Food Theory: School Lunches

[Durzan]

So, I've been a fan of MatPat for a while, and this episode already had me raising my eyebrows in surprise. Not even 5 minutes in I find out that apparently the US school lunch program came about because of a combination of food surplus issues after WWII and issues with the draft during WWII.

Apparently surveys were done during and after WWII ended that suggested that a sizable portion of potential Draftees were denied service in the military due to poor nutrition and emaciation. And since the Government had a huge stockpile of surplus food at the time, they decided to kill two birds with one stone and start feeding that surplus of food to kids in school. Very interesting! I bet that gets the conspiracy theorist's mind chugging don't you?

Also, a lot of what matzot says here does hit home as my current line of work actually has to deal with some of the issues touched on in the episode. Darn it, don't waste food for flying flapjack's sake!

[mudflap]

when you put the government in charge of anything, the end product always gets worse.

[Cruiserdude]

when you put the government in charge of anything, the end product always gets worse.

ALWAYS.

[Niemand]

The USA must have been late to the party. The government here had that problem in WW1, and ended up raising "bantam regiments" from Glasgow, and elsewhere, of men who were too short due to childhood malnutrition. Ironically many of them proved to be very good fighters as they had to stick up for themselves and came from rough neighbourhoods. Some of the Glasgow ones ended up being called the Devil's Dwarfs.

[dreamtheater76]

Barf Burgers(Sloppy Joes) were absolutely nasty but great for food fights unless you were the one getting hit by them. Tater tot fights were common and less messy. Spitting milkshake through a straw could start a brawl. Nobody wanted to eat this stuff. I’m surprised school food didn’t cause generations of anti-government uprising.