Shut up and eat your broccoli, fatty.

They also don't like staying off my lawn. Too bad.

Bathia_Mapes: They're serving stuff like beef jambalaya, vegetable curry, pad Thai, lentil and brown rice cutlets, and quinoa and black-eyed pea salads & they can't understand why the students don't like the food?

Maybe whomever is planning the menus should understand some basic facts about children and new and/or unfamiliar foods. Many children won't taste them, and I speak from personal experience with my own son.

I understand that they want the students to eat healthy food, but things would work better if you served healthy options of foods the students are familiar with along with one of the unfamiliar items. You cannot just get rid of the unhealthy options and expect the students to accept the new menus items without complaint. It doesn't work that way.

My daughter always ate a variety of new foods and found this normal. Some kids don't like to try new things.
The solution here is simple; parents should pack them a simple sack lunch. If you count on subsidies and the gov't to feed your kids you shouldn't have them.
In most cases these lunches are free.

pudding7: ZAZ: pad Thai

A meal with peanuts? In a public school? Really?

Pad Thai sounds like a tasteless vegetarian horror, but it's usually pretty good and you can get it with chicken.

Where do you live that you feel people need to be told what Pad Thai is and is not?

i was wondering about that. There are some midwesterners on here I guess.
But really, Pad Thai should have peanuts on it.

The kids will eat pizza, tater tots, and chicken nuggets the way I did when I was in school!

Obvious tag on winter break?

I like how their response to students complaining that food was served 10 days past the ticketed "best by" date (and it was SALAD - that does NOT last 10 days past) was "take off the stickers!"

Awesome.

Most of them don't care for school either.

AbbeySomeone: pudding7: ZAZ: pad Thai

A meal with peanuts? In a public school? Really?

Pad Thai sounds like a tasteless vegetarian horror, but it's usually pretty good and you can get it with chicken.

Where do you live that you feel people need to be told what Pad Thai is and is not?

i was wondering about that. There are some midwesterners on here I guess.
But really, Pad Thai should have peanuts on it.

As a minnesotan, I can say that it doesn't matter where you are as long as you have access to thai cuisine.

/Loves me some pad thai.
//pass the sriracha.

Dude, I like a wide variety of foods and some of them can be quite the acquired tastes, but the stuff they mentioned sounds bland and easy to screw up. Quinoa? Too exotic. Black bean burgers? Tasteless. Beef jambalaya? Too spicy. Vegetable curry? Well, there's no meat in that.

The damned stupid school pandered to idealistic uber-libs who have no sense in reality and wanted to push their chosen religion - secular veganism - on the students.

FTA: Andre Jahchan, a 16-year-old sophomore at Esteban Torres High School, said the food was "super good" at the summer tasting at L.A. Unified's central kitchen. But on campus, he said, the chicken pozole was watery, the vegetable tamale was burned and hard, and noodles were soggy.

Read: "We had professional chefs and dietary experts design menus based on scientific criteria, tastings, focus groups, and decades of experience, and then we handed that expertly designed menu to folks used to heating up chicken nuggets and cardboard pizza, folks who couldn't give a rat's rectum as to whether the pasta for these junk-food-addled morons is al dente."

The "last mile" problem doesn't just exist in wiring & plumbing.

Chibi Shinigami: I like how their response to students complaining that food was served 10 days past the ticketed "best by" date (and it was SALAD - that does NOT last 10 days past) was "take off the stickers!"

Awesome.

Too bad their parents don't care enough to pack them a lunch, or perhaps they are too lame or spoiled to do it for themselves.

/no sympathy

thelordofcheese: Dude, I like a wide variety of foods and some of them can be quite the acquired tastes, but the stuff they mentioned sounds bland and easy to screw up. Quinoa? Too exotic. Black bean burgers? Tasteless. Beef jambalaya? Too spicy. Vegetable curry? Well, there's no meat in that.

The damned stupid school pandered to idealistic uber-libs who have no sense in reality and wanted to push their chosen religion - secular veganism - on the students.

If quinoa is too exotic and you may need to rethink your life. Most school lunches are free food. Adapt or go without.

