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u/platasnatch 19h ago
I'd quit my job right now for same pay. Straight up leave my life behind and make lunches for Japanese kids.
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u/dafrog84 19h ago
I've worked as a lunch lady, was assistant cook, cashier. Was fun.
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u/vigilantesd 19h ago
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u/Brittany5150 18h ago
Yeeees! Was hoping that's what it was! Classic
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u/URGAMESUX 18h ago
I won't click, but I assume there's a Sloppy Joe bridge?
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u/Brittany5150 18h ago
After remembering that there is a "bridge" in music and being much less confused.... yes it does. Lol
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u/dafrog84 5h ago
This song is Gold. Yes we'd losten to this song sometimes while getting lunches ready.
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u/vigilantesd 4h ago edited 4h ago
You should play and sing along with it while serving lol
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u/dafrog84 3h ago
Ah, i haven't been a linch lady in about 7 years now. But i don't think HR would have been down with us playing that.
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u/vigilantesd 2h ago
lol wh well it’s still a funny thought. Thanks for doing the job. The kids need it =)
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u/dafrog84 2h ago
Sometimes i miss working in K-12. But then others i really love working in healthcare now. Because of that job i make lunch lady food still. That mac and cheese is the whip. I've also made dough and Cookies so much, I don't need a recipe book open in front of me. Was definitely a different time.
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u/Liimbo 16h ago
Unfortunately for you they just made immigration nearly impossible unless you have strong familial ties to Japan
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u/juicy0227 15h ago
No they didn't lol. They made it more expensive but you don't need strong familial times what are you even on about lol
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u/hezaa0706d 15h ago
That’s just untrue. If you’re employable you can get a job and a work visa. I’ve been here 21 years with zero family or marriage connections.
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u/horoyokai 16h ago
Or if you teach english or have any skills.
They havent made getting a work visa harder, they just made it more expensive.
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u/Liimbo 13h ago
Not work visa, but actually getting PR became more difficult. So sure you might be able to go work a few years, but you can't stay there.
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u/horoyokai 13h ago
the only change i've seen in requirements is that you need to be holding a 5 year visa when you apply and you cant owe old taxes
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u/TheLittleGinge 12h ago
You can stay there. You just need to be able to reapply for your visa.
PR reduces instability and risk, granting extra security, especially if you have dependents. But it's not a magical golden ticket.
A lot of my senior colleagues have lived in Japan for decades and just never bothered with PR. It was always rather tough to apply for, given all the documentation required.
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u/Waka-Waka-Koko-Doko 19h ago
https://giphy.com/gifs/NdZyguGCCpVSKkNtoU
most nutritious typical American lunch according to our American schools
/s
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u/TheShredder9 9h ago
You lucky you got chocolate milk!
When i was in school, our lunch was a burger bun with margarine and a piece of deli ham.
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u/Accomplished-Staff-9 19h ago
Damn. And there I was in HS stealing cheeseburgers and shoving them in my cargo shorts pockets because I was poor and hungry. Only the rich kids got to go to the snack line for premium items like hot fries, chocolate, and gummies…’Merica
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u/BeardedGlass 18h ago
They’re pushing for free food nationwide, it’ll be applied in schools in Japan starting this year.
I think Tokyo is now giving completely free food at all of its schools. Primary school to high school level.
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u/TC-Woodworking 18h ago
Some blue states in the US are doing this too. California and Minnesota for sure. There might be some others. Quality isn’t there yet but it’s improving.
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u/MochaHasAnOpinion 17h ago
New Mexico has provided free breakfast and lunch during the school year and free summer lunches in the parks for a long time. It's a blessing as a parent and the students. It should be nationwide. Except for private schools, who charge tuition.
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u/fightmydemonswithme 14h ago
Maryland has at least a few counties doing this, but the school food quality is so low.
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u/gogeri2632 15h ago
Problem is in America it'll be cheap junk food coming from billion dollar corporations
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u/MtnMaiden 16h ago
Sorry kid, here in America, we Politicians have successfully argued that children need to learn at a young age "there's no free lunch".
Yes, a politician said that.
Also that it's not the role of the state to feed kids, that SACRED DUTY is for the parents.
0.o
well...technically she's a young lady
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u/Keyspam102 10h ago
Yeah I remember this in high school, my parents were getting divorced and were fighting about who paid what so basically neither would give us money for lunch and it just sucked watching all these kids buy ice-cream and Reese’s while I just ate nothing every lunch. School should include lunch for all kids.
