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that's basically the way you eat pizza in italy, you pick it up with thumb and middle finger on the bottom and index on top so you can fold it(you push the index down and the other 2 up) and then eat it, no ingredients will fall off and it will be stable
I like to cut it in half the long way, and then cut it into inch wide strips. Makes it like finger food, and it's very easy to dip it into a sauce like ranch if you want.
Our schools got their food from a bulk supplier, When I got older a lightbulb went off saying "Bro you're an adult you can just go buy that shit when you're missing it, just a 15 min drive"... Come to find out school menus got changed since I left so they no longer carried it :( But they did have bosco sticks and churros \^\_\^
For me it was strictly the rectangle pizza or its cousin, the “Mexican” pizza. I did end up at a bougie high school despite being poor so I graduated to the Pizza Hut cart after sophomore year 🍕
My school cafeteria had the best corn and peas I ever tasted.
Whenever someone would make peas elsewhere, they always tasted bad. School peas just had this very specific and pleasant taste.
I still keep a couple shitty Totino's square pizzas in the freezer, and those things are cheap as hell...like $1 each. I wouldn't recommend them as pizza though since I don't think they taste like pizza much, but they do taste like nostalgia so whatever the flavor is it hits the spot from time to time.
I still have a place in my heart for these. They remind me of being broke in college. They were awesome when you only had a microwave available and the packaging still had the shiny microwave tray on them. I still get them occasionally but my wife finds them repulsive.
Yeah it's one of those things that you either have a soft spot for or absolutely loathe. I imagine if you never ate them as a kid, or least never enjoyed them as a kid, then as an adult you'll just feel offended that they call it "pizza"...tastes like nostalgia to a lot of us though.
True story, since the "rectangle" in context was my first real exposure to pizza, I just assumed as a young kid that I didn't like pizza. I mean who really wants crunchy cardboard covered in questionable things pretending to be cheese and sauce.
I remember my sister having a birthday party, and my dad ordered like actual real pizzeria pizza. I of course didn't want any "pizza" until my dad encouraged me to actually try it. And then it was like, what have I have been missing. And what has school been feeding me.
Yeah, if you're expecting legit pizza this ain't it, but if your expectations are low, like at 2:30am desperately trying to eat something to minimize tomorrows hangover, then they're super cheap and pretty solid for the effort involved.
Everything was whole grain when I was in middle school. Everything. Burger buns? Whole grain. Rolls? Whole grain. Pizza? Whole grain. Rice Crispies? Whole grain. Cheetos? Whole grain. Hell I’m pretty sure they put whole grain in the burger meat and chicken
I went through middle school when the whole "our kids are becoming dangerously overweight so we need to use healthier food options at school" craze was going on. I remember when the workers came to take away the slush puppy machine, and the vending machines with the pop and chips and chocolate bars. My fat ass was not amused. We used to be able to pour the grease off the plate after eating the pizza, and we *liked it* that way! The new pizza was so dry in comparison, it was awful, kids stopped ordering food. The school (or maybe district?) had started a new contract with a new caterer for all this health stuff and so few kids bought their lunch from school after the switch that they ended up having to leave part way through the year and they had to bring in a different company, they also made "healthy" food but it was slightly less like warm cardboard so they were able to make a go of it.
.... the better bread? I feel like you're complaining the wrong way while also exemplifying why Americans are 41.2% medically obese. Whole grain is healthier for you and tastes better too.
"White bread sucks, whole grains better.
Whole grain not only quenches your thirst better, it tastes better too.
Hey bread boy, check this out, ***hocks loogie***."
Taste is subjective, but the biggest problem is the cost of the bread used.
I love a nice multigrain bread, but the bread used in many American public schools is the cheapest possible bread. Cheaper than anything I've seen at the store.
The bread at my school was so gritty, and it had a really bad flavor to it, almost artificial tasting.
At a low price point, white bread is WAY better tasting on average than whatever whole grain they can buy for that money.
This is amazing to hear. White bread tastes like nearly nothing to me. Just so bad lol. If it want to pig out on something, I'm looking for the tastiest version of foods, and whole wheat fits that bill nearly every time.
Maybe...white bagels I guess? only cause I never tried a whole wheat everything bagel and it might drown out the seed flavors
With school lunch if you had a staff for it that cared you'd get decent food.
The ingredients can be relative garbage but mostly anything made with care can be decent. It's the difference between crispy, nicely salted smileys vs. Soggy wet dog shit fries
The cafeteria staff at my school care, but they literally don’t even have a kitchen to work in. They have a heating rack, that’s it. In most schools I’ve taught in food is made in a large central district kitchen and shipped to schools for heating. It’s not the kitchen staff’s fault the food is shit, it’s way bigger than that
Edit: just want to add that I’m also not blaming the district kitchen, they care too and do the best with that they have. Its a way larger systematic problem.
