School lunches

[Another New Yorker]

I put ketchup on my square pizza. Then I started bringing the "ham," "cheese," and cracker sandwich lunchables.

 

[mr.orange]

^^^ that's just gross.

 

[DerekS]



I put ketchup on my square pizza. Then I started bringing the "ham," "cheese," and cracker sandwich lunchables.

ranch dressing FTW.


I still put ranch on my pizza. God im such a fatass.

 

[edinatlanta]



it's to the point that I get occasional cravings for weird square slices of pizza sometimes.

Glad I'm not the only one.

My elementary school didn't have school lunches until like, 1st grade. Remember they would bring in Pizza Hut and the moms or the moms would make tacos like once a month.

**** do I love tuck shop food. We had Chicken n Corn rolls that were weird yet good. Also these pizza puff things and something called chicken bernaise (IIRC) which was chicken, some sauce in a puff pastry thing. But nothing beats a pie or sausage roll. Little passiona to drink....that's a dinkum meal right there.

HS in America was weird. Sometimes we'd just buy cookies instead of lunch because those were always baked that day at least. Also if you were lucky you could get PB&J. I remember how thoroughly inconsistent everything was. You'd get like a choice of like three entrees, then two side dishes and load your plate down one day, everything hot and tasty, the next you'd have fish sandwiches and nothing else. My favorite experience was when we had cheeseburgers that had melted cheese yet the burger remained frozen.

 

[impolyt_one]



impolyt you know what biltong is? I found one place in Canada that makes the real thing, nothing in the US though.

Once had the immense pleasure(?) of having to share a room with a South African guy at an employee training thing. He pulls this bag of squarish turd looking things out of his bag straight from the motherland, and offers me some, my beef jerky world imploded.

 

[impolyt_one]

Went to go see my friend in NY last month, his mother was the PTA lady so she ran the tuck shop at our school. Since it was a once a week thing back then, and she was there dishing out crack cocaine in minced meat form, she was my favorite person of all time, perhaps. She was nothing like a lunch lady at that point, she was something closer to god, especially when I got my hands on a steaming hot minced meat pie and a chicken burger. Barely remember much else of my primary school days besides eating minced meat pies, fish n chips, and the once a year McDonald's day at school.

Apparently in more recent years they've had to make tuck shop stuff more healthy, and so all of that is gone, probably replaced by turkey romaine ranch wraps or some other bullshit.

 

[fuji]

I only went to kindergarten in america so I didn't get school lunch, but I remember my sister. Primary school in England was alright, shepards pie covered in gravy, brussel sprouts, very well done beef, potatoes in the shape of smiley faces and turkey twizzlers, which are now illegal. Really nice deserts, cakes or cobblers covered in custard, some of the fat kids just ate plane custard in a bowl. I was really confused coming from the states because in England custard is just this weird sugary sauce, not actual custard. During break we'd get a cookie, which was pretty nice and water, milk or orange juice in these weird plastic cups and since I've been neurotic about food for my whole life I couldn't drink from them because of how they looked and it really put me off watching other people drink from them. Secondary school was more like fast food, at morning break you could get a bacon sandwich or a brownie or donut or something and at lunch you could get pizza or burgers and chips. English people have this disgusting thing where they get like luke warm chips, put cold grated cheddar and gravy on them and its horrible. You used to be able to buy soft drinks, but then they banned them. I get expelled because I got my mum to go to the American military base, buy huge bags of starburst and skittles for $1 and sell them for 1 pound 50p and gartorade at 6 for $2 and sell them for a quid each. Made like 30 quid a day doing that, but I got caught because all the year 7s would get really hyper in lessons with these huge american sized bags of starbursts and energy drinks, but i probably made a couple K doing it. I got my mum to get me lunch though, which was stuff like fruit by the foot and all kinds of disgusting american sweets.


In my first year of sixth form I didn't really eat lunch at all. The school served usual stuff, chips and hashbrowns and pizza, but during our lunch and frees we could just go into town to tesco and buy food so you could have whatever you wanted really. In my second year of A levels I had 2 hours of lessons a day and 4 hours of free time so my lunch became a couple pills of ephadrine throughout the day and some whey protein and lots of weed and corona or we could just go to one of the pubs next to my college, which had 2.50 pints and 3.70 doubles. That could have been why I didn't do so well in my A levels actually. It got me suspended on my last week of college, which I thought was pretty marsupialed.

 

[SField]



Went to go see my friend in NY last month, his mother was the PTA lady so she ran the tuck shop at our school. Since it was a once a week thing back then, and she was there dishing out crack cocaine in minced meat form, she was my favorite person of all time, perhaps. She was nothing like a lunch lady at that point, she was something closer to god, especially when I got my hands on a steaming hot minced meat pie and a chicken burger. Barely remember much else of my primary school days besides eating minced meat pies, fish n chips, and the once a year McDonald's day at school.

Apparently in more recent years they've had to make tuck shop stuff more healthy, and so all of that is gone, probably replaced by turkey romaine ranch wraps or some other bullshit.

And those turkey romaine wraps are probably just as caloric as the old ****. Maybe lower in sodium with better macros but I can assure you that it's probably still bad.