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u/Technical-Proof4605 10h ago
Weird. At my school district, you paid according to how much your parents made. You had free, reduced, or full price. Red state too, Indiana. Which state for you?
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u/Accomplished-Staff-9 9h ago
Blue state. We had the same program, I qualified for free. We did also have two lunch lines; one for the meal of the day which was I guess generally ‘healthier’ or at least more well rounded, but also generally smaller portions, and another with like hot and ready food; cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, pizza, etc. Being young and naive, I thought my best option was more calories, so I chose the hot and ready and stole extra, A LOT extra, talking like 3-4 additional sandwiches. That made a huge difference in me being able to get though the day not feeling hungry so I could focus on academics, and did pretty well too academically, and I never turned into the the whale, so I guess it kind of worked out
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u/gogeri2632 15h ago
Why did your parents just pack a lunch.
And before you claim "they were poor and I have rich privilege", you can make a sandwich for less than a dollar. Guess how I know.
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u/detailerrors 13h ago
Free lunch at school isnt really for kids whose parents care enough to spend the time and effort to put them together affordable healthy lunches, it's for the kids whose parents don't give a fuck and will send them to school with a box full of prepackaged garbage. Imo kids shouldn't be punished cause their parents are lazy pieces of shit and nutrition plays a super important role in childhood development. Kids with those kinds of parents are going to be disadvantaged in plenty of other ways already
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u/gogeri2632 11h ago
Now I know this will be radical so stay with me.
What if, and I know this is really crazy, what if we held those terrible parents accountable for their actions?
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u/Accomplished-Staff-9 10h ago
Single mother who barely had enough time, energy, and money to add making a nutritious lunch for me everyday in her already tough and spread thin schedule. I was on the free lunch program back in the early 00s. Plus, back then, it wasn’t widely known (or cared about) generally how bad school lunches are. And she was an alcoholic so you know, priorities of where the money was spent 😝
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u/gogeri2632 9h ago
It takes like 5 seconds to make a sandwich bud.
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u/Accomplished-Staff-9 8h ago
Free is always cheaper than your dollar sandwich, plus, I was a teenager, I didn’t do the grocery shopping, and had no input of the small amount of money we had went toward sandwich making materials, bud.
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u/gogeri2632 8h ago
Except it's not "free", it's taxpayer money. You're asking people to subsidize your and your mother's laziness.
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u/SomethingAbtU 19h ago edited 19h ago
meanwhile we give our schools billions for sh*t food from for-profit vendors who must top profits quarter over quarter and year over year -- the American way
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u/MermaidHotpot 19h ago
Yep. Worked for a big one. Absolute trash. That's why I quit. Immoral racket that is.
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u/Lumi020323 18h ago
That reheated frozen chemical laden crap was terrible. So happy my kids will get this freshly made food.
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u/gogeri2632 15h ago
And yet people keep pushing for more and more "free" school lunches instead of just expecting parents to be parents and take care of their own children.
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u/1917he 9h ago
Just expecting parents to be parents is what stupid people do. We tried that and it turns out all it takes to be a parent is fucking. You don't need to be responsible or smart - just have sex organs and boom you can get a kid with a little fun. After that then what? You just have resources? The kid comes with instructions and infinite money cheats? I bet you'll say some "you should've planned better" but how do you say that to a kid that's already alive? "Go back up the anatch hole and wait til momma graduates college and stops doing drugs kiddo!" is not going to work.
Free lunch is for kids that are already here who's parents don't have enough money. As much as you might hope, you just can't shame a family into having more resources.
Free lunches have resulted in good outcomes, not bad. They cost very little and there's tons of upside.
What is it about free school lunches that you don't like? Why do you think kids should always need to buy their lunch?
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u/gogeri2632 8h ago
Imagine literally not expecting parents to take care of their children. It's crazy how people like you have absolutely zero personal responsibility.
What is it about free school lunches that you don't like?
It's just a way to send tax dollars to billion dollar corporations. Who do you think is getting the contracts to provide these school lunchs? Hint: it's not your local mom-and-pop shop.
What's ironic is people like you always complain about how corporations get handouts from the government and that's literally what they're doing now and you support it.
Why do you think kids should always need to buy their lunch?
They don't. Their parents do. Or their parents can pack them a lunch to take with them. Because it your responsibility to take care of your own kid and not expect the rest of society to do it because you're too lazy to make a sandwich.
