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Food for Kids

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Food for kids

 

Only very weird kids brought up by lazy irresponsible people would prefer the garbage in the bottom picture to the beautiful food in the picture on top. When I was a kid, only extreme hunger would have forced me to eat the goat droppings in the bottom photo. And then I would have thrown up anyway. But I would give a lot to be offered the beautiful plate of food on top.

The reason why kids choose the garbage on the bottom is because their parents are too lazy to make anything good for them and get them accustomed to ingesting crap. And then everybody sits there super-puzzled why 60% of children in this country are obese.

These kids are like orphans who are rescued from horrible orphanages in Romania and Serbia and cannot fall asleep in good, comfortable beds. Instead, they crawl into small, dirty spaces. Because that is all they know.

So please stop repeating like broken records that kids like to eat this shit. Sick kids like to eat this shit. Healthy kids wouldn’t touch it. Nobody knows what foods are good, healthy and nutritional better than small kids. You need to work long and hard to break these natural mechanisms of food selection.

I found the images here.

103 responses to “Food for Kids”

  1. musteryou Avatar
    musteryou

    Agreed. The assumption that some kind of food is universally appealing to children is a convenient consumerist myth. Whilst some general principles apply — I believe children dislike the taste of pungent vegetables when they are very young, as these can be harder to digest — a child will like what is familiar.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “The assumption that some kind of food is universally appealing to children is a convenient consumerist myth. Whilst some general principles apply — I believe children dislike the taste of pungent vegetables when they are very young, as these can be harder to digest — a child will like what is familiar.”

      – Absolutely true. Only in the US, do they have “Kids’ Menus” in restaurants that are invariably filled with the stinkiest of garbage that no healthy child will eat for love or money. I already shared the story of a wedding party where everybody was served fantastic food, except children, who got these stinky, ugly “chicken nuggets.” The kids at my table were kids of foreign parents, so they didn’t eat this crap. Parents had to feed them from their plates. Of course, poor fat American kids from families of lazy housewives gobbled down this crap.

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  2. charlesrowley Avatar
    charlesrowley

    You evidently have very little experience in dealing with small children. Taste is critical and supposed good health is pretty much irrelevant. A sensible parent allows just enough of the bad stuff to tempt the child to eat the good stuff. Mary Poppins sings this perfectly: ‘A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down’. School food nazis have no sensitivity so try to force tasteless or even bad tasting food down little throats. They will almost always fail. Thank goodness! Because that is an early lesson in dictatorship! Incidentally, a black bean diet gives rise to a lot of methane gas, which contributes to global warming, as well as bad smells.
    A conflict of progressive values there, Clarissa!

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    1. musteryou Avatar
      musteryou

      The worst food I ever had was when I was in hospital with appendicitis. That was definitely an incentive to get well. They used to reboil the same cabbage every night. It literally became this green, bad-smelling streak on the plate.

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    2. hkatz Avatar
      hkatz

      “Taste is critical and supposed good health is pretty much irrelevant.”

      Yes, taste is critical, and is shaped in large part by what kids have started eating at a very young age at home (cultural biases and preferences for different kinds of foods and cooking styles start very early).

      The choice also isn’t limited to either having black beans or a hot dog with chicken nuggets. There are tons of good-tasting healthy food, and the “sugar” that makes the medicine go down doesn’t have to be foul and full of chemicals; not all desserts or less healthy foods are made alike. What goes into school lunches these days is not only unhealthy but revolting. Look up ‘pink slime’ for starters. Not to mention the tripe served up in most fast food restaurants and T.V. dinners.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        “What goes into school lunches these days is not only unhealthy but revolting.”

        – Very true. It is a myth invented by adults and by marketing executives that children prefer to eat garbage. And it is a myth that is not believed by anybody in the world except Americans. Whose kids suffer from 60% obesity rates. Let’s keep poisoning the kids to spite the school officials. Because that is SO mature.

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    3. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      Good comment but I think that subsidized meat (the term “subsidized” is more important for me) is way more dangerous for the environment and general health.

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    4. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      ” School food nazis have no sensitivity so try to force tasteless or even bad tasting food down little throats. ”

      – You honestly think the goat dropping are more tasteful than the salmon? Seriously? I have tried the goat droppings once and they taste like salted paper.

      “School food nazis have no sensitivity so try to force tasteless or even bad tasting food down little throats. They will almost always fail.”