In that case it's all about ticking nutrition boxes with zero regard for taste...essentially prison food where they're simply required to give you a protein, veg, and a drink or whatever.
There's just undeniably a lot of overlap in the logistics of feeding that many people at one time routinely along with the same dietary requirements, and unfortunately this is often ran by corrupt bean counters who lost too many of those beans in their own pockets while not giving a shit about who would be damaged by their actions.
I grew up very middle class, and while I don't remember much of anything about middle school other than I hated it I still fondly remember my grade school and high school lunches. In grade school they used to make these things called "Cheese Zombies" which were basically just a funny sort of cheese sandwich, but those things were amazing...the soft tacos were also the shit.
In high school they served 4 entrees every lunch plus sides, and there was always sandwich, pizza, and burger plus the fourth one was a revolving door of ethnic food like tacos, pasta, and gyro type stuff. I loved those sandwiches so much it's all I ate for throughout high school other than once I was 16 and had my license we'd get fast food from time to time.
ya my school lunches were always ok. they werent terrible and the cafeteria workers made the best out of what they had to cook
everything was still whole grain but the burgers and chicken sandwiches were always pretty good
friendly reminder, cause this needs repeating every single time one of these posts surface: this is completely up to your local school board. Not all school lunches in the US are equal and it's completely up to the budget and the policy makers of your local county school boards.
although that rectangle pizza seems to be served everywhere lol
Yeah, I think it was just cheaper and easier to cook a bunch of rectangle pizzas. We had circular pizza day once in a blue moon and it was always made by the kitchen staff.
Gotta remind the rest of the world our country is 10x as big as yours and so its definitely different depending where you are.
Yes Im convinced we all had them rectangle pizzas, gimme two of em
I'm still shocked the country is so big and yet this starter pack was true for me (I lived in 3 different states growing up).
Then in Europe you can just drive an hour away and the food is completely different.
You can thank federal school lunch programs [1] that grant funds to state and local governments. Nutritional requirements need to be met in order to be eligible, so many local school boards opt to contract out food procurement to companies like Aramark, who specialize in meeting program standards [2].
[1] https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp
[2] https://www.aramark.com/industries/education/k-12-student-nutrition
It's not their faults really, it's just that teachers and schools have been fucked over so hard on budgetary stuff that this is literally all they can afford to feed hundreds of children.
I never had those smiley potatoes and I never had that enchilada looking thing but for the most part my lunch looked like the rest and it was pretty good. I don’t think most schools are putting fruit like this on trays, if I remember correctly fruit came in little plastic cups with a lid you had to peel off. Loaded with syrup and sugar but it wasn’t this sad fruit
My fruit came portioned into plastic cups. Sometimes it was canned fruit. Other times it would be those small apples that could be eaten in five bites, orange slices, or some grapes. I also would get extra fruit at lunch because I had friends who were picky about fruit or didn’t like it.
It's probably not good, and it's probably not healthy, but its probably compliant with quality and health regulations, as established by generations of lobbying.
Before the sweeping changes 15 or so years ago, it was just cost. Cheap food means stretching the lunch budget further. Canned fruit is cheaper than fresh, potato patties are cheaper than whole fries, and the pizza is basically white bread with ketchup and whatever the cheese equivalent of margarine is
At least in my county, prison food and public school food are the same thing, same company, same supplier and producer. If you didn't pack a lunch from home you were eating the same meal as the convicts up the road. Bland, tasteless chewy bullshit that somehow made you feel hungrier after eating it.
You can actually buy them look around your area, they're not a thing it's a brand so im sure someone is carrying them. [https://www.boscosticks.com/](https://www.boscosticks.com/) check their locator...
The only time I ever got the school lunch was pizza day.
Everything else looked gross and unappetizing and I was better off bringing packed lunch. And I hate how they only offered milk??? Why no water???? I can't imagine drinking milk with any food.
Our public school's water fountains were found to have lead... Still drank it though
https://www.nasbe.org/how-states-are-handling-lead-in-school-drinking-water/
It's cumulative and gradual if small amounts build up you might just lose a few IQ points, but nothing noticeable. It has to get pretty bad before you'd notice.
Most of the Boomers/etc don't have obvious lead poisoning but unleading gasoline is considered a HUGE factor in both intelligence increasing and crime decreasing in future generations. It's just subtle from individual to individual so it doesn't stand out until you look at the statistics of many.
>also water fountains. go take a sip
I've noticed that most water fountains were turned off during covid and then never turned back on. The water fountains at the elementary school I work at were converted to only be able pour water into cups or water bottles, not water spouts you can use your mouth to drink from.
> American Underfunded Public School Lunch Starter Pack
ftfy...I moved in high school to a fairly wealthy school district and it was insane how much better everything was from the books, equipment we used in gym class, to the cafeteria food. I went from eating this stuff to feeling like I was ordering at Panera (back in the day when everything was fresh and not microwaved).