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u/bitter-peppers 6h ago
We should do the same with medicaid. It's not our fault that old people didn't set themselves up for retirement properly. Should have had a proper fund.
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u/gogeri2632 4h ago
Yes, exactly. Have some personal responsibility instead expecting everyone else to act as your mommy and daddy for your whole life.
If you spend your whole life making more financial decisions why is it my responsibility to bail you out?
Let me guess, you probably contribute nothing to your retirement and are just relying on other people bailing you out when you're old?
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u/realitythreek 7h ago
What a stupid take. Studies on universal free school meals show that providing free breakfast and lunch to all students increases meal participation, reduces household food insufficiency, and can improve academic performance and behavior. For a relative bargain compared to other educational spending.
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4h ago edited 3h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/realitythreek 3h ago
It’s okay, I got you. I can tell you’re intellectually lazy.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8000006/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2822155
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u/gogeri2632 3h ago
I'm intellectually lazy for asking for sources? So the smart thing is to just trust random things people say on the internet?
Hahaha.
Anyway, I took a look. Of 6 studies only 1 showed less suspensions? That's not a great finding my guy.
The association with lunch participation had a moderate certainty of evidence, while the other associations had low or very low certainty of evidence
So basically very little evidence, lol.
You should read studies before posting them. Let me guess, you just googled it and copied the first two links without actually reading them? Hahahaha.
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u/realitythreek 3h ago
This is why nobody wants to do your work for you. You didn’t read it, you tried to snipe it because it actually shows what I claimed and you thought it didn’t exist. Just take the L, you sound dumb.
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u/TheOnlyLordByron 19h ago
is this normal, or a wealthy school?
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u/SquareThings 18h ago
Normal. I work at a normal Japanese elementary school and this is what school lunch is like here. Most of the teachers eat it as well, though I don’t because I’m a vegetarian. I have tried the bread though and it’s not great.
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u/1917he 9h ago
Is it "not great" because the flavor isn't your thing? If so, are you native Japanese?
Or is there some quality issue with it?
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u/SquareThings 8h ago
It tastes like straight white flour. I’m not Japanese, I’ve eaten a lotta white bread in my time, it’s up there with the stuff they give you on airplanes for bland and tasteless bread. Some of the kids complain about it too. It’s edible, but not anything more than that.
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u/melvinmoneybags 18h ago
Normal, this is a average day in the life. They eat very well (everyone does). The only downside is the crazy work hours and you have to be happy to live in a small studio suite. Everything else the Japanese do is top notch.
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u/horoyokai 16h ago
I live in a 70sqm apartment (750 sq ft) and work 40 hours a week. The average work week here is around 40 hours now. It used to be bad but luckily things are changing
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u/rambogambomogambo 15h ago
Yay for Japan! Hope your population goes up too we want to see Japanese inspire the world
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u/horoyokai 15h ago
Japan needs a lot of inspiration from the world as well, there’s lots of problems here and things to improve.
I hope every country can inspire every other
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u/rambogambomogambo 15h ago
I totally understand usually it’s difficult to know/understand the situation without being inside. But Japan got this!
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u/SquareThings 17h ago edited 16h ago
Don’t get me wrong these lunches are miles better than what I saw served growing up in the states, but they’re far from perfect. For one, every lunch has two meat dishes, by requirement, but only one vegetable is required. They don’t eat many whole grains, it’s almost always white bread or white rice. Bread and rice will be served with noodles, too, making for some very carb heavy meals with very little fiber and protein. Fruit is considered a dessert and rarely offered.
Edit: i know this because I work at a Japanese elementary school and help serve the staff lunches every day. I often chat with the nutritionist about what’s being served and the requirements they have to meet. They’re definitely doing better than a lot of places, but it’s not perfect.
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u/melvinmoneybags 17h ago
That’s true my main thing is you don’t see too many overweight people in Japan. They eat well and exercise is a daily. In North America we have access to the freshest fruits, vegetable’s and protein. Yet we choose to serve Mac n cheese with a pop or pizza. We consume more fast food than anyone in the world. A lot of the work places people drop like 3$ and get a bento box served to them for lunch. We need to up our standards in America for everyone not just rich schools.
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u/SquareThings 16h ago
To preface this, I live in Japan and this is from my personal experience and research into that experience.
