Social programs- free school lunches

[thyme4change]

Aug 25, 2021 10:01:40 GMT -5 The Walk of the Penguin Mich said:

Aug 25, 2021 9:38:23 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

I guess all those people filling up the ICUs are crisis actors. They are all going to magically get up out of bed and walk out of the hospital.

Those actors in the morgue play dead very well.  They can give a possum a run for his money!

They are only 250k out of 320 million. A drop in the bucket! 99% of people survive.

And all those that died had preexisting conditions or were old.. They died from other things. And if they didn't have health problems, then the treatment killed them - not actual Covid.

🙄 I feel dirty just typing all of that.

[azucena]

Aug 25, 2021 12:05:49 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

I've never really understood why lunch isn't just included with the cost of K-12 education all the time anyhow.  What is the cost of a year of school when you factor in the buildings and maintenance and the teachers and administrative staff salaries? I'm sure it's many thousands per kid. If we fed a kid a $3 lunch every single school day the entire 9 months it comes to maybe $400/year.  Seriously, just feed them all and be done with it.  We pay to bus them all.

I think it likely ties into private school debate.  Do we feed them too?  My opinion is no - we personally choose to send our kids to private and pay for tuition so we can pay for their food too.  But I can see others piping up 'but, that's not fair'.

[thyme4change]

Aug 25, 2021 11:00:38 GMT -5 formerroomate99 said:

Aug 25, 2021 9:38:23 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

I guess all those people filling up the ICUs are crisis actors. They are all going to magically get up out of bed and walk out of the hospital.

Would the ICUs be filled if the working age people had gotten vaccinated? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t sit there and condemn anybody who chooses not to get vaccinated as being the reason we’re still in the middle of this, and then act like the vaccine never happened and we all have to stay in lockdown forever, and hand out welfare to people who can’t work from home.

If everyone masked we may prevent a large number of cases. If everyone masked and vaccinated, we would have very few serious cases.

[giramomma]

Aug 25, 2021 12:05:49 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

I've never really understood why lunch isn't just included with the cost of K-12 education all the time anyhow.  What is the cost of a year of school when you factor in the buildings and maintenance and the teachers and administrative staff salaries? I'm sure it's many thousands per kid. If we fed a kid a $3 lunch every single school day the entire 9 months it comes to maybe $400/year.  Seriously, just feed them all and be done with it.  We pay to bus them all.

That's assuming that there's maintenance done on buildings. In our district, that isn't the case.

Shit, Madison legit has had buildings that are falling down. They were just damn lucky it was during the pandemic and that kids didn't get killed.

[Deleted]

Aug 25, 2021 12:56:42 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

I think feeding the kids is ok, IF we are feeding them healthy meals. If we are feeding them junk, like many places do, we are just going to make childhood obesity worse and reinforce poor dietary habits. If that is what would happen, no thanks.

And that's a major concern of mine and why I don't like universal "free" lunches.  

NOTE since I've gotten flamed on this before.  The remarks below apply only to kids whose parents are willing and able to provide adequate lunches for their kids who go to school.  I agree that, as sad as it is that there are parents who won't or can't, we need to feed the kids in that category.

My concerns:

1.  It leads to uniformity and mediocrity.  If the other kids are eating cheesy breadsticks and Spaghetti-O's, will your kid even be comfortable pulling out a lunch bag with a spinach-and-tofu wrap, baby carrots and a Kind bar?  Or will they want to eat what their friends are eating?

2.  It increases Big Food, Inc's hold on our kids.  I wish I could remember the %s from the book "Fat Chance" but a huge % (70? 80?) of what we eat comes from only 5 companies.  Kraft, Con-Agra and Frito-Lay are on the list.  Most of it is heavy in sodium, fat and scary chemicals.

3.  It decreases the variety of what they eat.  Pizza.  Mac and Cheese.  Pasta.  PB&J sandwiches.  There will be no raw broccoli, seaweed salad, edamame pasta, quinoa- they serve what 95% of kids eat.  If your school district actually does better, I'd be happy to be proven wrong on this.