      – As I already said, small children’s instincts ALWAYS make them choose the best, healthiest diet possible because their eating is still not messed up by social expectations. If kids really choose the sad garbage on the bottom plate, they have been messed up and rendered unhealthy by their irresponsible parents. School officials are completely irrelevant in this story.

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    5. Andrea Harris Avatar
      Andrea Harris

      “a black bean diet gives rise to and lot of methane gas, which contributes to global warming”

      That has got to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard, and it’s racist to boot, since cuisines which feature black beans in abundance are also those of Latin America. You’re basically claiming that global warming is the fault of these cultures. By the way, black beans aren’t the only beans that make you fart. The worst, stinkiest farts I have ever smelled were emitted from white males who lived on a diet of beef, potatoes and beer. Should we eliminate all white men who won’t go vegan to save the world from global warming?

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        I don’t think this was a racist comment. Don’t invent racism when this is not the case.

        The best way to protect the environment is to abolish the subisidizing of meat.

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      2. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        And Charles did never say that we should eliminate black bean.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          He was trying to make a joke.

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      3. Titfortat Avatar
        Titfortat

        Im thinking Andrea might need one part of the white male diet she seems to despise, Beer. Take a big swig because you need to chill out and laugh a little bit more. 😉

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        1. Andrea Harris Avatar
          Andrea Harris

          I don’t drink beer. I am civilized.

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          1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
            bloggerclarissa

            Hear, hear!

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            1. Andrea Harris Avatar
              Andrea Harris

              Occasionally I will drink a microbrew, preferably an ale, but it has to be under certain circumstances, the location has to be just right (a decent pub with *good* music — i.e., not country or rock — playing, preferably by a live band), there must be food as well (I don’t like drinking on an empty stomach), and I have to already be in a good mood. I do not drink when I am angry, upset, or depressed because alcohol is a depressant and would make me feel worse.

              By the way, Tit, a man telling a woman to get drunk when she’s angry about something is beyond misogynistic and partakes of rape culture where women exist only to be pleasing to males and if we aren’t we deserve to be drugged into insensibility.

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    6. el Avatar
      el

      // Taste is critical and supposed good health is pretty much irrelevant.

      Both are true for most adults too.

      For me too taste is critical, but nuggets don’t taste good. They are among the worst tasting foods, worse than burgers usually. Thai Noodles with Chickens taste great, much better than nuggets, why not serve it? Why or nuggets or salmon / vegetarian burger ?

      //They will almost always fail. Thank goodness! Because that is an early lesson in dictatorship!

      Are you serious? If somebody cares about dictatorship, what about:

      the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which includes provisions granting the power to indefinitely detain individuals, including US citizens, suspected of allying with or supporting “terrorists.”

      instead of trying to help children meet normal, tasty, healthy food instead of unhealthy junk food, leading them to being obese and diseased from young age, even if thin looking.

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      1. Andrea Harris Avatar
        Andrea Harris

        No, it’s more important to fret over “food nannies” than it is over the fascist machinations of the US government. I guess we’ll all be fine in the jail cells as long as there are plenty of chicken nuggets to eat.

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  3. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    I spent a year in Texas with my ex-h and 2yr old son back in 1998. We we arrived stayed temporarily in a hospital flat which had a poorly stocked kitchen. I had to produce food for my son and thought he might like to try that American ‘delicacy’, chicken nuggets. He took one bite and refused to eat more. Intrigued, I tried one too and found them to be unbelievably sweet. Chicken nuggets full of sugar. Yuk!

    I threw the packet in the bin and we had sandwiches.

    Mind you, I cook and produce fresh healthy meals which my boys like. I also take them to MacDonald’s once a month for their meal to take on the train. They consider it a ‘treat’, and my youngest son will often choose chicken nuggets. I tried one and they are not sweet at least.

    Just to say that kids will eat rubbish because it’s tasty but that doesn’t mean to say they should be offered it, and the schools in the post are wrong to give up on healthy food. What they should have done was offer food that looked like trash but was in fact a healthy look-alike. At least to start with. It’s all about education, which can be a slow process but is worth it in the end.

    The post also proves that many parents are totally irresponsible feeding their kids nothing but rubbish.