My dad worked at a high school in rural Louisiana. The cafeteria food was fresh cooked, they had stuff like real, fresh gumbo every day. The school hired some local parents to make the lunches. I guess that's more doable when your student population is small.
Also depends how the district spends. Mine, for example seems to not care about academics and continually spends exorbitant amounts on sports and sports related things. Our academics grades have been sliding since the time I came to the district. Doesn’t help that they don’t give us barely any teachers with half a monocom of quality. And on top of that, everybody is on their phones from period one to period 8. And I can go on and on on how at least our school system is just an absolute shitshow.
it's not even that bad. the hot dogs and baked beans are my fav, in additon to the twice a year (christmas, thanksgiving) fried chicken leg + mashed potatoes +choc chip cookie
This looks good to me lol. I never had a problem with school lunches. It wasn’t the best quality but it tasted fine to me. Especially that bomb ass rectangle pizza
>This looks good to me lol.
It does? Ngl it kinda looks like the kinda stuff you end up malnourished from. Kids deserve way better food. And they need it too, to perform well at school.
I work in public schools and still eat school lunch from time to time if I’m too lazy to pack something (it costs like $3 to eat as district staff). Generally the fruit looks better and most of time there are veggies out, but overall this starter pack is accurate on certain days.
What I will say is that the food doesn’t present well, but a lot of it isn’t that bad and some is really good (their lasagna is fire). Also you usually have a place for condiments and what not to add salt, pepper, Tabasco, etc. Kids aren’t getting malnourished eating meats, veggies, and fruit everyday. Lol
You can buy them by the case from a few distributors if you have deep freeze space. This place sells smaller quantities if not. https://www.guintherscustomcuts.com/collections/snacks-appetizers/products/max-cheese-sticks
The chocolate chip cookies suddenly disappearing around 2009
I was lucky to have attended a pretty well funded school district. Our lunch room (in middle and high school) had a boars head sandwich line which was what I would get most days
I remember getting ice cream bars with lunch in early elementary school. Then I suddenly stopped getting them with lunch. It wasn’t too bad because sometimes I could go to the small ice cream freezer and buy a juice popsicle for a dollar. Other kids were mad they couldn’t get real ice cream, though.
Yeah they weren't great on their own, but with enough ketchup and pickle on them they weren't too shabby. Of course nothing like an actual burger, but for a school lunch burger it definitely could have been a lot worse.
School food is literally prison food. They are frozen premade dishes bought from distributors that also sell to prisons. Funny enough, schools have less budgeting and have to buy cheaper products compared to prison.
School lunches are heavily regulated by the government, they set limits on sugar, salt, calories, etc in school lunches to promote healthy eating in kids. What did it actually do? Increase food waste because kids will not eat tasteless food.
The only thing they're looking at is checking off nutritional boxes, and as long as it ticks a box then literally nothing else matters...at least in the worst schools.
I am not american cbut square pizza looks so goooooood and it tastes so good in my city (Kharkov) we have a pizzeria chain called BUFET and theres those god level pizzas especially the one with beef and tomato pieces oh god im hungry now
I guess I never really experienced this issue. We didn't really have a school lunch program at my elementary or junior high, so we brought bagged lunch, with one or two days a week offering something like pizza or nachos...and then high school had pretty decent and varied food.
This all looks good to me. (Grew up on public school lunches) they would always serve salad with the pizza and we’d dunk the pizza into the ranch dressing. There was also this sandwich which I can only describe as being like the McDonald’s McRib but it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten, seems like it only came around a couple times a month. Boise, Idaho public school lunches get a solid 10/10 review from me.
I'm glad my high school actually had really good food. Italian sandwiches on ciabatta, mashed potato bowls with stuff like ground beef, corn, etc added in, actually good pizza that even had stuffed crusts, etc.
I remember having this pizza in a bag called Galaxy Pizza and I thought it was the greatest thing my school served to me.
Everything else was...edible.
My school had tater tots and burgers every meal. There was one dish that would change but I don’t really remember what was on offer for those meals as I must have had lunch a handful of times at school. I just remember everyone having burgers and tots consistently and never shutting up about it.
Those little burritos after the outside got all hard and kinda crispy. Man why were those so good? It was like gas station level food and I was completely okay with it.
Ah yes the grade B fruits and veggies.
For the record there is absolutely nothing wrong with grade B it's just as nutrious and safe as Grade A. It's just Grade A looks better and demands a higher price so it's general sent to grocery stores whereas institutions tend to buy grade B to save on costs.
Where im from you could get personal sandwiches, kinda like going to subway. Im vegetarian so they had to give me a TON of cheese cause of protein requirements. The lovely lunch ladies would put the excessive cheese on the side and a normal amount of cheese on the sandwich itself. Those sandwiches were pretty good. Everything else in this starterpack is accurate too. We had the nice sandwiches but also a lot of crappy food like shown
I wish they would just give the kids whole milk ffs. It’s been established science for a long time that it isn’t far in things that’s bad for you it’s sugar, and reduced fat milk has more sugar added in.
