[Sixstrings]

PORTSMOUTH, Va. – That’s not really a fish filet with a whole wheat bun resting on top.

Nah, your eyes are playing tricks on you.

That’s what administrators at Virginia’s Portsmouth Public Schools want parents to believe after a mother took a photo of her child’s paltry school lunch and posted it on social media.

The mom says James Hurst Elementary served the lunch Tuesday.

After the photo began circulating around the community, Food Service Coordinator Jim Gehlhoff admitted the lunch “concerns us,” but added that it might not actually be as bad as it looks.

portsmouth-lunch“Poor lighting and food presentation make this lunch unappealing,” he said in a statement released to the media.

He says it’s in compliance with the federal lunch rules championed by First Lady Michelle Obama.

“The meal in this photo and other meals served by Portsmouth Public Schools meet nutritional and USDA requirements,” according to the food service coordinator.

An unscientific poll by WAVY found 92.3 percent of respondents (10,138 people) did not believe the lunch was “acceptable.”

The photo comes as Congressional Republicans are preparing to create “flexibility” in the program and not outright repeal it.

“No child should go to school hungry – it’s that simple,” committee chair Rep. John Kline said at a House Education and Workforce Committee this week, Agri-Pulse reports.
http://eagnews.org/photo-school-blames-poor-lighting-for-paltry-michelle-o-lunch/

Apparently, that's all the kids get to eat. Just that wheat roll, and that horrible gray fish WITH THE SCALES ON -- I'm not an expert on fish, okay I've been to a few fancy restaurants and maybe the rainbow trout or the Chilean Seabass or whatever has scales on the bottom. But it's not my thing, I like fish to be clean and white and scaled or whatever it is you call that process, again I"m no expert.

That fish looks nasty. It should not be solid gray. You can tell it's just been boiled or overbaked or something, without so much as butter and some seasonings. (that's how I bake my fish, that makes all the difference, you just try to bake plain fish or boil it and it's going to be gross).

Anyhow, I'm not a culinary expert, but that lunch doesn't look right to me and I know I wouldn't touch it.

Looks like either dried up corn, or some kind of boiled soy buckwheat something on the right.

Apparently a lot of kids go hungry now, and all the tax dollars are just wasted, the "healthy" food gets thrown away. Here's the thing -- you can't turn Americans into third worlders overnight. You just can't. Food is cultural. You can't suddenly hand a kid a bucket of buckwheat and a fish with scales on it.

There's plenty of healthy food that is very delicious, but still kids are picky, but anyway if you at least cook it right and use the right seasonings then okay. School cafeterias do not have the ability to do that, though.

Am I wrong? Is that not an odd photo?

[yellowcanoe]

Michele Obama personally makes lunches for all the kids in the Virginia's Portsmouth Public Schools? I am really impressed!

[dolanbaker]

Good to see a US school actually try to fight childhood obesity, one of the main precursors to early onset of heart disease. Or maybe it's better to just fatten 'em up to reduce the future pension bill.

[Keith_McClary]

[Sixstrings]

Michele Obama personally makes lunches for all the kids in the Virginia's Portsmouth Public Schools? I am really impressed!

No -- but if I'm not mistaken, someone feel free to correct me, isn't she in charge of the new healthy menu stuff?

You raise a fair point, is this just something the right wing says, or is she really in charge of this. If not her, then WHO exactly in the Obama admin is this coming from. Whose idea was it. Had to be someone's. Congress sure never passed any law about it.

The issue is that these schools, though local and state funded, also get federal funding so when the federal gov says "you have to do this or you lose all your school lunch funding," then they don't have a choice.

It's been an ongoing issue though, many kids are just going hungry altogether when the school lunch used to be maybe their only real meal for the day.

Good to see a US school actually try to fight childhood obesity, one of the main precursors to early onset of heart disease. Or maybe it's better to just fatten 'em up to reduce the future pension bill.

Dolan, look at that fish. It's gray. With scales on, and a hardtack wheat bun on top. And some dried up corn or buckwheat or something.

Who would eat that? I think even prisoners were fed better, on the old British Imperial Prison Fleet in New York Harbor during the revolutionary war. You can't just suddenly start feeding kids like it's 1799 on the frontier. Here's your piece of fish for the day, devour it with the scales too.

There was actually a British chef that did a healthy eathing tv show for a school district in WV. What he found out was that it is extremely hard to make anything palatable -- and healthy -- with the budget that's allotted. And with cafeteria lunch ladies cooking it. They are not Michelin starred chefs.

(kids need CALORIES, #1. And then when adults, they can obsess over their food and weight. And #2, kids should not go hungry so a far leftist can do some experimental program that doesn't work out because it would need 6x the funding to work, but they won't admit it's not working because that's admitting failure so the kids just go hungry.

You don't try to control the lives of fat kids by making all the kids starve.)

[dolanbaker]

followed up by a chip butty and when they get home hamburger & chips.
and of course for dessert deep fried Mars bar!

[dinopello]

Here is the real pictorial comparison of US school lunches vs some other countries. I think I'd choose Italy, Brazil or Korea.

[dolanbaker]

The Italian one looks nice.

[Sixstrings]

Here is the real pictorial comparison of US school lunches vs some other countries. I think I'd choose Italy, Brazil or Korea.

Oh, that France meal looks nice:



Nicely roasted beef, farm fresh goat cave aged brie or whatever, fancy. Nicely seasoned and steamed carrots and green beans. Fresh kiwi. Apples.

Now see, that's some class there.

Now compare that to the Obama Meal, just a nasty gray scaly piece of raw-looking fish and a hardtack wheat roll.

