Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution: Is it disgusting what American schools feed it's students?

YES, it’s been a complaint of mine for years

If Jamie Oliver can start a revolution I will be forever grateful. The school lunch kids get in most of the SF Bay Area is disgusting, unappetizing. This, in an area that is supposedly so forward-thinking. It’s an embarrassment. Supposedly Italy and France have the best school lunches.

I’ve always hated school lunch. Especially that rectangle “pizza”. Ugh
It’s just better to bring something from home or buy lunch outside

Ever since the Reagan administration made catsup a vegetable, things have gone downhill. Unfortunately, 25% of school age children in the US live below poverty level, and school lunch is often the only thing they get to eat for the day.

Most districts’ school lunch offerings are crap. Does anybody remember this from Reagan and friends?

Once I hit public schools then the world of crap foods unfolded for me. Where else can you go (aside from Disneyland) and have all the crap you’d ever dream of laid out for you? An ice cream bar, soda vending machines, kids selling candy in class to raise money for this-and-that-whatever, pizza, french fries, milkshakes, pastries, etc? I don’t remember many kids buying a full meal since they could piece together a tray of crap instead. From what I hear now, some fast food chains are even set up to deliver specific items to schools. Wow.

Yes. I went into an elementary school’s cafeteria about 6 months ago to do HVAC work. They didn’t have anything to cook with. All they had were warmers to heat stuff up. I asked them where their burners were, and they laughed. They said they couldn’t prepare food on burners for several hundred people! I was shocked. I was glad to see this show on TV after this experience. People need to know what’s going on.

I don’t see Oliver starting a food revolution though. I see his show as a kind of ‘demonstration project’. Will that school start serving real food after he leaves? I doubt it. But I’ll take what I can get.

No. What’s disgusting is how they let the little monsters get away without even learning to read and write! : ((

The disgusting only gets worse because of the economy tanking. I already assumed that everything on my styrofoam plate was the crap that nobody wanted, so thank you for givimg me a visual image, too, Jamie. All those little leaflets about fruits and vegetables and milk don’t help.

And no, we don’t have forks and knives at my school either. We have plastic sporks.

Yes.
Here’s a good blog on it. http://fedupwithschoollunch.blogspot.com/

They give the same cold shit everyday. The pizza is not even warm anymore, and they’re starting to put peperoni on all of it. Damn meat lovers. The peanutbutter and jelly sandwich thingies that come in a pack of two are half frozen sometimes, and the bread is dry. The fries are not that well done either. And all they have to drink is milk. Gross. Those are a few reasons why I take my own lunch.
Sporks FTW!

Well he’s definitely not an ass or totally deluded. Evidently when he did a similar thing in his native England, the British govt. ponied up a cool Billion or so to upgrade the lunch programs with healthier food.

I wasn’t that surprised by how bad the school lunches here are but I was amazed when he went into one of the first grade classrooms and the kids were totally mystified and couldn’t identify common foods such as tomatoes, beets, or even A POTATO !

Not surprising they didn’t know what an eggplant was, but a potato ? Good grief.

Of course they had no trouble instantly recognizing hamburgers chicken nuggets or pizza.

Heck, they were even served pizza for breakfast.

And when he asked the principal and head cook about putting out knives and forks, they told him it wasn’t necessary since they didn’t know how to use them anyway.

He asked if they were putting him on. They weren’t joking.

They asked him if kindergartners in English schools were given these and he said yes. They wanted documentation of that. They said kids that young didn’t know how to handle them. To which he replied, “then you teach them. This is a school, after all. You teach them how to read, write, do math and lots of other things. Why not this? Do you want to raise a nation of children eating with their hands.”

I found the ignorant attitudes of the adults really surprising.

I hope his efforts succeed but in any event, this is a real eye opener.

Oh, look, a radish!

Oh ya! My kids bring their lunches to school. I think that paying money for crappy school lunches isn’t worth it no matter how cheap it may be! I care more about my childrens’ nutrition than money. I also think that the food they serve at lunch is really utterly disgusting! It’s unhealthy and the pamphlets about nutrition don’t excuse it. Maybe it’s the best the school can do, but it’s not the best I, as a parent, can do. I think that you should just pack a sandwich (cheap.. bread ham cheese mayonnaise dunno) and a Mott’s apple juice box. Pack some apples or whatever… it’s not that hard to throw stuff together so why waste money on leftovers and stale bread. What’s going to happen to them in college. They’re going to buy frozen chicken nuggets and heat em up in their microwave oven? I don’t think so.