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    1. Andrea Harris Avatar
      Andrea Harris

      That’s the natural extrapolation from “black beans cause methane production that causes global warming.” He didn’t say that he’s in favor of global warming, and the tone of his comment was one of disapproval towards black-bean-eating, and using global warming as an example of what supposedly happens due to eating beans means he also thinks global warming is a bad thing. I am not stupid, and neither are you, so don’t play games like this with me.

      As for the racism, when someone says that eating black beans, which is a standard part of the cuisine in Latin America, is bad, he is being defacto racist, because he didn’t say anything about the Boston baked beans, or green beans, or butter beans, or lima beans, or cabbage or broccoli or any of the many, many methane-producing (via flatulence) vegetables white people in the good old US of A eat. He could have just said “beans” are bad — it would still have been stupid, but it wouldn’t have been racist as well. Intent doesn’t matter. It’s not anyone else’s responsibility to figure out the intent of someone else who thoughtlessly uses racist or other -ist analogies in their speech. Yes that means white people need to start speaking more carefully and considerately when they talk in public instead of acting as usual as if they own the whole goddamn world. If you don’t like that, tough shit.

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      1. Andrea Harris Avatar
        Andrea Harris

        Note: my above comment was in reply to David Gendron, not Sarah.

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      2. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        Re-read the first sentence after the title on this very post. It is written “black bean” and there’s a photo with black beans on the left. Charles is referencing only to that.

        Don’t invent racism when this is not the case.

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      3. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        Corrected:

        Re-read the first sentence after the title on this very post. It is written “black bean” on this sentence. Charles is referrencing only to that.

        Don’t invent racism when this is not the case.

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      4. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        So to say that “Boston baked beans are bad” is a anti-White racist comment?

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        1. Andrea Harris Avatar
          Andrea Harris

          There is no such thing as “anti-white racism.” Don’t be disingenuous. (I am not discounting there is anti-white *prejudice” but that has little power. Racism is an institution that favors whites.)

          Anyway, we’re done here. I refuse to discuss anything with people who pull out the cute “anti-white racism” card. You can go ahead and do your “I pwned!” happy dance if you like, that’s what people like you usually do.

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          1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
            bloggerclarissa

            “I refuse to discuss anything with people who pull out the cute “anti-white racism” card. You can go ahead and do your “I pwned!” happy dance if you like, that’s what people like you usually do.”

            – I hope the “anti-white racism” thing was facetious. Surely, nobody can say this seriously.

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  4. cliff arroyo Avatar
    cliff arroyo

    What I get out of this is more helicoptering school officials. Coming up with adult dishes and then becoming frustrated that small children have different tastes.
    At least I thought it was well established that children have (on average) different tastes than adults because they have more and more sensitive taste buds and need more sugars and fats than adults do.

    I think it’s possible to create healthy meals for kids that will still meet their different taste requirements but I don’t think that’s what happened here.

    And I don’t see what’s so great about the top picture. Pretty, but really it’s a hunk of fish with a bunch of garnishes (okay the olives look okay to eat but three measley little olives?)

    As a kid I was exposed to a very wide variety of foods of different qualities and health levels and I liked… what I liked. Some of it healthy (I don’t remember ever not liking vegetables besides okra which was slimy inside) and some of it not (I had a special fondness for spaghetti and meatball sandwiches). I don’t think I would go for either of the two options presented here (as I child I really didn’t like fish though I liked shrimp and lobster just fine and the other looks way too processed though I could eat homemade fried chicken by the coop fulll).

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “Coming up with adult dishes and then becoming frustrated that small children have different tastes.
      At least I thought it was well established that children have (on average) different tastes than adults because they have more and more sensitive taste buds and need more sugars and fats than adults do.”

      – This is completely and utterly wrong. There is no such thing as ‘adult dishes.” These are school-age children, and if they can’t eat normal food, the only people who are to blame are their lazy-ass parents.

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  5. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    Children don’t care about health. They care about taste and fun activities, that could be physical ones that are very good for their health.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “Children don’t care about health.”

      – Instinctively, they do, and a lot more than adults. They just can’t verbalize it. It takes a lot of hard work to get a child to the point where s/he actually picks the goat droppings in the picture.

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  6. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “The reason why kids choose the garbage on the bottom is because their parents are too lazy to make anything good for them”

    I would say this: The reason why kids choose the garbage on the bottom is because their parents are too lazy to make anything tasting good for them.

