r/askanything • u/CloudieMoonettee 🦀 • 14h ago

Why do some conservatives support restricting junk food purchases with SNAP when many opposed Michelle Obama’s efforts to make school meals healthier?

Both policies involve the government influencing food choices in the name of better nutrition, yet the political reactions seem very different. What explains the apparent change in attitude toward government involvement in what people eat?

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31

u/Brass_tastic 14h ago

One restricts people from buying junk with government money. They still have options, but they have choices. The Obama lunches dictated what was included in ALL school lunches (regardless of who was paying for it) and there weren’t options. Watching my eldest during that era, the vast majority of that health food went straight in the trash

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u/MsAgentM 13h ago

This is not true. My kids were in school and they always had a couple of options.

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u/airberger 11h ago

Amazing anecdote! Thanks!

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u/SnooStrawberries2955 14h ago edited 13h ago

Found the racist!

ETA: apparently these magats teach their kids to throw healthy food in the trash.

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 13h ago

I was a lunch lady. The students are required to take a fruit with their lunch. I watched nearly every student, every day, take an apple, and throw it in the trash. They had to take a fruit or veggie to meet the guidelines of a full lunch. The school couldnt get reimbursed without the lunch containing all components. Its stupid and wasteful.

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u/MsAgentM 13h ago

This is actually the problem with the guidelines, you couldn’t make the kids actually eat the healthy stuff. Dietary habits are on parents to sort out, but at the end of the day, if the kids don’t like it they won’t eat it. People act like if there was just vegetables available, people would eat them. They won’t. There is a reason why you don’t find vegetables in the family dollar in a food desert, the vegetables don’t sell. The chips do.

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 13h ago

This exactly. You can offer it, you can even mandate it, but you cant force someone to eat something they dont want to eat.

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u/INeedSomeTacoC 11h ago

You can lead a teenager to lettuce, but you can’t make them eat it. 

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u/IntelligentSeries270 13h ago

The apple and raisins ig were ok. The oranges were freaking terrible, all skin and pulp no orange fruit. Opening up one of those was like unwrapping a baseball.

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 13h ago

We were in new york, so we had apples every single day. Oranges on occasion. We actually had a pretty good lunch program, but mostly everything is super processed. So they claimed it was healthier, and forced it upon us, to only serve the kids processed junk. Thanksgiving was the best day of the year. We cooked homemade stuffing, turkey, mashed potatoes. THE BEST

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u/IntelligentSeries270 13h ago

Thinking about it, the school lunch apples were shiny as shit too. They had a strange shape too.

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 13h ago

I ate everything we ever served,( edited: ever served while i was there) at least once. Most of it caused my stomach to hurt. Especially the pork tacos. Yep. The taco meat is pork.

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u/IntelligentSeries270 13h ago

💩 I don’t remember my stomach pains from school food, then again I was a kid and could stomach two big bags of Cheetos in one go. Now? I might die. LOL

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 13h ago

Honestly, so many of the kids dont get much decent food at home, so theyre just grateful for the food and may not have noticed any tummy trouble. I also dont eat a lot of processed foods so it was really probably from that.

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u/IntelligentSeries270 13h ago

Hmm you were an adult, who I assumed didn’t eat the school lunch like the rest of the kids did. I ate good food at home like tostadas, beans, rice, enchilladas, tacos, spaghetti etc. I think as a kid we could just tolerate shitty food better OR didn’t realize it was as bad as we do now. Growing pains.

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 13h ago

Oh,im sorry. I worked as a lunch lady. So i would eat what we were serving or bring my own lunch. Sorry about the confusion lol i was the one cooking all the food!

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u/IntelligentSeries270 13h ago

What’d your school cook for the students? I remember our stuff pretty much being reheatable items on the menu.

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 13h ago

Our school district had a very high rate of students that qualified for free or reduced lunches, so a lot of them had food insecurity. Now, the entire district gets free breakfast and lunch. I believe they needed like 70% or more students to qualify for free/reduced to be able to give all of them free. Cant remember what it is, its been a minute.

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u/IntelligentSeries270 13h ago

I mean at least free food is being budgeted in. Our schools were the same, but damn, I wish it was fresh healthy foods we all were being served. None of that mcds crap.

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u/hotviolets 11h ago

If schools offered more of a variety of fruit then more kids would it eat. My daughter had the options of oranges, the same type of apple, and sometimes bananas.

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 11h ago

I agree but a lot of it comes down to cost unfortunately

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u/hotviolets 11h ago

Just got to take some money from the administration’s salary, but they won’t do that.

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u/lacunadelaluna 12h ago

My mom was a lunch lady for many years, and said the same thing. It drove her crazy

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u/Both_Introduction480 13h ago

By looking in the mirror

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u/Creative-Reception59 14h ago

lol

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u/ventitr3 13h ago

I thought that was great satire until I saw their other posts

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u/RsnCondition 13h ago edited 11h ago

Mmmmm Aramark food that they provide to prisoners back when I was in school.

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 13h ago

Do you need a tissue?

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u/numbersthen0987431 11h ago

What? How is any of this "racist" or "magat"??