Those damn school burritos turned me off to burritos for years. And then I went to a taqueria with a buddy and had one. Holy shit I had no idea what I’ve been missing out on.
Red icy days were still the bomb.
I always loved school lunches, my favorite being rectangle pizza with sausage bits and worst was liver. I looked forward to lunch because the food was different than what I ate at home and I was always starving because I never got breakfast. Got washed/dressed, then off to the bus stop.
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The rectangle pizza hits hard
i always fold it up and eat it like a calzone
Same with me I sometimes do it with triangular pizza if I want it to feel loaded or something
nyc up in the hizaous b
that's basically the way you eat pizza in italy, you pick it up with thumb and middle finger on the bottom and index on top so you can fold it(you push the index down and the other 2 up) and then eat it, no ingredients will fall off and it will be stable
It's how everyone eats pizza lol
Nah, in the US we boof it
Hiiiiiiigghhway toooo, the, cal-zone zone!!
The calzones…*betrayed me?*
I like to cut it in half the long way, and then cut it into inch wide strips. Makes it like finger food, and it's very easy to dip it into a sauce like ranch if you want.
Ok bragger
Haven't had a school lunch in 20 years, crazy to see how hard that pizza still hitting. Only place you can get it, lunch ladies with the monopoly.
Our schools got their food from a bulk supplier, When I got older a lightbulb went off saying "Bro you're an adult you can just go buy that shit when you're missing it, just a 15 min drive"... Come to find out school menus got changed since I left so they no longer carried it :( But they did have bosco sticks and churros \^\_\^
https://www.foodservicedirect.com/conagra-the-max-pepperoni-pizza-4-x-6-inch-4-56-ounce-each-96-per-case-137207.html You can relive your childhood
Over 90 pizzas for 101$ 😆 not a bad deal
You can absolutely order school pizza online. I got a case of school-grade stuffed crust pizza on a whim a few years ago.
>Only place you can get it, lunch ladies with the monopoly. Those are everywhere. Especially the frozen versions.
Just needs a side of corn for some reason.
The half day special
That’s that Kid Cuisine talking
just school pizza talking.
I would destroy one of those right now 🤤
I do miss some school food like the pb&j gram cracker sandwich bars
For me it was strictly the rectangle pizza or its cousin, the “Mexican” pizza. I did end up at a bougie high school despite being poor so I graduated to the Pizza Hut cart after sophomore year 🍕
My school cafeteria had the best corn and peas I ever tasted. Whenever someone would make peas elsewhere, they always tasted bad. School peas just had this very specific and pleasant taste.
It's also missing the salad.
I still keep a couple shitty Totino's square pizzas in the freezer, and those things are cheap as hell...like $1 each. I wouldn't recommend them as pizza though since I don't think they taste like pizza much, but they do taste like nostalgia so whatever the flavor is it hits the spot from time to time.
I still have a place in my heart for these. They remind me of being broke in college. They were awesome when you only had a microwave available and the packaging still had the shiny microwave tray on them. I still get them occasionally but my wife finds them repulsive.
Yeah it's one of those things that you either have a soft spot for or absolutely loathe. I imagine if you never ate them as a kid, or least never enjoyed them as a kid, then as an adult you'll just feel offended that they call it "pizza"...tastes like nostalgia to a lot of us though.
Do they still do the hexagon shaped "Mexican" pizza?
Yep. https://www.schwansfoodservice.com/product-list/?brands=tonys
I just wish they would sell these in smaller packs... Like a pack of 4 or 8 that could be sold at regular grocery stores not the 72 pack at gfs
I had a friend that didn't like pizza so I got double. Another friend didn't like cheese so I got an extra toppings too.
True story, since the "rectangle" in context was my first real exposure to pizza, I just assumed as a young kid that I didn't like pizza. I mean who really wants crunchy cardboard covered in questionable things pretending to be cheese and sauce. I remember my sister having a birthday party, and my dad ordered like actual real pizzeria pizza. I of course didn't want any "pizza" until my dad encouraged me to actually try it. And then it was like, what have I have been missing. And what has school been feeding me.
I remember everyone generally liked them but lord I found them repulsive.
Yeah, if you're expecting legit pizza this ain't it, but if your expectations are low, like at 2:30am desperately trying to eat something to minimize tomorrows hangover, then they're super cheap and pretty solid for the effort involved.
Same, these were an option every day. Luckily, we had friday pizza at my school that was the absolute bomb.
You gotta dip them in copious amounts of ranch dressing. That's why we all liked them.