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  7. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    On this particular case, though, I have never any problem with grilled salmon, even when I was a kid! 🙂

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    1. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      never had

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  8. Andrea Harris Avatar
    Andrea Harris

    If I had been served grilled salmon like that as a kid, I would have liked fish back then and not had to wait until I was an adult to get into it. But my parents had grown up in the American South, where if you can’t bread it and deep fry it it isn’t considered edible. To their credit, they did try to make sure I had a varied diet, and I loved most vegetables. I will say though that what parents feed their kids these days is appalling. I would have spat out those nuggets in disgust, and I hated hot dogs.

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    1. Andrea Harris Avatar
      Andrea Harris

      Something just occurred to me: the act of putting kids at a smaller, separate “children’s table” and feeding them subpar food instead of what all the grownups are eating is just what we do to pets. People more and more are treating their kids the way they treat their dogs — as something to be fed the minimum nutritional requirements, to be relegated to being fobbed off to a corner away from the activity, to be produced when there’s a need to brag that you have something cute to pet, to be paraded about like an object, and to be talked down to in a simplistic tone. In other words, a child is just a primitive, barely living being that is an ornament to an adult’s life, not a person in their own right.

      (Full disclosure: when I was a kid we had a “children’s table” where we sat during holiday dinners, but we ate the same food our parents did.)

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        I don’t support this practice, but I have no problem at all wiith children eating something different (i.e. with a better taste) than parents.

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      2. Andrea Harris Avatar
        Andrea Harris

        The whole thing is that children aren’t eating something “with better taste.” The “kid’s food” they give to kids these days tastes like fried shit. I wouldn’t feed those nuggets to my cat.

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      3. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        “when I was a kid we had a “children’s table” where we sat during holiday dinners, but we ate the same food our parents did”

        That’s what I remember too, not just holidays I often spent the summer in the country where there were massive southern dinners for the extended family every Sunday. Athough some dishes were more popular with adults or children there was no separate kiddie menu or anything like that.

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    2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      ” I will say though that what parents feed their kids these days is appalling. I would have spat out those nuggets in disgust”

      – Exactly! I can only repeat that this idea that children can’t eat anything but junk food is unknown to the rest of the world where kids eat normal food and the end of the world hasn’t arrived yet.

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  9. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    When I was a kid, I didn’t care at all about my health when I ate.

    1) I preferred chicken nuggets to almost all vegetables because for me, almost all vegetables (even tough they’re way more healthy) tasted like crap. My instinct didn’t prevent me to eat like that.

    2) I preferred almost all fruits (which are healthier) than beef, because for me, beef tasted like crap.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “When I was a kid, I didn’t care at all about my health when I ate.”

      – I can only repeat: this is an instinct, an instinct.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        This instinct didn’t prevent me to hate almost all vegetables. It’s different for all.

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  10. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “The whole thing is that children aren’t eating something “with better taste.” The “kid’s food” they give to kids these days tastes like fried shit. I wouldn’t feed those nuggets to my cat.”

    I agree.

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  11. Evelina Anville Avatar
    Evelina Anville

    From Charles Rowley: “School food nazis have no sensitivity so try to force tasteless or even bad tasting food down little throats. They will almost always fail. Thank goodness! Because that is an early lesson in dictatorship!”

    This argument drives me bananas. (And I’ve seen it made by many people. It’s the knee-jerk conservative argument against providing healthy school lunches.) If a school is going to serve lunch (which it should), why is healthy food somehow more dictatorial than unhealthy food? Isn’t it the school’s responsibility to provide healthy food on its own grounds? If we are going to fear governenment, shouldn’t we fear the government subjecting children to unhealthy food?

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    1. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      “If a school is going to serve lunch (which it should), why is healthy food somehow more dictatorial than unhealthy food?”

      This is not what he said. The government should not force children to eat something that tastes like crap.

      ” Isn’t it the school’s responsibility to provide healthy food on its own grounds?”

      Yes, but they don’t care about that. If they had ever care about that, they would not serve prison-hospital-elderly asylum-like crappy tasting food in their fucking mandatory schools.

      “shouldn’t we fear the government subjecting children to unhealthy food?”

      We should fear government subjecting children to eat something that tastes like crap.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        “The government should not force children to eat something that tastes like crap.”

        – So why is nobody protesting the crap nuggets that are being served now?

        ” If they had ever care about that, they would not serve prison-hospital-elderly asylum-like crappy tasting food in their fucking mandatory schools.”