4.  And it's another example of handing the gubmint more money and letting them make choices for us.  Sometimes it's necessary (roads, libraries, aid to the poor) and sometimes it's just more over-reach.

[NastyWoman]

Aug 25, 2021 13:45:33 GMT -5 azucena said:

Aug 25, 2021 12:05:49 GMT -5 minnesotapaintlady said:

I've never really understood why lunch isn't just included with the cost of K-12 education all the time anyhow.  What is the cost of a year of school when you factor in the buildings and maintenance and the teachers and administrative staff salaries? I'm sure it's many thousands per kid. If we fed a kid a $3 lunch every single school day the entire 9 months it comes to maybe $400/year.  Seriously, just feed them all and be done with it.  We pay to bus them all.

I think it likely ties into private school debate.  Do we feed them too?  My opinion is no - we personally choose to send our kids to private and pay for tuition so we can pay for their food too.  But I can see others piping up 'but, that's not fair'.

I have neither kids nor grandkids in the US school system. As a single tax payer I do pay a fair amount in taxes. But I say just feed all kids and be done with it. These kids are our future labor force. The group where our future doctors, scientists, nurses, care takers, etc. come from. We know that hungry kids don't learn as well. We also know that even people who supposedly have "enough resources" to feed their own kids don't necessarily spend their money that way. So what is the big deal. Feed all kids and we will all be better off for it

[andi9899]

I don't find feeding kids to be government overreach. I don't think anyone does.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Some kids don't get any meals at all when home.    School breakfast and lunch is all they get.   I suppose we could change the phrase to "let them eat seaweed". 

[stillmovingforward]

Hm, our school district has great lunches. A lot of the foods are purchased straight from local farmers and is fresh. Very little processed foods. And we are a poor district. But with good community support.

[gs11rmb]

Our school lunches are pretty disgusting.  Even though they are currently free for the whole district my girls refuse to eat the food.  Their food from home is not exactly healthy either...

[Deleted]

Aug 25, 2021 14:20:02 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Some kids don't get any meals at all when home.    School breakfast and lunch is all they get.   I suppose we could change the phrase to "let them eat seaweed". 

And that's why I said that my observations applied only to those kids whose parents are willing and able to provide adequate meals.

By the way, my 3 grandchildren (ages 7, 4 and 2) LOVE seaweed salad!  The 4-year old is crazy about raw broccoli.  They also like cake pops and ice cream sandwiches but that's only when Grandma is visiting.

Aug 25, 2021 14:23:12 GMT -5 stillmovingforward said:

Hm, our school district has great lunches. A lot of the foods are purchased straight from local farmers and is fresh. Very little processed foods. And we are a poor district. But with good community support.

I'm glad to know there are districts that do this.

[TheOtherMe]

Aug 25, 2021 14:15:52 GMT -5 andi9899 said:

I don't find feeding kids to be government overreach. I don't think anyone does.

At least one person here does.  

I think children who are not hungry do much better in school and benefit our entire society.  I don't think it's wrong that schools also feed them breakfast.  I don't find it wrong that volunteers donate backpacks of food for the weekend.  It wouldn't bother me if the schools did that, too.

The district where I live also buys a lot of food from local farmers, etc.  

I have never had a child and don't directly benefit from anything done at schools.  However, society does benefit and that means I benefit.

I don't complain about paying taxes for kids to go to school.  I do complain about some ways my tax dollars are spent but not when it benefits hungry kids and low income income people--like SNAP.

[raeoflyte]

Our school does fresh veggies for lunch and snack. Grown on site as much as they can.

I don't love all of the offerings, but its a far cry from my school lunches of pizza and fries every.single.day! Its not the 90's anymore.

Ds skips school lunch because the line is too long. He won't eat tofu, but eats almost all the veggies and fruit he's packed which is over half his meal. Of all our world problems this one isn't at the top of my list.

[TheOtherMe]

In high school in the 60's we were offered a choice of school lunch or they had a side buffet line of pizza, fries, soda, etc.  

It's been happening a long time.

