The school lunches that shame America: Photos reveal just how meager US students' meals are compared

Daily Mail UK via Conservative Tribune Blog via Joe for America Blog ^ | 18 February 2015 | | By Anucyia Victor for MailOnline

[Jack Hydrazine]

Pictures have been released comparing what Michelle forces American schools to eat and what kids in other countries get to eat…

Since the program’s inception, Michelle Obama’s Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act has offended the sensibilities of the entire nation.

Conservatives found the program to be invasive, thrusting D.C.’s hand into local education matters. Educators found the program wasted enormous amounts of food and money. Parents found the lunches far too light to be considered “meals.”

And school children everywhere took to the Internet with pictures of the gruesome dishes the program sloshed onto their cafeteria trays every day.

Those pictures did massive amounts of damage to Michelle’s pet program, but now an even worse PR disaster rears its head. This week the U.K. Daily Mail ran pictures of what other countries feed their school children. The comparison is stark … and humiliating for the United States.



The “meal” above featuring an orange slice, a puddle of either apple sauce or a pulverized slice of peach or pear, and what looks like lumpy chipped beef without the toast is one of the dishes that complies with Michelle’s totalitarian program.

Compare this insult to parents, palettes and taxpayers alike with what other nations feed their school children. The contrast below is striking to say the least.

[FreeperCell]

Excellent.

[laplata]

That is definitely some kind of Mystery Meat.

Disgusting and disgraceful.

Ain’t communism great.

[clearcarbon]

Widespread distribution of these pictures will increase the likelihood that the international community will send CARE packages to starving students in the United States. Maybe even North Korea will chip in.

[Berlin_Freeper]

I don’t have pictures, but when sometimes I am at my daughter’s kindergarten here in Germany... I specifically read the lunch menu posted on the wall for ideas on what to eat myself.

[lee martell]

Even the Ukraine out does American Lunches done her way. Thanks, Michelle!! Look at the American tray, that protein or mystery meat on the right looks disturbingly like some kind of ‘droppings’ not like food. I really like the Italian tray, and the Brazilian one too.

If they must serve such small portions, the least the schools could do is design a smaller tray, one that doesn’t leave vast barren planes of uncovered tray surface, vacant spaces reflecting the lights from cafeteria ceilings.
I predict as soon as Moochelle leaves the White House, she will be followed closely by her Menu Plans.

[MaxMax]

And we spend more?

[Royal Wulff]

Why do all the other countries just happen to use the same tray, soup cup, and are photographed on the same table?

[KarlInOhio]

Now compare those to a Sidwell Friends lunch.

And by the way, lunch tomorrow there is:

February 26, 2015
Caldo Verde Soup
Brazilian Sweet Potato Salad
Texas de Brazil Salad
Brazilian Menu
All Natural Brazilian Chicken w/ Coconut Milk Feijoada (Brazilian Black Bean Stew)
Brazilian Collards
Basmati Rice
Mango & Pineapple with Lime & Mint

https://www.sidwell.edu/mobile/index.aspx?pageaction=ViewSinglePublic&LinkID=64458&ModuleID=375&StartDate=2/26/2015

[FreedomStar3028]

Uh, is this like private schools or something because I’ve never seen anything that good even at some diner’s i’ve been to. Dang kids are fed extremely well in other western countries if this is “public schools”, but I remember in highschool before all this garbage we never had anything half as good as some of those school meals. I call BS on this.

[Vendome]

Without reading the article I’m going say this is staged.

The meal trays are identical.

And prettt Sure you aren’t getting a nice chunk of brie and a slice of beef, even if you are a school kid in France.

And you’re not getting Granny Smith Apple slices and Kiwi.

[MaxMax]

Why are all the trays the same?

[laplata]

I tend to agree about it being BS. Except the American food.

[Fungi]

So the take home lesson is give your child a meal to go. I Never had a problem with that. Ate peanut butter sandwiches everyday for six years. Wonderful, never complained and no one paid for it —no, not the federal government nor anyone other than my parents. Now they get it free and still they are not happy. Get the government out of our lives, a place they never belonged in the first place. Get lost Bozo....

[laplata]

I noticed that, too.

[lee martell]

Wurden Sie Etwas Essen? Was ist Apfelstrudel!

[napscoordinator]

We can have that to if we pay 50 percent in federal income taxes and in some countries 60 percent. No thanks. Rather continue sending lunches to school for my kids who go to Catholic School anyway but still. I don’t want my taxes going up for a gormet meal. The meal they showed could be what the kids took and not everything offered. Even so I don’t think lunches should be provided at all. Heck I NEVER had a meal from school.....not one day was it offered. In fact at Central Catholic HS we had vending machines if we forgot our lunch. So far as of last count all but 3 of us are still living and we are all turning 46 this year....the 3 that died were an auto accident, a brain aneurism and a shot to the head by himself. So we are surviving without the 3 meals that are basically provided at lunches across the nation. It is sickening. Stop all lunches now!

[boop]

I'm sure that they have the same tray/layout is that they took school lunch menus from each country and recreated them.

The point still stands.

[KarlInOhio]

Daily Mail article referenced: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2958640/Photos-school-lunches-served-world-reveal-just-meager-America-s-meals-compared-cash-strapped-nations.html

Sweetgreen tumblr post of the foreign meals: http://sweetgreen.tumblr.com/post/103458679563/school-lunches-around-the-world

It looks like Sweetgreen duplicated the lunches from the menus, so it might not be the same amount or quality. Institutional cooking can turn any ingredients into gray glop.

[JoeDetweiler]

Not just the same trays....Italy, South Korea and Spain are the same table.