        – The reason why schools serve that is the sick kids parents bring there who have been so mistreated that they can;t process any normal food any longer.

        “We should fear government subjecting children to eat something that tastes like crap.”

        – So why is nobody protesting the crap nuggets that are being served now?

        It would be really great of people managed to leave aside their Daddy issues for a second and discuss the actual subject: FOOD.

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    2. Stringer Bell Avatar
      Stringer Bell

      Evelina, you should know the charlie boy here is a stupid, racist, right-wing troll. Nothing he says is of any value.

      Anyone who equates school lunches with FEDERAL TYRANNY is of the intellectual calibre of a dung beetle.

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  12. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    Don’t forget that this post is about school food, which is almost the worst bad tasting food you could have (even worse than other junk food corporations), no matter of the health level of the menu. I’m sure that their grilled salmon tastes like crap compared to their garbage nuggets.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      On the pictures, the fish looks very eatable. The nuggets of crap look. . .like nuggets of crap that have been dug out of a toilet.

      This isn’t about schools at all. This is about a culture that treats children like subhuman creatures. There is no doubt in my mind that these kids are fed the same kind of shit at home.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        But in the same fucking culture, school food is like HR departments, it tastes almost always like crap.

        I would never eat grilled salmon is a school cafeteria, but if my mother or a good restaurant a even myself do that for me, OMG, what a treat!

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      2. djiril Avatar
        djiril

        The salmon in the picture does look good, and if that is an actual picture of what the kids got, then that is the fanciest cafeteria I’ve seen in my life. I suspect it’s a stock photo.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “The salmon in the picture does look good, and if that is an actual picture of what the kids got, then that is the fanciest cafeteria I’ve seen in my life. I suspect it’s a stock photo.”

          – I also thought it’s too good to be true.

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      3. Lucinde Avatar
        Lucinde

        The salmon picture in your post is just a mere phantasy. Hell, even the nuggets look better than in the school lunch.

        This is what my son said this week about school lunches (and he is in the 4th grade): “Whatever they write on the menu always sounds good, but when it comes to the real life, whatever serve at school is crap. The broccoli are limp, the fruit tastes old, and the meat, pasta and potatoes taste like cardboard”.

        The school lunch in my district is $2.50. You can imagine the quality you get for this kind of money. Everything is probably the cheapest, the most chemically and genetically modified, and your salmon picture is just as far from reality as Patagonia is from Siberia.

        And the people who scream that the government is responsible for bad lunches are just amusing. Just pack your child’s lunch and keep the government out of it.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “And the people who scream that the government is responsible for bad lunches are just amusing. Just pack your child’s lunch and keep the government out of it.”

          – I couldn’t agree more! Great comment.

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  13. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Just to clarify. I used the example of black beans because that was the example in Clarissa’s initial blog. Any bean would have the same effect. Beef eaters surely do encourage global warming because cows emit an enormous amount of methane gas – because they are vegetarian I suppose.

    I am not racist. It is very important to distinguish between statements of fact: ‘black beans cause methane gas’ and normative statements ‘Latin Americans are bad for the world because they eat black beans’.

    I find Latin Americans to be among the best people that I know. They are almost always smiling, courteous and hard-working. I am sure that there are some who are not, just as there are some whites, yellows, browns and blacks who are great and some who are not.

    I am not disturbed by incorrect interpretations because my conscience is clear.

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  14. Evelina Anville Avatar
    Evelina Anville

    “We should fear government subjecting children to eat something that tastes like crap.”

    Why? As long as the food isn’t rotten, I don’t think the school is responsible for the taste. Schools aren’t restaurants. I think schools have a responsibility to serve healthy food–but not tasty food. Bland food won’t hurt anybody–fried food will.

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  15. Wirbelwind Avatar
    Wirbelwind

    What !? They don’t want to eat a grilled salmon ? Jesus, I would kill for it in the 90’s.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Imagine getting such a beautiful plate somewhere around 1992. . .

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        But because it’s in a school, even grilled salmon would tastes like crap.

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      2. Wirbelwind Avatar
        Wirbelwind

        Potatoes with buttermilk made in school taste like crap. Not a salmon.