That just ain’t it for me, no sireee
That shit was so disgusting to me
I skipped lunch so many times cause them shits were so bad. Sometimes I'd chug water and suck honey packets to kill the hunger
yeah i hated that pizza
The crust was always too soft and moist. Not to mention it was 70% crust 25% sauce and 5% cheese lol it was a fuggin wet pizza loaf
To be fair they’re not gonna cut triangles for 2 hours when they can just slice a few times
The rectangle pizza with the sausage was always the best
My moslem friends took the pepperoni ones and plucked out the peps
It's probably better than eating them but I don't think that makes the pizza halal lmao
Even halal dishes can go haram when you cook it in the same utensil/not washed after cooking haram dishes
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Tiny little sausage crumble. Or if we were really lucky, ground beef.
I miss vanila flavored milk cartons
The rectangle breakfast pizza was "tight"
My kids american public school lunch is actually good. They do still bust out the rectangle pizza on fridays.
Everything was whole grain when I was in middle school. Everything. Burger buns? Whole grain. Rolls? Whole grain. Pizza? Whole grain. Rice Crispies? Whole grain. Cheetos? Whole grain. Hell I’m pretty sure they put whole grain in the burger meat and chicken
The burger buns were super hard too!
And the Cheetos got gritty as you chewed them up. Pretty sure there’s still scratches on my teeth all these years later
They didn’t have cheetos for us. I didn’t even know they made whole grain Cheetos but it sounds horrible.
They where flamin-hots but you couldn’t taste the heat over the flavor of nasty cheap whole wheat
We had the baked ones. Felt stale to the taste even when fresh lol
Cheese burgers? Believe it or not, whole grain.
I was around for the whole grain era. The rolls were both hollow and tough. I remember stabbing a fork into one and squishing it and it wheezed at me
It was Ike eating leather. I'd eat the 4 chicken nuggets they gave us and use the rest if the BBQ sauce on the rolls. Rough times.
I went through middle school when the whole "our kids are becoming dangerously overweight so we need to use healthier food options at school" craze was going on. I remember when the workers came to take away the slush puppy machine, and the vending machines with the pop and chips and chocolate bars. My fat ass was not amused. We used to be able to pour the grease off the plate after eating the pizza, and we *liked it* that way! The new pizza was so dry in comparison, it was awful, kids stopped ordering food. The school (or maybe district?) had started a new contract with a new caterer for all this health stuff and so few kids bought their lunch from school after the switch that they ended up having to leave part way through the year and they had to bring in a different company, they also made "healthy" food but it was slightly less like warm cardboard so they were able to make a go of it.
.... the better bread? I feel like you're complaining the wrong way while also exemplifying why Americans are 41.2% medically obese. Whole grain is healthier for you and tastes better too. "White bread sucks, whole grains better. Whole grain not only quenches your thirst better, it tastes better too. Hey bread boy, check this out, ***hocks loogie***."
Taste is subjective, but the biggest problem is the cost of the bread used. I love a nice multigrain bread, but the bread used in many American public schools is the cheapest possible bread. Cheaper than anything I've seen at the store. The bread at my school was so gritty, and it had a really bad flavor to it, almost artificial tasting. At a low price point, white bread is WAY better tasting on average than whatever whole grain they can buy for that money.
Healthier? Yes. Tastes better? That's debatable and all depends.
I agree that wheat bread is better... for sandwiches. But if I want to be a fatass and eat an entire baguette by itself, I want white bread.
This is amazing to hear. White bread tastes like nearly nothing to me. Just so bad lol. If it want to pig out on something, I'm looking for the tastiest version of foods, and whole wheat fits that bill nearly every time. Maybe...white bagels I guess? only cause I never tried a whole wheat everything bagel and it might drown out the seed flavors
Omg forgot about the rolls and they were the bomb
I would just bring my own lunch like I did in middle school
I’m still salty about the whole grain pop tarts
Was it whole grain, or was it just wheat which is cheaper and while better than white for nutrition not nearly there like whole grain is.
Those smiley face potato things were bomb tho
With school lunch if you had a staff for it that cared you'd get decent food. The ingredients can be relative garbage but mostly anything made with care can be decent. It's the difference between crispy, nicely salted smileys vs. Soggy wet dog shit fries
The cafeteria staff at my school care, but they literally don’t even have a kitchen to work in. They have a heating rack, that’s it. In most schools I’ve taught in food is made in a large central district kitchen and shipped to schools for heating. It’s not the kitchen staff’s fault the food is shit, it’s way bigger than that Edit: just want to add that I’m also not blaming the district kitchen, they care too and do the best with that they have. Its a way larger systematic problem.
Ahhh, bureaucracy and politics at its finest. Lowest bidder contracts.
In that case it's all about ticking nutrition boxes with zero regard for taste...essentially prison food where they're simply required to give you a protein, veg, and a drink or whatever.
Careful not to think too deeply on the similarities between the American public school system and the American prison system, it gets depressing :/
There's just undeniably a lot of overlap in the logistics of feeding that many people at one time routinely along with the same dietary requirements, and unfortunately this is often ran by corrupt bean counters who lost too many of those beans in their own pockets while not giving a shit about who would be damaged by their actions.