@Tink1113 We have sun butter and jelly sandwiches because of peanut allergies. Yum, mashed sunflower seeds!~

Also, it bothers me that kids are able to buy a lunch of a sugary drink, a bag of chips, and gummies and the cafeteria workers let them!

Yes it is disgusting.
We eat whole Foods no processed garbage.
I turned the show off before I threw up.

At my son’s high school – from my understanding….they bring in about 20 Papa John’s pizzas and sell that crap for $2.50 a SLICE!! Nice profit center for the school….horrible for the kids. What teen isn’t going to choose pizza?? And maybe that pizza is actually more healthy?? I dunno?

Just to further cheer this up – your tax dollars subsidize it too!

Some schools are attempting to bring in more healthy choices, as my senior year they set up a wrap/salad/soup area. Problem is, it’s ridiculously expensive. College cafeterias are just as bad, if not worse. The only healthy option we have is a salad (which you can’t eat every day). Even the made-to-order stir fry is cooked in fat. If you dislike grease, you’ll be very disappointed in the fact that you’re paying about 6k a year to eat it :) I always packed my lunch in my pre-college years, and now that I’m forced to eat it, I feel dirty inside and out.

Very.

Our schools serve good lunches, or they did when my kids were there. I haven’t eaten at one of them in quite a long time. They didn’t serve fried foods except on Friday which was burger, fish, and fries day.

What is even more disgusting is what America eats period. Have you seen Food, Inc… It makes me want to move to another country.. It’s as if they are purposely making us all sick and obese.. it’s repulsive!

It’s not so much the cost of the food. Oliver is right that you can cook fresh and local for not much more than the crap costs. There are 2 problems.

1. Where do you get and how doyou pay for trained cooks who can prepare and serve 300 scratch meals in 4 hours?
2. How do you get 300 kids to even try vegetable lasagna?

Someone tried this in England a couple of years and the parents cried bloody murder because their little darlings couldn’t get baked beans on toast and burgers, pizza and chips

Hell yeah its disgusting. I was lucky enough to go to a school that offered a lot of different options because our Governor at the time was really health cautious. But a lot of people I know had the salads for lunch in our a la carte line. I never realized America was so fat until AFTER I was out of school.

Poor Jamie, his heart’s in the right place, bless him. He’s taking on a huge problem; one might say he’s perhaps bitten off more than he can chew.

He had limited success with this crusade in the U.K. At one school he visited, reports emerged of parents sneaking to the school grounds at lunch time and lobbing pasties over the school fence to their kids, who were supposedly disgusted with his healthy fodder and ravenous for a hunk of junk.

It’s true the food kids eat at school is disgraceful, but as many of you have already pointed out, it’s not just about food, the issue is a social one. A friend of mine worked in a school in England that was on government lists as being one of the worst performing in the country. He showed his class a picture of himself and his family having dinner together at the dining table and they all laughed – they had never sat down for dinner or any other mealtime with their families; the whole idea of it was completely alien to them. For them, dinner was a packet of biscuits and a can of coke in front of the tele, or some such. We’re talking about children living in seriously deprived areas, with less than ideal home-lives and bleak prospects for the future. Not so easy to encourage them to care about getting their five-a-day.

But Jamie’s right – schools should set an example, they are supposed to be educational establishments after all. It shouldn’t be a question of having a ‘healthy option’, all the food should be healthy and delicious. There are a lot of mouths to feed, but it’s not that hard – other countries manage it.

I’m puzzled. How did they do it when I was in junior high and high school? There was a hot lunch available in the cafeteria every day, and they were decent and extremely inexpensive. Why would it be harder to cook for 300 kids now than it was then?

@Jeruba I remember when we were in Texas we had a real cafeteria with choices of meat, starch, veg and dessert.

Recently one of the Bay Area school board members suggested closing the lunch program altogether because they weren’t in the restaurant business.