Once had the immense pleasure(?) of having to share a room with a South African guy at an employee training thing. He pulls this bag of squarish turd looking things out of his bag straight from the motherland, and offers me some, my beef jerky world imploded.

Yup, one of my favorite snacks in the whole world. Lots of south african friends at boarding school in UK. Don't know how they got it past customs but there were a few years where I ate biltong every single day.

 

[MikeDT]



I'm lazy, but government stats say that 80% of recycled oil is purchased by school canteens.

Can't find anything about government stats myself, but I did find this NY Times story. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/world/asia/01shanghai.html Which seems to be about restaurants sourcing their oil from underground and nefarious suppliers. Similar story from The Beijinger here. http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2010/03/22/Diners-Beware-Toxic-Chopsticks-and-Recycled-Oil

This. Chinese cafeteria food is ******* disgusting. No, it won't kill you, but healthy is about the last word I'd use to describe the food (and the students for that matter).

TBH I'm impressed by the health of the students at my current school and other state schools I've been in. Very few overweight and obviously obese students here. The food is actually quite good IMO, usually a good selection of vegetables, along with a balanced diet. NO junk food like hamburgers, hotdogs, fries, sweets and candy. I've seen the school kitchens and how the food is prepared, I'm impressed, cleanliness and food preparation standards appear to be of very high standard. I'm sure the only thing which is harmful to student's health, is amount of smoking which goes on, but that's China for you, although the school does have an anti-smoking programme.

The school has a compulsory PT and competitive sports programme as well, something AFAIK which doesn't happen in UK schools any more. My old school in Bristol, UK sold their running track and football/playing fields for housing development. I believe obesity and other health problems are now a major problem with students in the USA. http://www.sodahead.com/living/stud...ts-overweight-whos-to-blame/question-1513395/

'If you've been to a college campus recently, you might have noticed that students are, well, taking up a bit more room than they used to.

A new study at North Hennepin Community College in Brooklyn Park, Minn., shows 47.7 percent of students on campus are obese or overweight.'

'The study shows less than one percent of students are getting enough fruits and vegetables. Meanwhile, a tour of the school cafeteria revealed only a handful of bananas and two apples out for students to purchase.

"We just don't have enough healthy options," student Vasna Vjevac told Yahoo! "I would eat healthier if I could but it's not easy to do here."

Another student, Andera Arnkupovic, was spotted eating chicken fingers for breakfast.'

BTW there is a new intake of students for the start of term, and they're all outside doing intensive military drill/parade for a week. While the rest of the students are out running for 15-25 minutes, twice a day.

 

[SField]

Know this is off topic, but just ate at a place on the USC campus called Lemonade, and it's packed.

I see on offer things like apple braised red cabbage, shaved fennel, seared ahi, curried cauliflower, arugula with ricotta... and the kids are eating it. Granted it's expensive, but I was totally amazed by the quality of the food.

Probably about 15 or so cold vegetable salads/dishes along with another 10 or so braised/stew/soup dishes. Really not bad.

 

[zippyh]

what is that rock like substance on the lower left? a roll?

Chalk.....


JK ... It's mantou, a steamed bun.

There's a Chinese dude at work who brings those in for lunch most days.
He makes them himself and they're gigantic. He looks like a squirrel munching on a toadstool when he eats them.

 

[Nil]



That sounds awesome. If we had a weedhead BBQ at school the admins would've accused us of 'gang activity'... the weed wouldn't have been a problem, it would've been the socialization aspect - there was really nothing you could've done back then to avoid being labeled a 'gangster' besides being a white nerd or a white cowboy with a drawl, who were also inevitably the school shooter looking types. It's probably no better nowadays. We had steel bars on the windows, and like I said, we were only allowed to have spoons with our school lunches. Forks and knives were deemed unsafe because of the 'gang activity'

We were the smart kids and I was a starting football player, so we all got a pass on the delinquent behavior. I imagine they're probably cracking down on this new crop of kids though, I think they even installed cameras near the back of the parking lot where our gatherings used to happen.

 

[Pilot]

My school wasn't big enough to merit a cafeteria so everyone brought their own lunch. We did have certain foods brought in on different days of the week. All of it was completely unhealthy. Pizza on mondays and wednesdays. Thursdays were concession stand food. Hot dogs, nachos with chili and cheese etc... and for a few years they did Popeyes on Fridays. That was always awesome.

 

[impolyt_one]



My old school in Bristol, UK sold their running track and football/playing fields for housing development. I believe obesity and other health problems are now a major problem with students in the USA. http://www.sodahead.com/living/stud...ts-overweight-whos-to-blame/question-1513395/

Americans would rather have their playing fields rather than a cafeteria, because sports bring in the money... for other sports. American high school kids are fat sometimes (usually thyroid disorders, etc), but not that fat; they kept us running in gym class everyday. It gets bad once they're done with high school and used to eating 3 or 4 square meals of hamburgesr and fries a day after 15 years of finely honing their diet to accept it, and they gain like 50 lbs when they're 19.

 

[Reggs]

I took a balance bar and ate it in the library while reading. Being 20 mins, I never read anything too long. I would just look up random stuff in the encyclopedias, or magazines. It was nice to have some quiet time too. My high school was a very noisy place.