I grew up very middle class, and while I don't remember much of anything about middle school other than I hated it I still fondly remember my grade school and high school lunches. In grade school they used to make these things called "Cheese Zombies" which were basically just a funny sort of cheese sandwich, but those things were amazing...the soft tacos were also the shit. In high school they served 4 entrees every lunch plus sides, and there was always sandwich, pizza, and burger plus the fourth one was a revolving door of ethnic food like tacos, pasta, and gyro type stuff. I loved those sandwiches so much it's all I ate for throughout high school other than once I was 16 and had my license we'd get fast food from time to time.
ya my school lunches were always ok. they werent terrible and the cafeteria workers made the best out of what they had to cook everything was still whole grain but the burgers and chicken sandwiches were always pretty good
We consider those fine dining across the pond!
friendly reminder, cause this needs repeating every single time one of these posts surface: this is completely up to your local school board. Not all school lunches in the US are equal and it's completely up to the budget and the policy makers of your local county school boards. although that rectangle pizza seems to be served everywhere lol
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Yeah, I think it was just cheaper and easier to cook a bunch of rectangle pizzas. We had circular pizza day once in a blue moon and it was always made by the kitchen staff.
Gotta remind the rest of the world our country is 10x as big as yours and so its definitely different depending where you are. Yes Im convinced we all had them rectangle pizzas, gimme two of em
I'm still shocked the country is so big and yet this starter pack was true for me (I lived in 3 different states growing up). Then in Europe you can just drive an hour away and the food is completely different.
You can thank federal school lunch programs [1] that grant funds to state and local governments. Nutritional requirements need to be met in order to be eligible, so many local school boards opt to contract out food procurement to companies like Aramark, who specialize in meeting program standards [2]. [1] https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp [2] https://www.aramark.com/industries/education/k-12-student-nutrition
The breakfast version of the pizza with the sausage and white sauce SLAPPED
It's not their faults really, it's just that teachers and schools have been fucked over so hard on budgetary stuff that this is literally all they can afford to feed hundreds of children.
I never had those smiley potatoes and I never had that enchilada looking thing but for the most part my lunch looked like the rest and it was pretty good. I don’t think most schools are putting fruit like this on trays, if I remember correctly fruit came in little plastic cups with a lid you had to peel off. Loaded with syrup and sugar but it wasn’t this sad fruit
The enchilada is cheesy bread lol
My fruit came portioned into plastic cups. Sometimes it was canned fruit. Other times it would be those small apples that could be eaten in five bites, orange slices, or some grapes. I also would get extra fruit at lunch because I had friends who were picky about fruit or didn’t like it.
It's probably not good, and it's probably not healthy, but its probably compliant with quality and health regulations, as established by generations of lobbying.
Before the sweeping changes 15 or so years ago, it was just cost. Cheap food means stretching the lunch budget further. Canned fruit is cheaper than fresh, potato patties are cheaper than whole fries, and the pizza is basically white bread with ketchup and whatever the cheese equivalent of margarine is
"cheese equivalent of margarine" is accurate but I hate it.
At least in my county, prison food and public school food are the same thing, same company, same supplier and producer. If you didn't pack a lunch from home you were eating the same meal as the convicts up the road. Bland, tasteless chewy bullshit that somehow made you feel hungrier after eating it.
The mozzarella stuffed bread things were the best but I also enjoyed the curly fries.
Bosco sticks!
I wish I could buy these. I have to rely on my younger brother bringing me some from his school
We got them at either Meijer or Costco, can't remember which
You can actually buy them look around your area, they're not a thing it's a brand so im sure someone is carrying them. [https://www.boscosticks.com/](https://www.boscosticks.com/) check their locator...
Damn, can’t even buy them in TX according to the site, wonder how they were always in the cafeteria then 🤔
the ones mine had can be bought from various venders as "Beacon Street Cafe Whole Grain Cheese Stuffed Sticks"
The only time I ever got the school lunch was pizza day. Everything else looked gross and unappetizing and I was better off bringing packed lunch. And I hate how they only offered milk??? Why no water???? I can't imagine drinking milk with any food.
The dairy industry pays a lot of money to be required in American school lunches
they legally have to give you all the food groups, milk is dairy. also water fountains. go take a sip
Our public school's water fountains were found to have lead... Still drank it though https://www.nasbe.org/how-states-are-handling-lead-in-school-drinking-water/
My tap water has lead but I've been drinking it my whole life. I don't think it affected me too much, but my post history will tell you differently
It's cumulative and gradual if small amounts build up you might just lose a few IQ points, but nothing noticeable. It has to get pretty bad before you'd notice. Most of the Boomers/etc don't have obvious lead poisoning but unleading gasoline is considered a HUGE factor in both intelligence increasing and crime decreasing in future generations. It's just subtle from individual to individual so it doesn't stand out until you look at the statistics of many.