@JeanPaulSartre Our school sells Mellow Mushroom for $2. You guys are getting ripped off. :P

well its not cost effective to feed every child mid range quality food. School lunches are crap. what do you expect for $3.00 They are probobly more now. It’s all garbage. @Mike_Hunt lol yeah those rectangle pizzas were horrible. I don’t know why everybody likedd them. I guess their nasty lunches did fill the void though. lol

@kheredia
Many American’s do not know what good nutrition is; but more are learning.
This weekend on Public Broadcasting a Chef actually said, everyone should buy minimally processed poultry or organic.
Europeans have been aware longer. I have know for many years.
Getting minimally processed food is getting easier. The FDA is not exactly doing enough nor is Congress. American companies are resisting and lobbying against change.
People do not want a soda tax. The soda is killing them. High Fructose Corn Syrup destroys your Metabolism . All simple sugars do.
Some idiotic on here will dispute this. My answer kill yourself I do not care.

@philosopher We do not need a soda tax. America is built on freedom of choice and I believe everyone has the right No matter what nationality they are to drink and eat what they want. Nobody is forced to eat anything. People should know what is healthy and unhealthy. School lunches are nasty but the school has only so much money to put into lunches. You want a healthy lunch? Pack one like I did. Nobody is being forced to consume anything unhealthy but they shouldn’t be bullied into not consuming it. America doesn’t have the worst diet. A Scottish woman told me that Scottland has the worst diet. I heard it from a Scottish woman so I believe her over someone from here. By the way I am not idiotic for disagreeing with you.

@Mikelbf2000 People should know what is healthy and unhealthy This assumes that all people start off on the same plane in terms of both access to information and to healthy foods which they do not.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir everyone has basic knowledge of what is healthy. Everyone knows soda is not good for you. its liquid candy. Everyone knows fast food is not good for you. If someone wants to eat fast food for every meal and drink a soda instead of water then thats their choice. It’s not effecting anyone but themselves. If the child doesnt know any better than its the parents responsibility, not the government or anyone else.

@Mikelbf2000 It is a fact that racial and class disparities exist in terms of health care and in terms of access to what is healthy. When money comes into play (or lack thereof), what one knows (if they are actually aware of how bad these foods are for their families) isn’t as important as what one can afford or cook. The fast food industry, for example, targets low-income people of color neighborhoods taking advantage of the fact that people will seek out cheaper options when they have kids to feed and no time to travel for fruits and vegetables, even. I worked for the NYC Dept. of Health some time ago in Physical Activity and Nutrition dept. and it has been a sore spot and an important goal of the city to mandate more fruits and vegetables in certain neighborhoods in order to lessen the gap between certain areas. We don’t live in a bubble, you can’t ignore the effect of advertising, food and other industries that make it difficult for people to eat well. You can’t ignore personal choice either, but it’s not all that there is.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Advertising? I grew up in a family that didnt have much. we got Mcdonalds or other fast food maybe once a month. I rarely bought a lunch at the school. It isn’t an issue about income. We didn’t drink 8 sodas a day because we simply were not allowed. The obesity problem has alot to do with inactivity. A diet is a personal choice which is nobody’s business other than the individual. Only the parent can tell their children what to eat and nobody else. Trying to pass laws regulating it is intruding into the private lives of people. Schools are public properties and that is a different story. Believe it or not school lunches are not the worst thing for ya. They even had a salad option. As for advertising fast food. Fast food industries are just selling their product. They are not doing anything wrong. They are just doing their jobs which is selling food. Food in which you do not have to eat. The government cannot make the choice for you all the time.

@Mikelbf2000 Please understand I don’t mean to be rude – however, your family’s story is just that, your family’s story – it doesn’t negate patters we, as public health professionals, observe in communities. Right now, you and I are not discussing regulation, we’re still discussing whether or not it’s only about individual choices. You like using extremes – the government doesn’t make the choices for me all the time. And I can not agree that the advertising industry is only doing its job – it is in fact a corporate behemoth that blatantly misinforms the public for profit.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Someone else in this discussion was saying congress doesnt do enough. Mentioned a soda tax. Thats rediculous to try to tell people how much of a certain product they can consume. That’s infringing on our private lives and our personal choice. I dont want to live in a future where we cant even buy a candy bar or a soda for children without being put on a guilt trip. Another person says that what America eats makes her want to move to another country. If that’s all that it takes for you to leave you country then by all means please leave if our diet repulses you that much.