[Deleted]

Aug 25, 2021 14:15:42 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

But I say just feed all kids and be done with it. These kids are our future labor force. The group where our future doctors, scientists, nurses, care takers, etc. come from. We know that hungry kids don't learn as well. We also know that even people who supposedly have "enough resources" to feed their own kids don't necessarily spend their money that way. So what is the big deal. Feed all kids and we will all be better off for it

OK, let's expand this. If it's good to feed taxpayer-supported meals to ALL school-age kids, why don't we expand it to the whole population? Not just SNAP, meals-on-wheels and WIC, which are meant to help those in need, but everyone? Even me? They could send us weekly boxes like you get from BlueApron, HelloFresh, etc. No need to plan, shop, etc. It's all done for you.

Anyone with me on this?

[NastyWoman]

Aug 25, 2021 14:50:26 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

Aug 25, 2021 14:15:42 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

But I say just feed all kids and be done with it. These kids are our future labor force. The group where our future doctors, scientists, nurses, care takers, etc. come from. We know that hungry kids don't learn as well. We also know that even people who supposedly have "enough resources" to feed their own kids don't necessarily spend their money that way. So what is the big deal. Feed all kids and we will all be better off for it

OK, let's expand this. If it's good to feed taxpayer-supported meals to ALL school-age kids, why don't we expand it to the whole population? Not just SNAP, meals-on-wheels and WIC, which are meant to help those in need, but everyone? Even me? They could send us weekly boxes like you get from BlueApron, HelloFresh, etc. No need to plan, shop, etc. It's all done for you.

Anyone with me on this?

As soon as all school kids are part of the labor force you have a point

[imawino]

Aug 25, 2021 14:50:26 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

Aug 25, 2021 14:15:42 GMT -5 NastyWoman said:

But I say just feed all kids and be done with it. These kids are our future labor force. The group where our future doctors, scientists, nurses, care takers, etc. come from. We know that hungry kids don't learn as well. We also know that even people who supposedly have "enough resources" to feed their own kids don't necessarily spend their money that way. So what is the big deal. Feed all kids and we will all be better off for it

OK, let's expand this. If it's good to feed taxpayer-supported meals to ALL school-age kids, why don't we expand it to the whole population? Not just SNAP, meals-on-wheels and WIC, which are meant to help those in need, but everyone? Even me? They could send us weekly boxes like you get from BlueApron, HelloFresh, etc. No need to plan, shop, etc. It's all done for you.

Anyone with me on this?

No.  And I'm not really sure how you extrapolated  such a ridiculous scenario out of the idea of expanding the school free lunch program.  

[imawino]

Aug 25, 2021 12:56:42 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

I think feeding the kids is ok, IF we are feeding them healthy meals. If we are feeding them junk, like many places do, we are just going to make childhood obesity worse and reinforce poor dietary habits. If that is what would happen, no thanks.

I think feeding hungry children is always okay.  Ideally, it would be a variety of healthy items that all the kids loved and would eat.  But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good here.  

[Deleted]

Aug 25, 2021 15:10:38 GMT -5 imawino said:

No.  And I'm not really sure how you extrapolated  such a ridiculous scenario out of the idea of expanding the school free lunch program.  

If it's good for the kids, why isn't it good for the whole population?

[imawino]

Aug 25, 2021 15:15:58 GMT -5 @athena53 said:

Aug 25, 2021 15:10:38 GMT -5 imawino said:

No.  And I'm not really sure how you extrapolated  such a ridiculous scenario out of the idea of expanding the school free lunch program.  

If it's good for the kids, why isn't it good for the whole population?

Possibly because the whole population is not a bunch of unemployable minors attending a government-funded institution equipped to serve mass quantities of food every day?

The only remotely similar scenario I can think of this second is prison and we feed them every day.

[pulmonarymd]

Aug 25, 2021 15:13:55 GMT -5 imawino said:

Aug 25, 2021 12:56:42 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

I think feeding the kids is ok, IF we are feeding them healthy meals. If we are feeding them junk, like many places do, we are just going to make childhood obesity worse and reinforce poor dietary habits. If that is what would happen, no thanks.

I think feeding hungry children is always okay.  Ideally, it would be a variety of healthy items that all the kids loved and would eat.  But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good here.  