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  16. Rob F Avatar
    Rob F

    Shit food is often cheaper than good food for a couple of reasons, including:

    (1) Agricultural subsidies, which we should eliminate.
    (2) Economies of scale, which reduce the per-unit fixed costs of fast food and the like.
    (3) In a few cases, the unhealthier food is cheaper or than the unprocessed food. For example, white flour, since it has fewer oils and proteins compared to whole grain flour, is far less likely to spoil. This makes it cheaper in the long run. (FWIW, white flour is far better for you than fast food.)

    It’s for reasons like this that I support a fat tax and a sugar tax. It will raise the prices (on fast food and soda pop in particular) so they are more expensive, reducing consumption. Merely banning those items from schools will be ineffective, as it won’t prevent parents from buying it for their kids, or from children buying it elsewhere for themselves. The fat/sugar taxes I proposed work, no matter who is doing the buying and where they’re buying it.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “Merely banning those items from schools will be ineffective, as it won’t prevent parents from buying it for their kids, or from children buying it elsewhere for themselves”

      – I agree. This is why I’m saying that this is not about schools at all. This is about irresponsible, lazy parents.

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    2. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      Thank you Rob F to replace this debate on more serious grounds. Even though I’m against taxes, I would have not much of a problem with a processed sugar tax. I prefer processed sugar tax than fat tax because processes sugar is unhealthier than saturated fat.

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  17. el Avatar
    el

    I started thinking about school cafeteria food in FSU. During 1st year I still ate there for free with other low grades students. Don’t remember how good the food was, but I guess it was normal. Do have a memory of one particularly tasty fruit compot. 🙂 Have you enjoyed school food there?

    Once was at children’s hospital in Ukraine, and we, young ill children, got fried fish. Also tasty.

    Of course, those were times before fast food, so all food at home & at school was prepared from scratch. And during my school years in the 90ies most children were very poor, and sometimes even hungry. But I bet eating only normal food at home was enough to make them happy with school food.

    I tasted chicken nuggets, and they do taste very badly. But I am unsure “Homemade Black Bean Veggie Burgers” are tasty either, and don’t like fish. Googled burgers and they don’t look attractive. Were things like chicken breast or shashlik offered too?

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “Have you enjoyed school food there?”

      – In spite of working and making money from quite an early age, I was never given a kopeck in allowance until the day I got married and left home. So I have no idea whether I would have liked that school food. I also was not given food to bring to school from home and almost never was given breakfast. I still have no idea what people are supposed to eat for breakfast and never feel hungry before 3 pm (which is the time when the school day was over and I had the first chance to eat all day.) 🙂 🙂

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      1. el Avatar
        el

        // I was never given a kopeck in allowance until the day I got married and left home

        What happened to money you earned? All went to your parents?

        Even in the 90ies, food for low grades was for free. I thought since you were in 1st grade before me, it had to be free to you too.

        // I also was not given food to bring to school from home and almost never was given breakfast.

        Why? I can’t imagine being hungry till 3 pm from 1st grade.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “All went to your parents?”

          – Of course.

          “Why? I can’t imagine being hungry till 3 pm from 1st grade.”

          – Nobody cared. And yes, it was no fun at all. When I got married and could control my own food, I cannot tell you the joy I experienced. I practically lived by the refrigerator. Just knowing I could eat wherever I was hungry. . . oh, that was joyful. I’m still not completely over this happiness. 🙂

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        2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “Even in the 90ies, food for low grades was for free. I thought since you were in 1st grade before me, it had to be free to you too.”

          – You still had to sign the kid up for that program, and that was an effort.

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      2. el Avatar
        el

        // Nobody cared. And yes, it was no fun at all. … Just knowing I could eat wherever I was hungry. . . oh, that was joyful.
        // – You still had to sign the kid up for that program, and that was an effort.

        I would have asked parents in your place. Forcefully.

        I am shocked since your parents invested a lot into your education f.e., but here you tell of things which sound abusive. “that was an effort” – big effort? Or a small hungry child not worth a token effort?

        Well, I suppose, families are different and things that are considered fine vs abuse are different too. In my family my grandmother was always cooking, feeding people. My mother too paid attention to children eating well. Even now sometimes 🙂

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “I would have asked parents in your place. Forcefully.”

          – My friend, I only wish I grew up in a situation where I felt I could ask anything, forcefully or not. But that is not how it was. I was terrified to mention I was hungry, or needed underwear, or couldn’t bear walking in shoes that were 3 sizes too small, or needed tampons, etc.

