in Colleges. And remember someone has to put the stuff on the Internet - in the UK its quite often teachers in there spare time or as part of a project.

Ours was more like 70p vs. £3, but the general point stands I agree.

WRT 'stuff on the internet' - I wasn't thinking necessarily exam revision material; more Wikipedia, the C++ reference, etcetera. Project Gutenberg for an English student, etc.

I've always considered the examinations as a starting point - probably an artifact of living in a near winner-takes-all society.

I cook maybe 3 meals a week from stuff I find online. Maybe curry or stews or whatever sounds good that day. Otherwise it's pasta or sandwiches or something quick.

My mom calls me a 'foodie' as if it's a pretty major differentiation. When I visit, I do the cooking. Cooking food (especially good tasting and healthy food) is relatively atypical among others that I know as well.

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