Notice they don't actually have money in the Obama Healthy Meal budget for fruits and veggies, it's a crock. They spend the whole budget on fish that they don't even cook right and nobody can eat.

edit: dino, those can't be real examples, it's all the same plate. Someone just cooked a bunch of things that's not what is served in the cafeterias.

Though I'm sure the lunches are nice in Europe, etc.

[Sixstrings]

More Obama lunches:







(see that's not enough to eat, they're doing major calorie restriction. When actually it is not known why childhood obesity is up, suddenly, worldwide.

Michelle obama healthy school lunch program fail
http://www.slideshare.net/180DegreeHealth/michelle-obama-healthy-school-lunch-program-fail

[dolanbaker]

Is this a political or a nutritional argument!
As some one from outside the usa I don't %*&%*^care but what is it?

[Oneaboveall]

Is this a political or a nutritional argument!
As some one from outside the usa I don't %*&%*^care but what is it?

This should help clarify things:

[PrestonSturges]

The article says nothing about "scales." Don't be a dope.

[Keith_McClary]

Eating Fish Scales As Food Therapy

Nutritional studies and scientific research show that fish scales are rich in a host of nutrients especially collagen (the essential bodily protein which is good for the entire human body and its structure functions) which plays many roles in maintaining good health.

[Sixstrings]

The school lunches that shame America: Photos reveal just how meager US students' meals are


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2958640/Photos-school-lunches-served-world-reveal-just-meager-America-s-meals-compared-cash-strapped-nations.html

I don't really care about this issue -- though I don't understand why more school districts aren't complaining about it, I don't see how people stand to eat this stuff, this is nothing like when I was a kid and we all thought that stuff was bad.

I guess now days they don't even feed you. Empty spots on the darn tray.

What's really going on here? Is it really "healthy eating" for the kids, or is maybe school lunches being done away with? Could the drastically reduced portions and quality really just be a cut, under the guise of "new and improved." So that the kids would bring a bag lunch, then one day you can just close the cafeteria.

Heck, I guess if eveyrone is so fat, maybe there should be outright rations right? Like Venezuela has. Nobody there is allowed to buy more at the store than what their ration card allots for. Now, if you're obese, then sure one can stand to lose some weight. But what about the kids that weren't eating enough already.. and now the Left cuts their lunch ration by 2/3.. I just don't understand that, the Left has been saying kids are hungry for so long and how important shcool lunches are and now they just cut their lunches to almost nothing.

If R's had done that, it would have been called cruel and inhumane. There's not an enough food on those plates. Every one of those plates has missing spot for food. Because they're using the old trays still, from back when they fed the kids more.

The whole thing just makes no sense. The point of cafeteria food is that it's supposed to be things that most people would eat, or else it's all just thrown away.

Also, this is America. There's nothing wrong with potatoes. Why can't they give the kids a baked potato? I guess potatoes are considered no good, under the healthy eating plan thing.

In America not everyone wants to eat Brazilian and latino dishes. We have our own culture. Food is culture. American cafeteria food is pizza, and meatloaf, and mashed potatoes and gravy, etc. How about a salad, or a baked potato. Put on the right fixins and those are good, even kids would eat it -- but the whole issue with this healthy eating program is that they don't have the budget for it, so it's just nasty stuff. They can't actually make a salad that's good, or have any multigrain bread with sunflower seeds in it, like Greece does.

I'm just saying the program is really screwed up, that's all I'm saying. For poorer schools, they were better off how it was before with USDA helping the schools out with solid real American food.

[PrestonSturges]

The GOP is at war with the very concept of public schools, but the goobers blame Obama for the operation of their local school district.

What we have here are the wingnuts obsessed with their hatred of Michelle Obama, so we're talking about people that are insane with hatred to start with, and they are trying use that as a wedge to discredit public schools in general so that your taxes can be given to fly-by-night charter schools.

But hey, I kinda done worrying about the red states and their rush to close their schools, hospitals, and universities.

[Subjectivist]

Some people use what I call the White Male filter. If something comes from a person who is female or not white it is good, if it comes from a person who is make and white it is evil. So long as they use that filter for everything in life nothing said that conflicts with the filter will be allowed to influence their world view.

It is sad really, many of the white male filter people are very intelligent and can carry on long rational discussions so long as the discussion never approaches the topics of gender or skin color. Others will seek to bend every possible conversation so that gender or skin color are part of every discussion.

[PrestonSturges]

Well I'm probably three shades whiter than you. However white you think you are, I make you look Filipino. Are you suggesting that the only real racism is the reverse racism against the "Aryan" race? Will attacking public schools push money to a religious charter school where they have Bible study at state expense?

Why must conservatives play the race card?

[Keith_McClary]

I don't really care about this issue

So why did you start the thread?

[Subjectivist]

Well I'm probably three shades whiter than you. However white you think you are, I make you look Filipino. Are you suggesting that the only real racism is the reverse racism against the "Aryan" race? Will attacking public schools push money to a religious charter school where they have Bible study at state expense?

Why must conservatives play the race card?

If you were responding to my post you completely missed my point. I am not referring to your skin color Preston, I am referring to some peoples world view filter. The fact that you felt a need to respond is interesting is it not? World view is influenced by all sorts of things from upbringing to culture, and if you care I am not now nor have I ever been worried about who is three shades whiter/blacker/greener than I am.

There is no such thing as reverse racism, there is only racism expressed by person A about person B based solely upon their appearance or ancestry. It doesn't matter who A and B are, racism is wrong no matter who does it.