Ugh. And upon further reading the food service professionals can't cook worth shiat. That's another thing: a lot of those menu items are meant to be served fresh and require attention during preparation, two things lunchladies aren't particularly known for.

We really need a Ric Romero tag.

Well, they don't care for "healthy" school lunches that are badly cooked and use spoiled ingredients. Such a surprise. Fresh ingredients don't have the same amount of preservatives in them as the frozen pre-made patties they used to serve up.

So, it sounds like the problem is that school food sucks.

And that's not a surprise. You can't expect the lunch lady to actually do a good job with new foods, given just exactly how bad a job she did with the old crap. I NEVER ate the school food, I much preferred to bring my lunch. By high school, I'd just stopped bothering with lunch. It's not like there was enough time to eat anyway, after you went through that line to get the greasy pizza with leftover green beans on it, you'd have about 15 minutes to eat.

Why bother? I could eat when I got home. And I guarantee my homemade jambalaya was better than anything the lunch lady could have dished up.

If you need a chef to prepare the dish to be healthy and good, don't make it in a school cafeteria. Whatever happened to good old American Chilies? I ate my fill for 500 calories tonight and it was damn good.

AbbeySomeone: thelordofcheese: Dude, I like a wide variety of foods and some of them can be quite the acquired tastes, but the stuff they mentioned sounds bland and easy to screw up. Quinoa? Too exotic. Black bean burgers? Tasteless. Beef jambalaya? Too spicy. Vegetable curry? Well, there's no meat in that.

The damned stupid school pandered to idealistic uber-libs who have no sense in reality and wanted to push their chosen religion - secular veganism - on the students.

If quinoa is too exotic and you may need to rethink your life. Most school lunches are free food. Adapt or go without.

You sound like a moron. How about serve the constituents in a responsible manner. Hell, I've shopped at stores where I can't read the labels on the canned food and I don't think I've ever seen quinoa in real life.

/can make some damned good sushi
//mmm roe

AbbeySomeone: Chibi Shinigami: I like how their response to students complaining that food was served 10 days past the ticketed "best by" date (and it was SALAD - that does NOT last 10 days past) was "take off the stickers!"

Awesome.

Too bad their parents don't care enough to pack them a lunch, or perhaps they are too lame or spoiled to do it for themselves.

/no sympathy

I pack my kids lunches every single damn day. It's hard to find stuff that doesn't require cooking or refrigeration, though.

DarkVader: So, it sounds like the problem is that school food sucks.

And that's not a surprise. You can't expect the lunch lady to actually do a good job with new foods, given just exactly how bad a job she did with the old crap. I NEVER ate the school food, I much preferred to bring my lunch. By high school, I'd just stopped bothering with lunch. It's not like there was enough time to eat anyway, after you went through that line to get the greasy pizza with leftover green beans on it, you'd have about 15 minutes to eat.

Why bother? I could eat when I got home. And I guarantee my homemade jambalaya was better than anything the lunch lady could have dished up.

I worked at a take-out place that primarily served pizza. I got one free meal with my shift. My house was across the street so I just ate whatever my mom made when I got home and saved my shift meal for lunch. Not bad, considering they had unbreaded chicken breasts for sandwiches.

Kids make bad choices. News at 11.

It's how we killed Kim Jong-Il.

I have no idea what quinoa is, and I wouldn't know pad thai if someone poured it over my head. Is it even something that can be poured over my head? Now, I'm going to google quinoa.

FTFA: In class recently, students complained about mold on noodles, undercooked meat and hard rice.

Sounds like the kids have a problem with rotten and uncooked foods and not with healthy foods.

davidphogan: It's how we killed Kim Jong-Il.

Fark needs to get right on that shiat!

Kids don't care for any school lunches

the thing that gets me is that they say this crap is supposed to fight obesity. it won't. you know what fights obesity?