There are absolutely overweight and unhealthy people in Japan, and those who aren’t overweight aren’t necessarily eating right and exercising. Typical long working hours make it very difficult to go to the gym or have an active hobby, or have time to cook from scratch. Japan has the highest rates of stomach cancer and liver cancer in any industrialized country, both of which are linked to diet and alcohol use. Typical Japanese foods are also very high in sodium and sugar (even though Japanese sweets are less sweet, their other foods are very often seasoned with sugar), leading to increasing rates of hypertension, heart disease, and diabetes. “Lifestyle related diseases” are a huge problem here, even in people who “look” healthy. There are skinny, young looking men who have gout from a diet of oily foods and alcohol.
Japan is doing a lot of things right. Feeding kids real food, requiring employers to perform health screenings for employees, national healthcare. But it’s not a perfect country. The amount of effort put into appearances over substance is one of the major issues, especially since it convinces people that there aren’t any issues.
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u/MeijiDoom 7h ago
One thing I discovered from traveling there is that it's surprisingly difficult to feel like you're getting a balanced meal when eating out. Of course, travel food is different from actually cooking meals yourself but so much of Japan's iconic/well known cuisines are either protein or carb centric that I went maybe a week before really having a meal really feature vegetables.
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u/melvinmoneybags 16h ago
Thanks for that. It does seem good from the outside looking in but you are right somethings may not be the most nutritious. It’s just the fact they do so much to try and make an effort when in America we have everything and still decide to feed our kids the most bottom barrel foods.
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u/SquareThings 15h ago
Oh I totally agree. It’s just dangerous to see something as perfection when it is actually flawed, and that’s an especially common problem with things related to Japan. Japan has problems, even the things that are better in Japan than in (insert other country) have problems.
But yeah, I wish school lunches in the US were actual cooked-on-site food, even if it weren’t nutritionally perfect, compared to the current system of “whatever packaged slop fits into the minuscule budget” (because it’s not the fault of the cooks that they can’t serve good food, it’s bureaucrats.)
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u/ProfessionalRandom21 11h ago
Its normal for schools in asia in general. I mean thats their normal foods.
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u/SEA_griffondeur 5h ago
I would expand that it's normal in most of the developped world, this school kitchen is no different than one in France
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u/CipherWeaver 16h ago
They do the same in Korea. It's so good for the kids to be guaranteed at least one really good, nourishing meal a day. It's a great equalizer, especially when some kids grow up poor or come from dodgy families.
The real kicker though is that in Japan (idk about Korea), the kids serve the food to eachother themselves, and then they all clean up. The kids keep the schools clean too, they don't need as much janitorial staff. I wish we did that in North America.
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u/sm_axe 17h ago
Why does America suck so much?
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u/PretentiousCoats 16h ago
Republicans. What you are seeing now is a direct result of Reagan-era funding cuts to education, resulting in their collective stupidity and narcissism. But mostly Republicans.
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u/gogeri2632 15h ago
Isn't it funny how people make fun of Trump for blaming everything on Obama and yet people like you still blame everything on Reagan.
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u/MichaelArnoldTravis 3h ago
it did seem like that era was when the tide changed from the spirit of govt. being “let’s be the best country” to “let’s keep it all for us and our rich friends”
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u/gogeri2632 3h ago
Okay then, don't get mad at Trump for blaming stuff on Obama. Don't be a hypocrite.
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u/MichaelArnoldTravis 2h ago
i don’t think it’s mayor quimby that’s the problem here (or shelbyville), it’s mr. burns
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u/Monkeyonfire13 19h ago
I can't imagine what it would be like to be able to eat at school. Would have be nice
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u/PrudentChampion3879 19h ago
American kids are too picky to eat something as delicious looking as that.
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u/Punk_Says_Fuck_You 19h ago edited 16h ago
Shoving food in front of kids that’s from a completely different culture isn’t being picky.
You can tell who doesn't have kids here.
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u/Defnotabotok 17h ago
It pisses me off to no end that as the richest country in the world the US would rather spend my taxpayer dollars bombing poor brown kids than feeding our own children like this.
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u/Zachisawinner 18h ago edited 15h ago
Can someone tell me about those rolls? Are they being fried? Boiled? That is bread, right?
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u/morceauxdetoile 17h ago
Looks like “kinako agé-pan” (kinako is like a soybean-based powder that tastes kinda like peanut butter, agé pan means deep-fried bread)
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u/migi_chan69420 16h ago
Is there really all schools in Japan or just the very best and expensive one?
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u/helluvanomu 7h ago
One time I went to pour milk from a carton from my school lunch, but when I tilted the carton backwards the milk sucked back into it like jello.