@Mikelbf2000 I read the entire discussion. You and I, again, were not discussing government intervention. I never said that I am for or against any of the bans. I am still trying to argue the point that we, as parents, aren’t isolated from the rest of the community and what we eat, how we cook it are influenced by our class and race and neighborhood.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir You weren’t talking about government intervention but one person was. I agree that cultural influences are part of our diet but that would be very hard to change. I grew up around gravy and biscuits in the morning. Deep friend foods were common. the school lunches are cheap lunches that usually taste aweful. My high school offered a salad option. Not really unhealthy lunches but undesirable lunches. Lacking in taste and quality. I don’t see how fast food companies lie. Well maybe they do but they don’t lie any more than any other corporation.

I recall the first public school I went to had a small kitchen, about the size of a storeroom really and in it was were two dishwasher shaped box heater machines where stacks of pre packaged meals were readied. On wheeled carts beside were stack of pre packaged salads, each with a wrapped cracker or desert item inside. This was the worst of what I ever saw in several schools over the years.

@Mikelbf2000 Well the fact that they don’t lie more than any other corporation doesn’t make me sleep well at night, that’s for sure – I think people trust schools to provide something nutritious but they don’t know how quite the opposite it is and what the relationship between funding and the food industry is – even the messages put all over schools regarding milk and other foods are not objective but are pushed on teachers and parents because the dairy and egg industries know exactly what they’re doing.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Milk and eggs are good for you. You have to understand. How long do you think the school kitchen has to fix that many meals. Everthing is pretty much precooked and just needs to be reheated. You can’t expect much from a school lunch. I don’t lose sleep at night because fast food corporatiosn lie.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I read your profile and found out that you are a vegan. Explains why you dont approve of them pushing milk and eggs. Milk and eggs are good for you. I know a persone who was a vegan and she was hospitalized and almost died because of her diet. Doctor confirmed this. Told her she needs to eat at least eggs and milk. I myself eats everything. I make my hamburgers at home with quality Beef.

@Mikelbf2000 I can’t remember the last time I saw fresh eggs at a school. The key here is fresh and local. Kids get frozen school lunch trucked in from states away, stored a huge warehouse, heated at a central facility, and then delivered in a warming bag to the schools. Would you eat that?

@Mikelbf2000 I am indeed a vegan and, again, your anecdotal evidence about some friend who didn’t know how to properly eat has nothing to do with my diet. I only became a vegan 2 months ago yet I’ve been in public health and knowledgeable about the food industry for over 4 years. I am not pushing a personal agenda on you but if you’d like to talk about why milk and eggs are completely unnecessary (not to mention the consumption of which is implicit in incredible animal cruelty that is unforgivable) I’ll be more than glad to discuss it over PM. We’re not discussing your or mine personal eating habits or at least that as not my intention.

@Megan64 The thing is they don’t have to. They can pack a lunch that is better. Probobly less expensive as well. Like I said it is impossible to serve that many meals everyday without it being precooked.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I do not wish to PM you nor do I care about your opinion on my diet. I dont like people condemning me for it. I dont care if you find me eating eggs and drinking milk unforgivable. It seems to me that you want schools to promote a vegan diet.

@Mikelbf2000 Other options can be pre-cooked as well. Some time ago I worked as an evaluator on a study that (upon collaboration of the Agricultural field and Kellogg’s and schools) photographed elementary school lunches – there were 40 (!) new options of foods tried at many of the research sites and it was possible. If you don’t care about my opinion of your diet, why share what you cook and love to eat. I never condemned what you eat, you shared that information yourself.

@Mikelbf2000 “I know a persone who was a vegan and she was hospitalized and almost died because of her diet. Doctor confirmed this. Told her she needs to eat at least eggs and milk.” I call bullshit or that “Doctor” needs to be reevaluated for their fitness to practice.

Lots of vegans are healthy and lots are unhealthy, just like meat eaters, and this vegan could kick the crap out of all of us… probably even if we ganged up on him.

