You May Lose Your Right to Pizza

[ionbasa]

In regards to school lunch programs:
 
Don't know what you guys are getting your panties in a bunch for no reason.
This is actually a good thing. Let me elaborate:
 
In fall of 2015 I will start my third year at college in working towards my Mechanical Engineering degree. That being said, I was a high school student 3 years ago. And let me tell you, the school lunch program is utter shit (even in California).
 
First of all the school lunch program was meant to cost about 1 dollar per student without the cost of labor and transit up until a few years ago. Since then the cost per student has increased by about 15 cents (i kid you not). We can't feed people (much less children, adolescents, and teens) sub par food on a daily basis and expect them to deviate from what they are used to eating. Items like pizzas, cheese burgers, and burritos cost the least to produce in a cafeteria setting. So naturally, these food items tend to make their way on lunch programs due to their relatively low cost and ease in preparation.
 
Now, as a former high school student, my colleagues and myself pretty much all loathed pizza and burgers. They was sub par quality, greasy, tasted nasty, and felt like biting into cardboard (and tasted like it too). The limited healthy options available at the cafeteria included: salad (chicken or normal), turkey sandwiches (which actually had lettuce and tomato slices), crackers and yogurt, and fish sandwiches. Now that may seem like a long list of healthy items, but kids would literally try to get to the lunch lines as fast as possible to obtain the good food since it was of limited quantity. People would get so disappointed when the only thing left was pizza and burgers that they would eat it out of necessity. How is that being responsible? Letting students eat crap food that doesn't taste good and isn't a nutritious lunch? It isn't!
 
As you might be able to tell, I'm for banning pizza in school lunches, but I have more to this story to tell:
 
In the first two years of my high school career, the cafe actually had good food available that was catered from local businesses and fruits from local citrus farms. Students had a wide variety of food to choose from and nobody was complaining about the quality of the food, the portion size or the nutritional content. We had fruit salads available and even juice available in vending machines/cafe. But alas, that proved to costly and eventually the quality of the food also decrease when these were replaced with the cheap processed foods mentioned earlier in my post.
By the way: I ended up bringing my own lunch to school 85% of the time.
 
 
I would rather pizza be banned and try to keep adolescents relatively healthy rather than keeping it on the menus. Now I want to rebuttal some of the arguments made in this thread and comment, add, and converse with you guys:

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Students are going to loose the right to eat pizza and:

People have a right to be as unhealthy as they want, end of story.

Not school students. Students are considered a ward of the state during school hours. Look up the phrase "In loco parentis". Basically, the school acts as a parent. So if the school decides to cut pizza and implement healthier entries, tough luck, the students never had the right to pizza in the first place .
 
This seems a tad bit harsh/unfair of an argument, but legally is 'correct' as far as I know.
 

How about they actually give school more of a budget. Maybe that is a fucking good start..instead of nagging " Oh my kids eat pizza and burgers " Well no shit, its called a goddamn budget. School's don't have alot of money, that's for damn sure, I know for a fact my school is completely piss poor, we sometimes, have leaky toilets that constantly leak water when flushed....

Agreed. But, it isn't always about the budget. There are healthy alternatives that taste good and are relatively cheap to implement. one example can include pasta. There are tons of entries that can be made with pasta, everything from lasagna to noodle soup.

But it isn't just about the budget. Its about how children are tough to eat from a relatively young age. We expose them to 'junk food' as early as elementary school and the habit sticks with them throughout their lives. I've seen it first hand. Its a mental and learned behavior problem as much as it is a budget problem. The increased amount of processed foods in our diet isn't helping either. At the university campus I attend, we have a campus farm. We have animals (livestock), gardens, a faculty (student+staff) run farmers market, and a college of agriculture run market. Staff and students actually work together to organize grills, get togethers, and cooking sessions were we all hang out and have a good time (we have a brewery on campus now   also (yes this is a public institution)). The cafe uses a lot of the fresh produce farmed on the campus and it doesn't cost a whole lot either. The fact that I can get scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast, and enjoy lunch with faculty, students and staff is the way the system should work. Unfortunately, this requires a lot of work and effort, so most public high schools won't implement this strategy. I bring this up to demonstrate the difference in mentality amongst students. A high schooler would most likely want fast/junk food as they've been trained to crave it over healthier options. On the other hand, I don't know of any student at my college who would choose fast/junk food over the community grill and garden fresh produce. 

 

I also saw someone mention pizza is healthy on page two of the thread, but couldn't be bothered to quote them as my post is already getting fairly lengthy.

I just wanted to say, that that is actually fairly wrong. Does anyone even know how much of cheese (% wise) is carbs/protein/fat? Go look it up. its not pretty. For Mozzarella, its 65% fat per gram of caloric intake. 

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TL;DR:

School lunch is joke. Basically, its better to eat wholesome food that tastes good rather than pizza. Bring your own lunch from home if you want something that tastes good and isn't all processed food. It isn't all budget issues, but also due to a behavioral problem.

