In my country, there’s no US style cafeteria (instead it’s a canteen where it’s up to the student if they want to buy anything) some bring their own lunches (home or leftovers) to school, so why do American kids rely on cafeteria food instead of bringing their own?
I mean, is cafeteria food across American schools that bad? It depends on where one resides or if they attend a public or private school. In my case I went to a private (Catholic) high school and the food there is actually good (& cheap when converted to USD).
Most kids still pay for the shitty standard cafeteria lunch tray…
Sometimes in later in like highschool they’re given more options. But it’s pretty much comes down to capitalism.
The vast amount of parents won’t pack a lunch and will never even see the quality of food.
What’s fucked up is healthy food is actually insanely cheap at that scale and dependable need. We’d spend just as much feeding kids a healthy high protein/fiber low sugar/fat meal as we do giving them ultra processed garbage.
There just would be profit margins for contracting companies if we did that
Likeost things in America, no system is designed to be the best or most efficient at anything other than making money. Anything that doesn’t make money, the wealthy are constantly trying to privatize.
That’s the whole “late stage capitalism” thing people always say.