10 year expat here. Part which I don't get is how come "warm lunches" for schools typical/natural/expected in the rest of the developed world never caught up here. Equality uber-alles?
Better income equality also means that everyone can afford to provide their own lunches.
Note that some Norwegian schools, especially bigger ones in the larger cities, now provide hot lunches, but the practice is fairly new and still uncommon.
(Source: Am Norwegian.)
Ah, here it goes: warm lunches: Finland, Spain, Denmark(?), Estonia, Lithuania, France, Italy, Sweden, UK, potentially others, not a complete list. [1]
p.s. Fun fact: Norwegian school lunches were supplied from Sweden during World War II, partly privately financed. Later, all public school lunches were discontinued, so most Norwegian students bring a packed lunch from home.[1]
With everybody working/going to school outside the home, the family dinner moved to the evening and people took sandwiches with them for lunch.
[1] https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp/national-school-lunch-program-...
I've never eaten it, but my kids generally enjoy the food and my wife, who's volunteered at the school often and eaten lunch there, says it's OK. They also offer an optional PM snack in elementary school at additional cost. Snack milk is free for everyone.
OTOH, I've heard of other school districts around the country where the food is total crap and only the poorest children who can't afford to have breakfast at home/bring a lunch will eat it.
The real problem was vegetables - they were guaranteed to be over cooked and mushy.
(This is where the idea of the school bully demanding your lunch money came from. Today, lunch money is handled through some sort of payment system, and the kids don't have to handle their own lunch money or have it stolen from them).
Of course there is no such thing as a single purpose government program. The state bought the milk from farmers, effectively subsidizing it. And so forth.
I never understood the magic of why the meal had to be hot. Usually the food was vile, and I greatly preferred to bring a sandwich from home. I wondered why the cafeteria couldn't just make a nice sandwich for everybody. Perhaps there was a time when heating institutional food was the best way of making sure everything was sanitary.
Even to this day, I bring a sandwich or leftovers from home. My daughter just left for college, so her supper portion goes in my lunch bag for the next day. ;-) My employer has a cafeteria, but maybe only 1/4 of the employees use it. The rest bring bag lunches. The cafeteria and break rooms have microwaves for us to use.
This may be a regional thing. In the Midwest, eating prepared food every day will kill you.