$1.80? My kid's lunch is $2.50. Bastards.
At least he gets plenty of vitamin R.

I thought it actually looked pretty tasty, but that's an adult perspective. Kids probably wouldn't like it.

Skail: I thought it actually looked pretty tasty, but that's an adult perspective. Kids probably wouldn't like it.

I would have been OK with tofu as a kid, but probably not bok choy.

Pretentious is always more expensive. Who's going to pay for all this 'healthy' food?

Tr0mBoNe: Pretentious is always more expensive. Who's going to pay for all this 'healthy' food?

Haven't thought about the rest, but tofu is dirt cheap.

Sounds good to me! Love me some tofu. And Chinese veggies are the bomb.

St_Francis_P: Tr0mBoNe: Pretentious is always more expensive. Who's going to pay for all this 'healthy' food?

Haven't thought about the rest, but tofu is dirt cheap.

Really? I guess that depends on where you live... here it's only slightly cheaper than real meat.

And that's if the kids will eat it. Most will not.

Tr0mBoNe: Pretentious is always more expensive. Who's going to pay for all this 'healthy' food?

If we didn't artificially depress the cost of unhealthy, cheap food, this really wouldn't be an issue. Take away the subsidies, and throw some pigovian taxes to account for the negative externalities of things like emissions and health costs, and the "expensive" but actually good for you food would be the more affordable option.

Jon Snow: Tr0mBoNe: Pretentious is always more expensive. Who's going to pay for all this 'healthy' food?

If we didn't artificially depress the cost of unhealthy, cheap food, this really wouldn't be an issue. Take away the subsidies, and throw some pigovian taxes to account for the negative externalities of things like emissions and health costs, and the "expensive" but actually good for you food would be the more affordable option.

I totally agree. If you find that magic wand, please send it my way... I need a few things enlarged.

Tr0mBoNe: If you find that magic wand

Here, it's called "an intelligent and informed President".

Let's see what this article is about...

...aw screw it, I'm getting McDonald's.

Jon Snow: Tr0mBoNe: If you find that magic wand

Here, it's called "an intelligent and informed President".

Zing!

Tofu and bok choy! Like, real food for a change!

You could make sloppy joes from tofu and wheat buns. The only difference would be significantly more farting.

Jon Snow: Tr0mBoNe: If you find that magic wand

Here, it's called "an intelligent and informed President".

So switching all the farms from corn to soy and from beef to hemp will solve all the problems? What about all the oil that will still get burned? What about transporting all those even more perishable commodities from point A to B? What about all the farmers who would have to buy all new equipment and learn how to use it? What about all the other problems like the economy, social security, foreign relations and conflicts, or health care?

I sure hope he starts solving the problem... but it's not going to be solved for a long time.

MMMM... bok choy!

We did just fine with PBJs, ritz crackers, and a bag of grapes, along with some milk when I was in school.

Tr0mBoNe: So switching all the farms from corn to soy and from beef to hemp will solve all the problems?

Obviously not. It's moving in the right direction, and no one is saying that we get rid of all corn and beef agriculture, or only grow soy and hemp. That's ridiculous.

What about all the oil that will still get burned?

Beef is by far the worst in regards to consumption of energy. Less beef agriculture means less oil gets burned. And so on.

What about transporting all those even more perishable commodities from point A to B?

If we switch to plug-in electrics and rebuild our rail infrastructure, transportation emissions will go way, way down and create a lot of jobs in the process.

What about all the farmers who would have to buy all new equipment and learn how to use it?

None of this is going to happen overnight. If farmers want to continue to produce food that is both resource intensive and leads to health problems, they can continue to do so, but they won't be getting welfare to do it.

What about all the other problems like the economy, social security, foreign relations and conflicts, or health care?

Our use of resources underpins literally every other issue. The way we have our energy and agriculture systems set up is directly tied to health care. The way our energy and transportation systems are set up are directly tied to foreign relations and the way we use our military. Social security isn't the problem that people love to make it out to be. In about 20-30 years it will actually grow less than the economy. If we can get over that short term hump, it will cease to be a problem.

There is a clear path to solving the majority of our problems in America, if not the world. The problem is roughly half the population pisses its pants screaming "communism" when faced with reality.

5 dollars to mass produce that meagre plate of food? Someone is making a helluva profit there. The food looks good, and kids will learn to enjoy decent food if it's 'cool' enough, but if you are mass producing healthy food, there's no farking way it should cost $5 a plate.

More testicles mean more iron!

I'd chow down on all three of those bad boys. Then again, I'm pretty fat.

Cake Hunter: You could make sloppy joes from tofu and wheat buns. The only difference would be significantly more farting.

I fail to see the downside.

ok i'm British so not up on the dollar exchange, but $5 is like £3.00 right? not too bad for a decent school lunch right?
kids and bok choi prob aren't gonna mix, give 'em chilli sauce

/loves me some bok choi but not since I turned 18 and developed some seriously savoury tastebuds

Gross! They actually like pears?! The texture is all...[shiver]

/Sounds alright

at least it's not vegan

Not being a kid in school, number 3 looks great. When I was a kid, however, I wouldn't have touched the stuff.

Bok choy is always pretty good, and tofu can be really good if prepared properly. But I highly doubt a school cafeteria will get it right. Those steamed veggies look pretty dismal.

St_Francis_P: I would have been OK with tofu as a kid, but probably not bok choy.