[RyomaSJibenG]

Food in the US is unbelievably cheap, and the portions are fucking insane. I think if they want to address the obesity issue, they could do with looking into their portion sizes. I'm not joking when I say that we bought bags of food in the US that said something like 'serves 4' would be good enough for 10 servings.

 

well dayum

[as96]

 

-1x-1.jpg

Real pizza doesn't have that many calories, just to let you know 

[ObeseWalrus]

Or what you COULD do is make proper pizza with healthy ingredients...

[Ruostunut kokis]

If it's just about school lunch pizza, why so serious (and also, change the title)? At least in here we have never had pizza as school lunch, because it's more expensive than ~1€ /per student lunch budget goes... The lunch is cheap, but the food is also actually edible and meant to be healthy. Although I gotta admit, I have been buying some snacks lately instead of going to the lunch that doesn't cost me a single cent, but if I didn't, then I'd say we get adequate lunch. Dunno about US, though... They might need to invest more in that front, but with what funding?

 

On school lunch that they have brought by themselves... I'd say whether it's healthy or not, it should be allowed, including pizza in this case. Their health is their choice, but it would be wise to make them learn about the benefits of healthy food early in life, earlier the better. And I know this might not necessarily work in US (especially in families with low income)...

[Sauron]

if you had real Italian pizza that wouldn't be a problem ^^

[RatedBlam]

Pizza in schools. Amazing.

Here we get potatoes and meat, rice and chicken and sometimes fish.

And a it's about 80 eurocents per meal.

[Ruostunut kokis]

Pizza in schools. Amazing.

Here we get potatoes and meat, rice and chicken and sometimes fish.

And a it's about 80 eurocents per meal.

Add knäckebröd (crisp bread) and the set is complete.

[RatedBlam]

Add knäckebröd (crisp bread) and the set is complete.

Can't forget those. Round ones ftw.

Luckily we get the 1% fat milk.

[JTB123]

OP image really made me want Pizza, dayum!

 

I remember when I was in school (UK) pizza was a very common thing on the "menu", I read something not too long ago about what current meals are like here and they're no better than when I went to school. It's really bad when you see what it's like around the world too, UK in particular really needs to step it up. We even had food/cooking classes when I was in school and looking back they didn't teach you anything useful, would be a good idea to introduce some healthy recipes into these, the idea that all healthy food isn't tasty is total bollocks but it's such a common opinion it's often mistaken for fact. 

[as96]

In Italy we eat a whole pizza and it's around 800 calories, so if 2 slices of yours are the same as a whole pizza you are probably doing something wrong 

Even people who are following diets to lose weight are allowed to eat a pizza once a week.

[JAKEBAB]

Personally think this is good, you should not be eating pizza everyday, especially as a kid. In my schools the worst in my Primary school was chicken nuggets, hashbrowns and chicken chippies. Keep in mind me and my friends would only have 3 of each and only on fridays and in College(high school) chicken bugers, potato,cheese and bacon pies and pizza pockets. So America is pretty bad in this aspect sure if your a parent and want to feed your child pizza go ahead but schools shouldn't be doing this.

 

P.S I love Pizza.

[LAwLz]

As a swede, who grew up with being served one (or sometimes two) dishes in the school cafeteria, this entire thread is really bizarre to me.

 

OP is very very sensationalistic, lots of people are just attacking it because it's coming from Michelle Obama, and I am fairly sure a marge portions of this thread are too lazy to even read the article.

They are not trying to get pizza banned entirely. They are trying to get it taken out of the school cafeterias. The school should not be serving children such unhealthy foods. At my elementary school we had 1 person that was obese. In the US the same school would have over 30 (statistically speaking). That should be very alarming to people, and yet here we are with a bunch of people shouting "don't take the pizza away from my children!".

 

Children are idiots. If they were to choose between meatballs and pizza, of course they will choose pizza. Pizza tastes great. The school has a responsibility to teach children about diet and health as well, and feeding the children pizza is doing the exact opposite of that.

 

 

@Jaybird could you please change the title? Not only is it misspelled but it seems like it is misleading a lot of people as well.

[as96]

As a swede, who grew up with being served one (or sometimes two) dishes in the school cafeteria, this entire thread is really bizarre to me.

 

OP is very very sensationalistic, lots of people are just attacking it because it's coming from Michelle Obama, and I am fairly sure a marge portions of this thread are too lazy to even read the article.

They are not trying to get pizza banned entirely. They are trying to get it taken out of the school cafeterias. The school should not be serving children such unhealthy foods. At my elementary school we had 1 person that was obese. In the US the same school would have over 30 (statistically speaking). That should be very alarming to people, and yet here we are with a bunch of people shouting "don't take the pizza away from my children!".