          “I am shocked since your parents invested a lot into your education ”

          – “Invested” sounds like you are referring to a financial investment and that never happened.

          ““that was an effort” – big effort? Or a small hungry child not worth a token effort?”

          – I’m not justifying this or anything. I grew up in a very. . . strange situation (to put it mildly). Why do you think I’m in psychoanalysis now?

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      3. el Avatar
        el

        Want to fix the mistake: my mother says the food did cost money, only milk was free in her childhood. In my 1st grade it was subsidized for low grades, but probably not free.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          I honestly have no idea. I just know I never got any. 🙂

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          1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
            bloggerclarissa

            This discussion brought back many memories. Especially the part about investing into education.

            In a huge 4-room apartment that was repaired to the tune of 14,000 roubles (ask your mother how much money that was in 1988), I never a had a desk. I had to do my homework while sitting on the floor and putting the books and notebooks on the bed.

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  18. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “There is no such thing as “anti-white racism.” Don’t be disingenuous. (I am not discounting there is anti-white *prejudice” but that has little power. Racism is an institution that favors whites.)”

    Somebody who says that Blacks are inferior people is racist. Therefore, somebody (I know that it would almost never occur, but this is an example) who says that Whites are inferior people is racist.

    You think that someone who says that “black beans are bad for the environment” is racist. Therefore, you think that someone who says that “Boston baked beans are bad for the environment” is racist.

    That what YOU say, not me.

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    1. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      Anti-White racism is way less prevalent and way less violent that anti-black racism, obviously. But anti-White racism exists. One example? Blacks stalinly voting for Mediocrats election after election, like the anti-Québécois liberal vote for the anglophones in Québec. And you know what? That kind of racism is not a big deal for me.

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  19. el Avatar
    el

    Now started thinking what could be attractive to kids, even if probably not dietitian-approved 100%. Almost anything is better than being stuck with hot dogs. May be the school dietitian went too far with fancy and healthy food. “Fancy” since children, who never eat fish at home, won’t buy strange to them salmon. One won’t move from junk food to healthy salads in 1 step, especially children. So, I will write what I think kids would buy and what not (which is the same I would/not with the mentioned foods).

    NOT BUY:
    vegetarian burger
    salads
    salmon

    BUY:
    Thai Noodles with Chickens (and other kinds of thai food)
    shashlik
    Shawarma (“meats are placed on a spit, and may be grilled for as long as a day. Shavings are cut off the block of meat for serving, and the remainder of the block of meat is kept heated on the rotating spit”)

    Why not offer Thai food? It looks interesting, has great taste and Noodles with Chickens are less exotic than salmon.

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    1. David Gendron Avatar
      David Gendron

      You’re a racist against non-thaï people. This is disgusting! 😉

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    2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “Why not offer Thai food?”

      – Many people are allergic.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        Absolutely. And this is not racist.

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      2. el Avatar
        el

        To what? To noodles / chicken? If they are allergic to a specific ingredient, it could be taken out, and other tasty addings left. There is huge variety to choose from.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          I don’t know, I wouldn’t eat it to save my life. 🙂 But I heard it’s highly allergenic. Is it because of peanut butter? Does anybody know?

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      3. el Avatar
        el

        //I don’t know, I wouldn’t eat it to save my life. But I heard it’s highly allergenic. Is it because of peanut butter? Does anybody know?

        I ate so far once in my life in Thai place (called Thai, but all workers there are Jewish, may be in US it’s different Thai) in Israel, and it was very tasty with zero peanut butter. May be it wasn’t “real” Thai food, and we talk of different things completely.

        Why wouldn’t you touch it? It was noodles, chicken and a bit vegetables OR rice + chicken + some vegetables. Not spicy even.
        Look:

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          “Why wouldn’t you touch it? It was noodles, chicken and a bit vegetables OR rice + chicken + some vegetables. Not spicy even.”

          – It looks very scary. In New Haven, we had nothing but Thai restaurants. So I went into one of them once and then had to run out gagging. The look and teh smell were intolerable.

          The only thing worse is Vietnamese food.

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      4. Rob F Avatar
        Rob F

        Actually, Thai and Vietnamese cuisine are among the healthiest ethnic cuisines. I do understand the reaction people have to trying new foods.

        According to the CNN article, Greek food is the healthiest ethnic cuisine. Vietnamese is 3rd, and Thai 10th.

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          I LOVE Greek food.