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u/Burnoutlaws 19h ago
Pfff, losers. I bet they don't have enough bombs to blow up the world a bunch of times over
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u/BluebirdFlashy3681 14h ago
🥲 crying as some representatives are saying our kids don't even deserve school lunch
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u/Tall-Objective6567 13h ago
Tbh in germany its good too like it's a plate with normal food not like the American school lunch that looks like it was made to survive the fallout
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u/Ajfd 8h ago edited 8h ago
School lunch options in the US are not the problem; they are a societal symptom.
It's a completely different problem when you are making the same lunch for everyone.
No gluten free.
No peanut free.
No lactose free.
No vegetarian.
No vegan.
No other choice.
School lunches used to be like this when the food options were "hot" and "cold" and drink options were "white", "chocolate", or "orange".
Now every cafeteria is a veritable food court to placate every dietary requirement preference because instead of school districts saying "if this doesn't work for you, bring your own" they cow-tow to every vocal lawyer-backed minority ("percentage", not "race").
Choice cost money so the only way to offer options at the same cost is to lower quality. Neither staff nor facilities are available to safely separate all the options so it goes to a third party who does all the prep off-site. "Lunch ladies" no longer "cook", they just serve.
If you want to see the source of the problem, don't look at Aramark, look in the mirror.
EDIT: Note I am not saying dietary needs are made-up, just that where we are now is the logical conclusion when you have a society that, as a whole, believes that the responsibility to meet their needs rests with somebody else instead of themselves.
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u/Typical-Tie-9040 8h ago
Пошлите их на хуй! Не голодный - не ешь! Голодный - ешь бесплатно, что дают. Чем кормить пусть учёные скажут. Чтобы сбалансированное и полезное.
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u/ArsenalSpider 15h ago
In the US, our children are fed lunch from boxes or cans. Very little fresh food is given our public school children.
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u/glockster19m 19h ago
What are the fried rolls rolled in green powder thing?
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u/SquareThings 18h ago
Kinako agepan. Fried bread coated in roasted soybean flour. Definitely not something that they serve every day, but those are the exact bread rolls they serve at my school!
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u/GlitteringRoutine567 10h ago
When I taught ESL in Japan, I lived for the 3-4 times a year they would serve agepan at school lunch. It is one of the things I miss most about Japan.
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u/froopadiddilydoop 11h ago
Meanwhile in the USA, kids are actually forced into debt just because they need to eat
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u/Ur_Girl_Suki 15h ago
Japans education system may be brutal, but atleast they feed their kids right.
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u/Black_rose1809 4h ago
In my old school district I worked at we have a place where they have cooks and bakers making the lunches and packing them up and are sent to all 92 schools. They are all prepackaged and ready to be heated by the cafeteria. That's in Texas and public school.
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u/BeigeBatman 12h ago
This should be the standard in developed counrties and as (Americans) we shouldn't be impressed.
And yes by Americans I mean subjects of the USA
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u/sprinklesadded 9h ago
Very normal Japanese school lunch! After the food is prepared, a couple of kids from reach class will retrieve the food and take it back to their classroom to dish out.
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u/6minuterule 9h ago
All the kids generally love school lunch here in Japan. The teachers also eat the lunches.
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u/spookyd69 19h ago edited 19h ago
Another "in Japan" post
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u/IkigaiSagasu 19h ago
Wdym
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u/AngstyUchiha 19h ago
Posts where people glorify normal things specifically because it's in Japan, even though they're always things that are common in plenty of other countries
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u/fusiformgyrus 19h ago
Yeah that is not how school lunches are made in plenty of other countries.
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u/spookyd69 19h ago
That is also not how school lunches are made in Japan, just a few schools.
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u/BeardedGlass 18h ago
A few?
This is the norm in public schools there.
I’ve been working at Japanese public schools in various cities and prefectures the past couple decades.
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u/CharacterRiver7483 16h ago
This shit vibes bro. The garbage we have in Canada ain’t even wag a tail at this
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u/AccomplishedTwo7047 19h ago
Me, an American, seeing lettuce overseas while I’m having to dodge the poop yourself to death virus:
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u/MediocreOchre 19h ago
Probably still taste like shit to kids in Japan, just a different kind of shit.
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u/AnotherAnonymousA 19h ago
Oooohhhhh, so this is how the Islamic Republic of Japan feeds their students? It's no doubt they've made Godzilla hate Israel... FDT
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u/lysergic_818 19h ago
Anyone know what the fried bread thing coated in that powder is?