Dodgeball.

when I finally got to my gym class in high school for one semester only, I was excited to get out and fail at basketball, or play some decent soccer or tennis, or wreck people in dodgeball, or try out some lacrosse gear and get beaned in the face, or something like that. we played table tennis for 8 weeks. we need to depussify gym class, let kids take a knock here and there again.

the obesity isn't tied to the food, kids'll burn that crap off in no time if you let them be kids for an hour or so. 4 kickballs and a line is all you need. but no, gym class has disappeared for maximum standardized testing prep and math classes. it's kinda sad, since pretty much all relevant reseach suggests that some good activity is much better for learning than that last hour of class time.

Kids can get away with that shiat ... used to have lunch at 4:15 otw home from school, two of the greasiest hand made takeout burgers you can imagine, with mustard and mayo, no fries ... every day. Was 6' 1" and about 120 lbs back then.

/ no way now

kbotc: If you need a chef to prepare the dish to be healthy and good, don't make it in a school cafeteria. Whatever happened to good old American Chilies? I ate my fill for 500 calories tonight and it was damn good.

Chili? Doesn't that have meat in it? (HORROR!)

I love the "We're bringing pizza back" statement, then they say "with whole wheat crust, low fat cheese and low sodium sauce". Well, why not just say "but it'll taste like cardboard".

Look, it's not hard to make decently nutritious cafeteria food that kids will eat. It's this fixation on making it both "exotic" and "healthful" that's screwing things up.

Kids, as a group, do not have a desire for exotic food, especially not if it's prepared by lunch ladies in hairnets. Leave that to the Zagat-rated restaurants.

I've said this before, just put a smoothie bar in the cafeteria. Easy, quick, healthy, tasty.

thelordofcheese: AbbeySomeone: thelordofcheese: Dude, I like a wide variety of foods and some of them can be quite the acquired tastes, but the stuff they mentioned sounds bland and easy to screw up. Quinoa? Too exotic. Black bean burgers? Tasteless. Beef jambalaya? Too spicy. Vegetable curry? Well, there's no meat in that.

The damned stupid school pandered to idealistic uber-libs who have no sense in reality and wanted to push their chosen religion - secular veganism - on the students.

If quinoa is too exotic and you may need to rethink your life. Most school lunches are free food. Adapt or go without.

You sound like a moron. How about serve the constituents in a responsible manner. Hell, I've shopped at stores where I can't read the labels on the canned food and I don't think I've ever seen quinoa in real life.

/can make some damned good sushi
//mmm roe

If you think quinoa is exotic then you must be walking through the grocery store with your eyes closed...although to be fair, it is exotic to Firefox's spell-check. Seriously, I can attest to the fact that major grocery chains in Maryland and North Carolina often stock quinoa. You sound like a moron and I bet your sushi sucks like a lamprey...

ZAZ: A meal with peanuts? In a public school? Really?

Pad Thai sounds like a tasteless vegetarian horror, but it's usually pretty good and you can get it with chicken.

I've had pad thai from a food-truck next to a college. I can imagine the horror.

Like others have said, first make sure the food is actually edible for humans. After that, if the kids don't eat it, they can farking go hungry all day.

serpent_sky: If you read it, it sounds more like they don't like burnt, dry, improperly cooked food, as opposed to "healthy" food.

The complaints really seem to boil down to quality issues, not the actual dishes.

I eat healthy, and I'm an adult, but I'd be pretty unwilling to eat things like noodles with mold, or burnt food, or salad ten days past its "optimum serving date," to pull things that stood out in the article.

I agree with your assessment. The problem seems to be that our school cafeteria help got lazy years ago when all they were expected to do is heat frozen food and deep fry some chicken nuggets and fries. That didn't require too much effort and it took near zero skill. Now these same unskilled laborers are expected to understand and prepare healthy dishes, and maybe they resent having to put forth the extra effort.

How does lack of quality escape the attention of the principal and others in the head office? If the menu is healthy the principal and other administrators should be eating the same food as the students. If the food quality is too poor for them than it is not the student's rejection of healthy food, it is an across the board rejection of substandard low quality food.

TFA states that the main issue was the noodles being burnt, rotten ingredients and they were serving salad past its expiration date.