My issue if we make it universal. Feeding everyone unhealthy food should be a nonstarter. IO have issues with it for kids who qualify now, but I agree, if it is that or nothing, it is better. But, if the government is subsidizing it, there need to be nutritional standards that should be met. There is a long term payoff in regards to healthcare spending and productivity if we do it well. Done poorly, especially if big food gets involved, leads to a negative cost/benefit ratio, and we should do something differently.

IOW, if the parents choose to feed their kids crap, so be it. We should not be enabling that.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

Aug 25, 2021 15:29:42 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

Aug 25, 2021 15:13:55 GMT -5 imawino said:

I think feeding hungry children is always okay.  Ideally, it would be a variety of healthy items that all the kids loved and would eat.  But let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the good here.  

My issue if we make it universal. Feeding everyone unhealthy food should be a nonstarter. IO have issues with it for kids who qualify now, but I agree, if it is that or nothing, it is better. But, if the government is subsidizing it, there need to be nutritional standards that should be met. There is a long term payoff in regards to healthcare spending and productivity if we do it well. Done poorly, especially if big food gets involved, leads to a negative cost/benefit ratio, and we should do something differently.

IOW, if the parents choose to feed their kids crap, so be it. We should not be enabling that.

I agree but I'm more of the mindset of let's get over the hurdle of getting people to accept feeding children AT ALL first.   Then we can worry about the next step.  

Should we do better?  Of course.   However at this time it's privilege and elitism to argue that kids shouldn't be fed unless it's seaweed salad and quinoa.   It allows people to lose themselves in superiority (I'm protecting the kids diet by refusing to pay for this!) and continue to ignore the fact that millions of kids go hungry each day in a freaking first world country.

[minnesotapaintlady]

Aug 25, 2021 14:23:12 GMT -5 stillmovingforward said:

Hm, our school district has great lunches. A lot of the foods are purchased straight from local farmers and is fresh. Very little processed foods. And we are a poor district. But with good community support.

Our public Montessori was good too. Seriously had two grandmotherly old women that showed up at 6am every morning and cooked everything from scratch.

The lunches this year at the private are unbelievable. Yesterday's menu was:

Pork Lo Mein

Bok Choy, Carrots and snow peas (Carrot said he skipped that though)

spinach, edamame and strawberry salad

Blueberry peach cobbler

Today is:

Minnesota wild rice soup

Sriracha garlic wings

black pepper potato wedges

sweet chilli steamed vegetables

fresh fruit salad

There's also vegan and gluten free entree options or you can just get the salad bar or the specialty sandwich of the week.

[pulmonarymd]

Aug 25, 2021 15:32:13 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

Aug 25, 2021 15:29:42 GMT -5 pulmonarymd said:

My issue if we make it universal. Feeding everyone unhealthy food should be a nonstarter. IO have issues with it for kids who qualify now, but I agree, if it is that or nothing, it is better. But, if the government is subsidizing it, there need to be nutritional standards that should be met. There is a long term payoff in regards to healthcare spending and productivity if we do it well. Done poorly, especially if big food gets involved, leads to a negative cost/benefit ratio, and we should do something differently.

IOW, if the parents choose to feed their kids crap, so be it. We should not be enabling that.

I agree but I'm more of the mindset of let's get over the hurdle of getting people to accept feeding children AT ALL first.   Then we can worry about the next step.  

Should we do better?  Of course.   However at this time it's privilege and elitism to argue that kids shouldn't be fed unless it's seaweed salad and quinoa.   It allows people to lose themselves in superiority (I'm protecting the kids diet by refusing to pay for this!) and continue to ignore the fact that millions of kids go hungry each day in a freaking first world country.

There is a whole host of options between seaweed and quinoa and soda and chips. Expanding these programs and giving everyone something closer to soda and chips is not an improvement, IMH and medical opinion, and again, IMHO, worth the cost involved in doing so. If we can move the needle in a positive direction, and remove the most unhealthy options that are being served now, I would support this. Children, in general, will not eat what we think they should. But we can make incremental improvements in these programs, but it will increase the cost.

