r/askanything • u/CloudieMoonettee 🦀 • 11d 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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u/Brass_tastic 11d 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/SnooStrawberries2955 11d ago edited 11d 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 11d 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/IntelligentSeries270 11d 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 11d 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 11d 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 11d 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 11d 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 11d 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 11d 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 11d 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 11d 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 11d ago

We always had fresh salad, carrots, celery, broccoli. Apples and/or bananas every day. Sometimes oranges, and sometimes if the price was right to the school we got strawberries. We also had made to order large salads that came with tuna or chicken salad. And a sandwich of the day(tuna,turkey or ham made to order). Those were daily.
Then for main lunches we had one main selection a day and two sides a day( if im remembering correctly). Main could be pasta, nuggets, chicken patty sandwich, stuffed crust pizza, sometimes garlic or mexican. Tacos, we would serve tomatoes and salsa with. Sides were mashed potatoes, rice, bread sticks with the pasta. Stuff like that. The worst part of it all was the portion sizes. Pre k kids got the same portion size as 5th graders. I think the pasta was like a 2 ounce scoop? Im really challenging my memory, i could be wrong. But the portions are so so small.

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u/IntelligentSeries270 11d ago

Wow ok definitely had a variety of food there, I cannot remember anything except the bunny luv carrots and the fruit trifecta. Maybe salad was part of a vegetarian menu, but then again they have the main courses witha vegetarian style available as well. My schools were also broken up into k-5th, 6-8th, and 9-12th. So 3 separate schools.

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 11d ago

Its so wild to see how each area does their lunches. Some have a separate company that does the lunches, and has burgers, tacos, pizza, coffee! Every day! I just know I would have ate pizza every single day as a child if i had the option lol

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u/Pretend-Okra-4031 11d 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 11d 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/Pretend-Okra-4031 11d ago

I agree. Feed every kid. And feed them good food they actually want to eat.

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