Food is fun… but it need to be fair as well. Like for the Chickens that have to have their beaks trimmed because it’s so hard for us to deal with them acting like chickens. It’s also horrifically unhealthy

The oldest person alive is a Vegetarian

Meat eating has been definitively linked to to heart disease cancer and high cholesterol

Meat has gotten significantly more dangerous as the advent of factory farming has made antibiotics less effective, spread disease, and made animals genetically weaker.

I’m sorry to be a link ranger, but you’ve been misled. If you look at the history of healthy eating, lots of fad diets come and go… but vegetarians have consistently been healthier (and smarter) than meat eaters.

@Mikelbf2000 I disagree. It is possible. It has been done. It’s just not a priority anymore.

@JeanPaulSartre Wow, You vegetarians must have it made huh. Well doesnt change the fact that I will continue to eat meat and live the way I want. Maybe i feel the need to shove my diet in you alls face becaue you all are too preachy with your diet. It’s not your concern about my health. Live the way you want and I’ll live they way I want. This has nothing to do with the topic though. The asker was talking about school lunches.

@Megan64 It is possible but it would be alot more expensive as well. Like I said I always packed a lunch. Rarely did I buy a lunch from them.

@Mikelbf2000 That’s certainly your decision, but your reasoning in this thread about meat being good for you, is negated.

@Mikelbf2000 Ha, talk about not being on topic – as we Russians say ‘your cow should moo’.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir @JeanPaulSartre You know what If worried about everything that was “bad for me” I wouldn’t enjoy many meals now would I. I know meat eaters who lived well into their 90s How long do you think I want to live? How long do you expect to live? Quality not Quantity.

@Mikelbf2000 The ‘quality not quantity’ makes zero sense when comparing omnivore and vegetarian/vegan diets. We happen to love quality.

Ladies, please. Let’s not get our knickers in a twist. This one’s a vegan, that one’s an omnivore, end of story.

The fact is schools should be able to provide nutritious meals on a large scale, as many have tried to point out. The evidence is everywhere, anecdotal and otherwise. I don’t live in America so I’m perhaps not overly qualified to comment on the state of the nation’s diet. But I do live in a country where fast food does not equate to junk food, and school dinners are exceptionally tasty and nutritious.

There does seem to be a lack of knowledge about where food comes from amongst the younger generation. I seem to remember Jessica Simpson being quoted as saying that fried chicken is good for you because it’s made of chicken. That kind of ignorance is disgusting.

@Mikelbf2000 It’s too bad i’m a little late in this discussion. But I would just like to say that although we as the consumers should know what is healthy and what is not healthy, we are not really given that opportunity. Unfortunately, labels don’t tell you everything or they try to disguise things so you don’t think it is bad. And by the way, unless you have your own farm with cows and chickens, I wouldn’t exactly trust that you are buying quality meat in your local grocery store. Did you know that all the poultry that is sold in the whole United States is owned by 4 companies? That sounds like mass production to me.. and you know what that means (genetically altered animals).

I really believe something needs to be done about what we buy in our grocery stores. I’m doing my part by starting to shop at farmer’s markets but as long as people are not aware of this issue, they will continue to buy from these massive companies that are only in it for the money. I’m telling you, it’s unbelievable the things we put into our mouths without even knowing how bad they are. Knowledge is power, but as long as people don’t know, nothing will be done.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir When I said quality, I meant enjoying my life the way I want to. Appearantly that bothers you.
@jeanmay I never really pay attention what celebrities say. What Jessica Simpson said is too trivial for me to even remember it. That said. Fried Chicken isn’t strychnine either. So I will still eat it.
@kheredia I don’t really think about it because I have other things to think about.

Back to school lunch. I never thougt there would ever be such a fuss over school lunches. Don’t like it? Don’t “approve” of it? Don’t eat it. Pack a sandwich.

@Mikelbf2000 That wasn’t my point – it was that vegans are not weak, and in fact that I have more basis to say that feeding kids meat is killing them. It’s important for schools to provide a real choice for kids, not just pre-packaged crap for those families that neither have the time nor means to “Pack a sandwich.”