Part of it sound likethe food is unfamiliar to the kids. The other issue is the test menu being prepped by experienced chefs vs. lunchlady Doris who doesn't get paid enough to care if the flour's got mold or the meat smells funny, or the food is getting burnt.

Old enough to know better: Like others have said, first make sure the food is actually edible for humans. After that, if the kids don't eat it, they can farking go hungry all day.

Came here to echo this and previous arguments. Just because the made the demo version of the food good doesn't mean the mass produced version will be anywhere near the quality.

al's hat: thelordofcheese: AbbeySomeone: thelordofcheese: Dude, I like a wide variety of foods and some of them can be quite the acquired tastes, but the stuff they mentioned sounds bland and easy to screw up. Quinoa? Too exotic. Black bean burgers? Tasteless. Beef jambalaya? Too spicy. Vegetable curry? Well, there's no meat in that.

The damned stupid school pandered to idealistic uber-libs who have no sense in reality and wanted to push their chosen religion - secular veganism - on the students.

If quinoa is too exotic and you may need to rethink your life. Most school lunches are free food. Adapt or go without.

You sound like a moron. How about serve the constituents in a responsible manner. Hell, I've shopped at stores where I can't read the labels on the canned food and I don't think I've ever seen quinoa in real life.

/can make some damned good sushi
//mmm roe

If you think quinoa is exotic then you must be walking through the grocery store with your eyes closed...although to be fair, it is exotic to Firefox's spell-check. Seriously, I can attest to the fact that major grocery chains in Maryland and North Carolina often stock quinoa. You sound like a moron and I bet your sushi sucks like a lamprey...

Why? Because I don't shop at Whole Foods? That's the ONLY place I've ever HEARD about it being sold, and I've only spent 45 of the most pretentious minutes of my life in that hole.

I just checked online. The most popular grocery chain here only sells it in their specialty shop, of which there are limited venues in this city: Pittsburgh.

Then you go on and make unfounded judgments of the quality of my food. Every person who has eaten my cooking hovers around the kitchen when I make large dishes, expectantly waiting for damned-good homecooked meals. My specialty is ballotine de poulet.

Maybe they should try what they do in Japan, where the students are assigned on rotation to prepare and serve meals, and the teachers sit down and eat the food with the students at the same table.

neuroflare: Old enough to know better: Like others have said, first make sure the food is actually edible for humans. After that, if the kids don't eat it, they can farking go hungry all day.

Came here to echo this and previous arguments. Just because the made the demo version of the ISN'T doesn't mean the mass produced version will be anywhere near the quality.

ftfm
/facepalm

Old enough to know better: Like others have said, first make sure the food is actually edible for humans. After that, if the kids don't eat it, they can farking go hungry all day.

Gotta teach them early that they should accept and even strive for mediocrity and just barely getting by. It prepares them for wage-slavery and loveless marriages.

al's hat: thelordofcheese: AbbeySomeone: thelordofcheese: Dude, I like a wide variety of foods and some of them can be quite the acquired tastes, but the stuff they mentioned sounds bland and easy to screw up. Quinoa? Too exotic. Black bean burgers? Tasteless. Beef jambalaya? Too spicy. Vegetable curry? Well, there's no meat in that.

The damned stupid school pandered to idealistic uber-libs who have no sense in reality and wanted to push their chosen religion - secular veganism - on the students.

If quinoa is too exotic and you may need to rethink your life. Most school lunches are free food. Adapt or go without.

You sound like a moron. How about serve the constituents in a responsible manner. Hell, I've shopped at stores where I can't read the labels on the canned food and I don't think I've ever seen quinoa in real life.

/can make some damned good sushi
//mmm roe

If you think quinoa is exotic then you must be walking through the grocery store with your eyes closed...although to be fair, it is exotic to Firefox's spell-check. Seriously, I can attest to the fact that major grocery chains in Maryland and North Carolina often stock quinoa. You sound like a moron and I bet your sushi sucks like a lamprey...

You sound like a 1%er.

Name a quinoa containing food manufactured by a major produer that can be found in major chain grocery stores around the country (TJs or Whole foods don't count. I'll wait.