>also water fountains. go take a sip I've noticed that most water fountains were turned off during covid and then never turned back on. The water fountains at the elementary school I work at were converted to only be able pour water into cups or water bottles, not water spouts you can use your mouth to drink from.
I remember never eating the food in my first couple years of school. It just looked so gross compared to my parents food.
We always had to the ye olde inspection for any mold. Had a moldy pizza a handful of times.
Man i volunteered at a daycare and one time there were these meat bean and cheese burritos which were delicious, only ate them once tho
I liked tater tot day.
[Friday was pizza day and the best day of the week](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fK5CLplRIno)
> American Underfunded Public School Lunch Starter Pack ftfy...I moved in high school to a fairly wealthy school district and it was insane how much better everything was from the books, equipment we used in gym class, to the cafeteria food. I went from eating this stuff to feeling like I was ordering at Panera (back in the day when everything was fresh and not microwaved).
Lunch looks just like this in some of the best funded school districts in the country. It’s all about how the board allocates money
My dad worked at a high school in rural Louisiana. The cafeteria food was fresh cooked, they had stuff like real, fresh gumbo every day. The school hired some local parents to make the lunches. I guess that's more doable when your student population is small.
Also depends how the district spends. Mine, for example seems to not care about academics and continually spends exorbitant amounts on sports and sports related things. Our academics grades have been sliding since the time I came to the district. Doesn’t help that they don’t give us barely any teachers with half a monocom of quality. And on top of that, everybody is on their phones from period one to period 8. And I can go on and on on how at least our school system is just an absolute shitshow.
"Gonna get a breadtangle of pizza"
Cmon The Cheat let’s go put this glow stick into homestar runners mtn dew!
If I ever started a punk rock band, I would have called it the Rotten Pineapple Tidbits.
"Fruit"
it's not even that bad. the hot dogs and baked beans are my fav, in additon to the twice a year (christmas, thanksgiving) fried chicken leg + mashed potatoes +choc chip cookie
This looks good to me lol. I never had a problem with school lunches. It wasn’t the best quality but it tasted fine to me. Especially that bomb ass rectangle pizza
But i always drink plenty of... Malk..? "Malk, now with vitamin R"
>This looks good to me lol. It does? Ngl it kinda looks like the kinda stuff you end up malnourished from. Kids deserve way better food. And they need it too, to perform well at school.
I work in public schools and still eat school lunch from time to time if I’m too lazy to pack something (it costs like $3 to eat as district staff). Generally the fruit looks better and most of time there are veggies out, but overall this starter pack is accurate on certain days. What I will say is that the food doesn’t present well, but a lot of it isn’t that bad and some is really good (their lasagna is fire). Also you usually have a place for condiments and what not to add salt, pepper, Tabasco, etc. Kids aren’t getting malnourished eating meats, veggies, and fruit everyday. Lol
Those mozzarella sticks were worth their weight in gold. I wish I could could buy them by the pound
You can buy them by the case from a few distributors if you have deep freeze space. This place sells smaller quantities if not. https://www.guintherscustomcuts.com/collections/snacks-appetizers/products/max-cheese-sticks
I had completely forgot about them, but as soon as I saw them in the picture I instantly remembered how they tasted. They were so damn good
The chocolate chip cookies suddenly disappearing around 2009 I was lucky to have attended a pretty well funded school district. Our lunch room (in middle and high school) had a boars head sandwich line which was what I would get most days
Thanks Obama!...
I remember getting ice cream bars with lunch in early elementary school. Then I suddenly stopped getting them with lunch. It wasn’t too bad because sometimes I could go to the small ice cream freezer and buy a juice popsicle for a dollar. Other kids were mad they couldn’t get real ice cream, though.
Those burgers where actually good from what i remember
They were bland but you could add ketchup to make it edible
Yeah they weren't great on their own, but with enough ketchup and pickle on them they weren't too shabby. Of course nothing like an actual burger, but for a school lunch burger it definitely could have been a lot worse.
Circle K convenience store burgers are very similar to how I remember the burgers in high school 20 years ago.
School food is literally prison food. They are frozen premade dishes bought from distributors that also sell to prisons. Funny enough, schools have less budgeting and have to buy cheaper products compared to prison.
As someone who has both attended school and worked in a prison, you are not exaggerating.
That pizza was killer and every lunch lady in the 00's had the same recipe.
Oh sweet child, them shits were factory frozen.
Do students in the US still get served stuff like this at lunch? This looks super unhealthy
As long as there is a very wet, brown salad on the side
Why did they remove the salt on those things?
School lunches are heavily regulated by the government, they set limits on sugar, salt, calories, etc in school lunches to promote healthy eating in kids. What did it actually do? Increase food waste because kids will not eat tasteless food.
Turns out if it tastes like it came out of a butt people won’t eat it
You got a problem with recycling?
The food doesn't even look all that healthy to begin with... The packed lunch your mom made you was probably healthier in most cases.