 

Children are idiots. If they were to choose between meatballs and pizza, of course they will choose pizza. Pizza tastes great. The school has a responsibility to teach children about diet and health as well, and feeding the children pizza is doing the exact opposite of that.

If their breakfast looks even close to this:

that fake pizza is the last thing they have to worry about to fix obesity problems, and they are right anyway, even real pizza should not be eaten every day.

[Aphexx]

OP is very very sensationalistic, lots of people are just attacking it because it's coming from Michelle Obama, and I am fairly sure a marge portions of this thread are too lazy to even read the article.

They are not trying to get pizza banned entirely. They are trying to get it taken out of the school cafeterias. The school should not be serving children such unhealthy foods. At my elementary school we had 1 person that was obese. In the US the same school would have over 30 (statistically speaking). That should be very alarming to people, and yet here we are with a bunch of people shouting "don't take the pizza away from my children!".

 

Children are idiots. If they were to choose between meatballs and pizza, of course they will choose pizza. Pizza tastes great. The school has a responsibility to teach children about diet and health as well, and feeding the children pizza is doing the exact opposite of that.

 

the most accurate analysis of this thread and OP yet. but being sensationalist is part of growing up and being exposed to the right wing press.

 

the best and most well thought out response in this thread which also is the longest response gets 0 quotes and 0 likes totally TLDR'd well I'm going to fix that now and hit it with a like

[vt3c]

I agree that Pizza Hut is oily . Although i never liked papa johns, It's been a while since i've had them though.

I live next to a ton of nice pizza places up here. Really local, too. 

Best pizza is local pizza. It's 10/10 especially with bacon, onions, and pepperoni.

[Nup]

Well this is a next level of silly... 

[seabass9990]

#Canada #Newlandofthefree

[Slash003]

i will eat whatever goddamn thing i want to. they wont control that

[SeriouslyMikey]

But America cant make pizzas correctly anyway.

[vt3c]

That's right, lets starve more children who would rather eat junk than "healthy" food. 

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/mar/6/1m-kids-stop-school-lunch-due-michelle-obamas-stan/?page=all

 

People have a right to be as unhealthy as they want, end of story. The only argument against it is when you make EVERYONE way for healthcare (so called "Free healthcare"). Yes, it may be unhealthy, but guess what, that's not anyone's f**king business.

 

 

As a former Domino's delivery driver, my rage requires me to inform you that the "30 minutes or free" thing has been gone for a LONG time. Ever since a delivery driver ran into a minivan and killed a few people because Domino's was taking the price of free pizza's out of the driver's pockets, and then the father/husband of the woman and children killed, along with the driver, sued the ever loving F**K out of domino's.

 

No anger at you, more of a "psychotic rage against people who used to try and get that shit past me". *vein on forehead explodes*. And a hope that anyone who reads this won't do it to their delivery driver.

 

Tip your driver, they are overworked to shit, not compensated for gas or maintenance, and they are also the people who top your pizza's, answer the phones, and clean the entire F**KING STORE.

 

*takes a break to relieve anger* I guess you could say I have vietnam style flashbacks about when I was a delivery driver. If I ever have children, I will go bankrupt to no end, before letting them deliver pizza.

Jeez, welcome to today's high schools. 

I have the legal right to say that, on most days, the food here sucks. 

Except for thursday nacho bar. Holy crap that's good food.

[RatedBlam]

As a swede, who grew up with being served one (or sometimes two) dishes in the school cafeteria, this entire thread is really bizarre to me.

 

OP is very very sensationalistic, lots of people are just attacking it because it's coming from Michelle Obama, and I am fairly sure a marge portions of this thread are too lazy to even read the article.

They are not trying to get pizza banned entirely. They are trying to get it taken out of the school cafeterias. The school should not be serving children such unhealthy foods. At my elementary school we had 1 person that was obese. In the US the same school would have over 30 (statistically speaking). That should be very alarming to people, and yet here we are with a bunch of people shouting "don't take the pizza away from my children!".

 

Children are idiots. If they were to choose between meatballs and pizza, of course they will choose pizza. Pizza tastes great. The school has a responsibility to teach children about diet and health as well, and feeding the children pizza is doing the exact opposite of that.

 

 

@Jaybird could you please change the title? Not only is it misspelled but it seems like it is misleading a lot of people as well.

I have to agree. Living in a country where it's a norm that school serves food and almost everybody eats it changes perspective on this.

The food is cheap, under 1 euro a meal, but its' all you can eat. It's a treat to get tortillas once a year. Mostly it's just regular food you'd eat at home.

[Maslofski]

its 5% lower on cholesterol so stop arguing against pizza!

[Slash003]

I'll make my own pizza like @DEcobra11 said. But I would fly to sicily to have their pizzas. It's gud.

[Jaybird]

@Jaybird could you please change the title? Not only is it misspelled but it seems like it is misleading a lot of people as well.

spelling was never my forte