          But Thai and Vietnamese are not for me at all. I also don’t understand Chinese food but there is a probability I never had really good Chinese. At least, looking at it doesn’t make me gag, so that’s a good sign.

          Autistic people have very complicated relationships with food.

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      5. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        I love Thai and Vietnamese food (I even came to love fish sauce though I almost wretched the first time I had it). I especially like fresh herbs that are a big part of both which make them lighter than Chinese which tends to be heavy for me..

        If there’s a type of national food I dislike it’s probably British (always insipid, disgusting or with a nasty aftertaste, yech). I also never got French food (but have probably never had properly made French cuisine).

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        1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
          bloggerclarissa

          Yes, British food is very sad. Although, there are rare spots of joy. I recently made shepherd’s pie and it was delicious. Of course, I changed the original recipe completely. 🙂

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  20. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    Issues non covered by this discussion:

    1) Physical activity: even more important than food for the health.

    2) The “no breakfast” issue. Kids who don’t eat at breakfast, which is even more problematic than to eat nuggets at noon.

    3) Too much emphasis on the bad fat, not enough on moderating carbs.

    4) Subsidizing of meat and big agriculture, at the deterrent of grassroot and vegan agriculture.

    5) Violations of possession rights in Amazonia an other poor countries, that beneficiate for fast-foods.

    6) Osteoporosis more prevalent when a country drink too much cow milk (which is highly subsidized).

    7) Monsanto’s mob.

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    1. Rob F Avatar
      Rob F

      Farm flatulence (mainly from ruminants) is also a major producer of greenhouse gases, especially methane. Most people in the western world eat too much meat. The impact of all this meat is greater than food transportation in most counts.

      And sedentaryness from too much driving and a lack of physical activity is also important. There’s a reason why people in exurbs and suburbs are less healthy than those in cities.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        “And sedentaryness from too much driving and a lack of physical activity is also important. There’s a reason why people in exurbs and suburbs are less healthy than those in cities.”

        – This is like pouring salt on my wounds because it is such a sore topic. Especially, at this particular moment in my life.

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  21. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    8) Cars

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  22. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “The only thing worse is Vietnamese food.”

    Andrea Harris will be mad at you, disgusting racist! 😉

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  23. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “Autistic people have very complicated relationships with food.”

    And this one of my main problems in my life.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I have a massive freak out when I just see cooked onions, for example. Brrr. . .

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      1. cliff arroyo Avatar
        cliff arroyo

        Aren’t onions browned in sunflower oil often used as a spice in Ukrainian cuisine? I love the taste of them dribbled over pierogies but it makes the kitchen stinky.

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  24. David Gendron Avatar
    David Gendron

    “According to the CNN article, Greek food is the healthiest ethnic cuisine. Vietnamese is 3rd, and Thai 10th.”

    Comparing food between ethnies. What a disgusting racist behavior! 😉

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Race and ethnicity are completely different things. You and I are from different ethnicities but from the same race.

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      1. David Gendron Avatar
        David Gendron

        Absolutely.

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    2. Ol. Avatar
      Ol.

      Greek food. Absolutely. Lots of vegetables and not a lot of meet.

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      1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        A lot of meat, a lot of meat! 🙂 🙂

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  25. Ol. Avatar
    Ol.

    @Clarissa “- It looks very scary. In New Haven, we had nothing but Thai restaurants. So I went into one of them once and then had to run out gagging. The look and teh smell were intolerable.

    The only thing worse is Vietnamese food.”

    What?!?!? I guess you do not like the smell of fish sauce.

    I understand the New Haven trauma better than anyone else, but Thai and Vietnamese foods are absolutely delicious. In fact, I could eat in Vietnamese and Thai restaurants three times a day seven days a week for the rest of my life and be the happiest man on earth.

    ***
    I am very lucky that my son eats everything, from shrimps to cauliflower to tofu to arugula. One thing I am puzzled about is his sudden love for ketchup. We do not eat ketchup at home. Daycare perhaps?

    And yes, the idea of a kid’s menu is ridiculous.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      “I understand the New Haven trauma better than anyone else, but Thai and Vietnamese foods are absolutely delicious. ”

      – Autism makes me see this food like creepy crawley worms who try to attack me. Or maggots about to hatch. 🙂

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  26. Ol. Avatar
    Ol.

    You have a very fertile imagination, my friend!

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