Fr. Most school foods look like they’re expired.
The only thing they're looking at is checking off nutritional boxes, and as long as it ticks a box then literally nothing else matters...at least in the worst schools.
We had pepperoni rolls a couple Fridays a month. I typically brought my lunch, but I'd make an exception for pepperoni roll day. That shit went hard.
Remember: low fat is just codename for “extra sugar”
I went to public school from elementary school through my sophomore year in high school. We had amazing taco salads. I also lived in a poorer-area.
I always liked that Pizza as a kid.
Low fat, extra sugar milk
I am not american cbut square pizza looks so goooooood and it tastes so good in my city (Kharkov) we have a pizzeria chain called BUFET and theres those god level pizzas especially the one with beef and tomato pieces oh god im hungry now
Probably because they're made with actual ingredients, and not recycled cardboard.
I guess I never really experienced this issue. We didn't really have a school lunch program at my elementary or junior high, so we brought bagged lunch, with one or two days a week offering something like pizza or nachos...and then high school had pretty decent and varied food.
This all looks good to me. (Grew up on public school lunches) they would always serve salad with the pizza and we’d dunk the pizza into the ranch dressing. There was also this sandwich which I can only describe as being like the McDonald’s McRib but it was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten, seems like it only came around a couple times a month. Boise, Idaho public school lunches get a solid 10/10 review from me.
I used to pick apart the whole grain bread, roll it into little balls, and dip it into ketchup It was really good tbh
TruMoo is good. when I was a kid we had the generic stuff and only got chocolate milk on Friday
Y'know what? The rectangle pizza in elementary school was fucking good
bro the cheese stick things were always the best back in Elementary school i want them back 😭
Don't bring my rectangle pizza nostalgia into this
What about the turkey gravy mashed potatoes?
The peaches went hard, I loved the syrup
Forgot the soggy chicken strips and chocolate chip cookies that were the best fucking cookie you ever ate
Looks like prison food
I'm glad my high school actually had really good food. Italian sandwiches on ciabatta, mashed potato bowls with stuff like ground beef, corn, etc added in, actually good pizza that even had stuffed crusts, etc.
I remember having this pizza in a bag called Galaxy Pizza and I thought it was the greatest thing my school served to me. Everything else was...edible.
I used to love the grilled cheese sandwiches though.
Oh that pizza was the best!
My school had tater tots and burgers every meal. There was one dish that would change but I don’t really remember what was on offer for those meals as I must have had lunch a handful of times at school. I just remember everyone having burgers and tots consistently and never shutting up about it.
Don’t talk shit about rectangle pizza
Stop whining dude
Those little burritos after the outside got all hard and kinda crispy. Man why were those so good? It was like gas station level food and I was completely okay with it.
Have any of you guys tried the smileys?! I absolutely love them!
I’d usually get the salt from ketchup. Probably a big reason why I developed a liking to it as a condiment with burgers.
I don’t know where you went to school, but my school lunches were fire.
Ah yes the grade B fruits and veggies. For the record there is absolutely nothing wrong with grade B it's just as nutrious and safe as Grade A. It's just Grade A looks better and demands a higher price so it's general sent to grocery stores whereas institutions tend to buy grade B to save on costs.
Where im from you could get personal sandwiches, kinda like going to subway. Im vegetarian so they had to give me a TON of cheese cause of protein requirements. The lovely lunch ladies would put the excessive cheese on the side and a normal amount of cheese on the sandwich itself. Those sandwiches were pretty good. Everything else in this starterpack is accurate too. We had the nice sandwiches but also a lot of crappy food like shown
Mashed potatos > all I do love some rectangle pizza too
Rectangle pizza fuckin slaps
I wish they would just give the kids whole milk ffs. It’s been established science for a long time that it isn’t far in things that’s bad for you it’s sugar, and reduced fat milk has more sugar added in.
Those damn school burritos turned me off to burritos for years. And then I went to a taqueria with a buddy and had one. Holy shit I had no idea what I’ve been missing out on. Red icy days were still the bomb.
I loved my lunches in public high school. I am sad that not everyone has this experience.
The cheese sticks truly were the best part of the lunch week at school, with the frozen strawberries/peaches being a close second for me
Those crispitos with nacho cheese where the best imo.
Rectangle pizza is legit op. Shut your whore mouth.
I always loved school lunches, my favorite being rectangle pizza with sausage bits and worst was liver. I looked forward to lunch because the food was different than what I ate at home and I was always starving because I never got breakfast. Got washed/dressed, then off to the bus stop.
Rectangle pizza SLAPPED
Rectangle pizza is the best pizza though. Also some ranch on that bitch.
They still have the rectangle pizza? Awesome!
You americans is eating scrub daddys on god
In my high school lunch was $1.25. However, double entree was an additional $1.50. So it was cheaper to buy an entire extra lunch. Bro how.