All I am saying, and this is with my physician hat on, is that childhood obesity is a major issue, and getting worse. If we choose to feed everyone, we should be doing it in a way that will not make this problem worse, and maybe, over time, improve the overall health of the US. Because, again with my physician hat on, we are an incredibly unhealthy population, and it is getting worse. In the long run, with childhood obesity running rampant, having a healthy enough workforce will become a major issue for our economy.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I didn't eat soda and chips for lunch until I was able to buy my own. That wasn't till high school when I was allowed to eat off campus.   I probably shouldn't reveal what I ate through college. 

I believe, but it's been a couple decades, that the high school removed the pop machines.  The elementary school kids are encouraged to have water bottles and have refill stations at every restroom.

My kids have a salad bar available.  They include at least one vegetable and one fruit choice with every meal on top of that.   I'm not going to say it's the healthiest food in the world because it's not but it's still ahead of what they fed us in the 80's and late 90's.

All the schools are on the same lunch program in the district I don't know if any that hand out soda and chips for lunch. 

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I have eaten about 18 meals at local elementary schools in some of the poorest areas of KY when I was doing my practicum in PH.  I was working on the dental van, that was visiting elementary schools and treating kids dental problems.  We were invited to eat in the cafeteria in these schools, as many were a good drive from any place where we could get lunch.  We just didn’t have the time to leave.  So the school offered, and we accepted.  We ate what the kids ate.

To start with, only drinks offered were water or 2% milk for kids.  Adults got iced tea.  Most meals, while they were rather bland, were NOT bad and had a decent amount of veggies in them.  Some were canned or frozen veggies, some fresh.  I occasionally saw pizza and pasta, but not on consecutive days.  The meals we received were not dissimilar to what I would make for dinner.  Chicken, peas and salad, pasta containing chicken and veggies, the pizza was heavy on veggies, I think I saw mac and cheese once.  There was always an offering of fruit.  I never…..ever….saw a bag of chips.  The worst thing that I can say about what we ate was that it lacked salt and seasonings, and was pretty bland.  

Granted, my experience was several meals, at several elementary schools in one state but to make assumptions that all that is served is canned spaghetti and PBJ like meals is a generalization you simply cannot make.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

You guys got 2%.   Lucky.  Our school system serves skim milk. 

Middle school did do milkshakes but that was like a once a week/every other week thing and you had to pay an additional 75 cents to get one.  It was not something the school handed out to every one, it was a treat.

Usually they had chocolate and vanilla.  A handful of times they had strawberry and damn those were good!  I need to ask my kid if they still offer those.

[stillmovingforward]

To add fuel to the fire, reasons children are eating poor nutrition is a multitude. Living in a food desert, lack of transportation to a grocery store, money, lack of utilities to store or prepare food, lack of knowledge of healthy cooking, lack of time on the parent's part, general ignorance.

There are so many reasons for children to have poor nutritional habits. But I don't think that's a good reason to withhold food for a meal or two per day.

'Bad' food is still better than no food. I've raised children who have gone hungry (as in, in the bottom of the 1% of the growth chart due to lack of food and we know what that does to their development) and my DH went without food as a child many times as well. They all will have lifelong problems due to this.

Poor nutrition choices are better than literally eating garbage. There are more of these kids than you realize.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

Aug 25, 2021 15:50:22 GMT -5 NomoreDramaQ1015 said:

You guys got 2%.   Lucky.  Our school system serves skim milk. 

I drank the iced tea……luckily, they provided unsweetened as I hate sweet tea.  

But I do remember looking at the meals offered and thinking that they really weren’t as horrible as some made them out to be, and they were really pretty heavy in vegetables.

Considering that we were deliberately in the poor school districts, you simply were not going to get seaweed salad and edamame accepted.  But there is a lot of food that is healthy between seaweed salad and canned spaghetti.

[NomoreDramaQ1015]

I don't like seaweed salad as an adult.  I also cannot stand quinoa no matter how many ways I've tried preparing that.   Darn you school lunches!  

Does that fly?  Can I use that so people will leave me the F alone when I say I don't like quinoa? 

Also must try this for kale.