@JeanPaulSartre I never said vegans are weak. You did prove my point however prove my point that you people are too pushy and preachy over you views. Now you try the guilt trip tactic. Were not killing our children. There was a case that a vegan mother and father killed their child from feeding the child a vegan diet. That was on the news. I guess the news lies. Yeah the news made it up to smear your cause( if you haven’t caught on, I was being sarcastic). Putting me on a guilt trip is no way to get me to see your point. All it did was make me not like you. Telling an Omnivorous family that they are killinng their children is extremely low.

@Mikelbf2000 “I know a persone [sic] who was a vegan and she was hospitalized and almost died because of her diet.” And now you’re doing it again, saying that it kills people. People feed themselves incorrectly potentially no matter what they eat. I’m not telling you random “I saw this” or “I hear this” – I’m giving you facts and statistics. You’re giving me stories. Find some science, and we’ll talk about school lunches. No more hearsay.

@JeanPaulSartre I don’t have to prove anything to you. You are trying to shove your lifestyle down my throat.

@Mikelbf2000 If you think children need to eat eggs and drink milk then you need to tell me why. You do have to prove something to me, or you need to concede the point. I don’t care what you eat, I’m talking about school lunches.

@JeanPaulSartre because of calcium and protien. Milk builds strong bones. Eggs are a form of protein.

@Mikelbf2000 True. However, you can get calcium and protein from many other sources, in a more soluble form that’s easier for young bodies to digest, and without the attached long term health risks. http://www.soystache.com/plant.htm#Source

@JeanPaulSartre Um no I will just stick to milk and eggs for breakfast. Like I said you are pushing your ways on me. Go do your thing and leave me and mine alone.

@Mikelbf2000 I’m not, I’m talking about children’s school meals. I still don’t care what you eat.

@JeanPaulSartre School lunches are not the worst thing to eat. Like I said the offer that salad option when I was at school. They still do as far as I know. Asking the school not to offer milk and eggs is asking too much. If I ever have kids I don’t want them being forced to question the food I lovingly buy for them because the school teaches differently. I will not tolerate any school condemning how I raise my kids if I had any. Anyone who crosses that line will regret it.

@Mikelbf2000 No they’re not the worst thing to eat, and I’m hopeful they do offer other options. I don’t know any school that does offer eggs, for starters, but the milk being offered is a mistake. We’re the only animal that drinks another animal’s milk, we’ve all fallen victim to a very strong dairy lobby and advertising campaign. I don’t think kids would be forced to question the food you provide, although your apparent violent attitude towards them questioning you concerns me. It’s far from a condemnation. You seem to have a real emotional attachment to this… saying I’m shoving it down your throat and threatening that crossing lines will cause regret. I’m simply presenting facts and science. You should do your own research, or move on, as you have yet to counter a my point in a non-emotional fashion.

@Mikelbf2000 Anyone who crosses that line will regret it. and what are you going to do?

@Simone_De_Beauvoir Think about about it. If I have children and some prick comes over to tell me Im killing them or hurting or telling me how to raise my kids in general Im not going to sit by and let them run their mouth there are consequences that must follow. Im not going to say a bunch of violent ramblings. I said regret it. You figure it out. It wasnt a threat by the way. IT was a promise.

@Mikelbf2000 Your words sound strong but make no sense. No one was telling you what to eat or not to eat – you were the first to bring up your food habits in a conversation that didn’t ask for personal examples.

this subject is going in all direction, lets agree to disagree and move on.

Well it worked here and he did well.

@Mikelbf2000 Still not sure why you take this so personally. I’d want my children to be fed the best food that science shows for them to eat.

What the heck is going on with all the avatar photo switching and dragging in photos of others not even participating in the thread?

Is there supposed to be a purpose to it other than creating confusion for others (like myself) who are trying to follow this on a mobile where it’s not always obvious who is speaking without excessive up/down scrolling.

Good grief. I used to be interested in this thread and I just gave up in disgust. Thanks a lot ~

I just realized it’s April first.

I give up on Fluther for the day.

I like a joke as well as the next person, but trying to read this site today on an iPhone just isn’t worth the headache.

@anbuttonstcim I’m with you today.

it’s a little annoying that there are only like 3 photos for avatars. there should be a whole lot of different ones – makes it easier to differentiate the posts.