I would've been OK with the bok choy but not the tofu; that shiat is for hippies.

St_Francis_P:
I would have been OK with tofu as a kid, but probably not bok choy.

My kid loves bok choy. Saute it, toss in some other veggies and she'll eat all of it.

SchlingFocker: We did just fine with PBJs, ritz crackers, and a bag of grapes, along with some milk when I was in school.

For a lunch that the school provided? Here they use a lot of "heat and serve" items. When I was in school there were mostly burgers, fries, pizza. But we ate. They could just offer healthy fast food and be done with it.

Tr0mBoNe: What about all the farmers who would have to buy all new equipment and learn how to use it? What about all the other problems like the economy, social security, foreign relations and conflicts, or health care?

Meat doesn't have to be eaten daily. If you think about this from a taxpayers perspective, all the animals that kids eat had to eat vegetables beforehand. Why not cut out the middle-cow, and just give the kids the vegetables? I heard [citation needed] that a pound of beef needs 10 pounds of grain to be produced, so why not just give the kids the grain? Apparently everyone is worried about pork in the budget, so just cut the damn pork out of it, literally!

And you might want to take into account the massive farming subsidies that keep the meat industry alive, before you start worrying about people 'getting used to it'.

MrHacks: Tofo? Bok choy? IF YOU BELIEVE IN THIS BULLSHIAT, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!

/Friday is Pizza day!

Yeah! Say NO to tofo!
/What's tofo?
//Is it like a mofo?

Serving tofu to boys going through puberty is a form of child abuse.

There are now dozens of peer reviewed studies on the estrogen mimicking properties of tofu. Forcing a boy to grow mantits due to your mentally ill completely disfunctional philosophy should be grounds for any public school food director to be fired on the spot.

/I'm a guy who loves bok choy and tofu in small quantities.

You can offer the most perfect, balanced meal the world has ever known and unless you stand over them and force them to eat it, kids will pitch the parts they don't like in the trash. Which would be everything I see on the "ideal" tray with the possible exception of the milk.

Bok Choy? My bearded dragon likes that good.

bok! bok!! bok!!!
/couldn't resist

I went to Catholic schools, mostly. They had pizzas brought in and resold them at a profit. Upperclassmen (or it uppclasspersons? meh) were allowed to dine off campus. Incidentally, this was also the period for carsex, cigarettes and cocaine. Anyway, I went to a public school for one year, and the lunches were god-awful in both taste and nutrition, with no option to eat off-campus. I'm not an 'elitist' - you gotta be careful these days because everything makes you subject to that label - but the public school's food was actually worse than the food I got when I WENT TO JAIL one night. A bunch of mother-rapers eat better than the students in the same city.

/was slightly disappointed that I made bail before another meal.

Wow. Either the article writers were schmorking something, or school lunches have improved.

I remember "hamburgers", patties so rubbery you could see the fork marks..."chicken patties", you swear the only wings those farkers ever saw was the one on the cargo plane that brought em over...

Vegetables? Don't shiat me, you won't be eating them anyway. We know you kids, so here's a spoonful of boiled corn.

Soy is not the magic cure all people are making it out to be. Yeah it's a complete plant protein, but there are plenty of legitimate studies out there showing it has some side effects.

After seeing all three meals I must say I'd crush all of them right now if they were in front of me.

RamblingKey: Serving tofu to boys going through puberty is a form of child abuse.

There are now dozens of peer reviewed studies on the estrogen mimicking properties of tofu. Forcing a boy to grow mantits due to your mentally ill completely disfunctional philosophy should be grounds for any public school food director to be fired on the spot.

/I'm a guy who loves bok choy and tofu in small quantities.

I'd love to know why a half billion Chinese men, and 70 million Japanese men, who eat tofu all the farking time (as part of their basic cultural diet, not as some kind of hippie food) don't have moobs.

Hey, bok choy and tofu are good when cooked by people who know wtf they are doing.

Yogurt, fruit, and salads. Pretty cheap, edible, and definately healthy. Why the FARK can't we focus on having more healthy food (that kids can actually stand to eat) instead of less not-healthy food (and food in general) or attemping random BS like this we know will never actually happen?

/Ate horribly overpriced salads, mediocre yogurt and had no fruit in highschool

Soy protein, particularly soy proten isolate = phytoestrogens = gynecomastia = explaining to your 15 year-old son why he has tits.

Back in the day, the meatball heroes from the high school cafeteria were to die for.

Of course, I smoked a lot of pot back then.

Jon Snow: What about transporting all those even more perishable commodities from point A to B?

If we switch to plug-in electrics and rebuild our rail infrastructure, transportation emissions will go way, way down and create a lot of jobs in the process.

Yes, true. Big if, though. And if food is non-perishable enough to be transported from Chile to Maine, it's going to be less nourishing and more diabetes-inducing when it gets there. So revamp our distribution network a little.

soy = bullshiat, bok choy = delicious!

As a kid, I would have eaten one and two, but not touched three. In fact, I probably would have attacked other children in a dramatic rendition of being eaten by aliens with number three.

I'd eat it now but my roommate still wouldn't. Come to think of it, I still kind of want to do a dramatic rendition of being attacked by aliens via lettuce. Huh.

Ugh. Tofu is for morons who don't know how to eat real food.

It doesn't matter how much nutrition or how many good intentions are on the lunch tray if it ends up in the garbage. If it isn't eaten, you don't get credit for providing good nutrition.