Students mocking Michelle Obama lunch mandate

[stegosaurus]

The first part of your post amuses me. So you want an excess of salt and saturated fats on your food? That's the problem dude! I can't vouch for the quality of the ingrediets (probably the same sh**tty quality as ever) but baking French fries is the right move. And you said they were chewy...that means its full of fiber, something else Americans don't eat enough of. Eating healthy food is never going to be an enjoyable experience. Our brains just aren't wired that way. We want quick calories, fats, refined sugars etc because that would help us survive in the wild. We don't live in the wild anymore, we live in a society of excess.

You have yet to make a case for why this should be a collective standard and not something that you can practice individually. Besides this, you are again missing the point - do you believe it's better for kids to eat nothing because they can't stomach the healthy options at school than to have less healthy options that they would enjoy eating?

Furthermore, you sunk your own argument here.

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You are advocating that people fight what their body craves naturally in order for them to be more aesthetically pleasing or cheaper on the Medicare/ER bill. You don't care what makes people, individuals happy, you seem to believe it is a secondary concern so long as our nation has a respectable mean BMI. That is fascism, plain and simple.

[後援会]

School lunches in America, although I have only tried them once in my life, are terrible. They're barely edible to begin with. I can only imagine what happens after you switch to "healthy options".

American food/health culture is stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Especially this obsession with "healthy foods". American culture basically tells people that they should either resign themselves to a lifetime of eating disgusting food or a lifetime of horrible obesity.

If you stop compulsively snacking (which is common in the USA) and eat reasonable portion sizes, you can basically eat anything. French food tends to be extremely fatty. Most Japanese food that people actually eat is a mixture of empty calories, fried foods, and alcohol. Real Chinese food can actually be worse than American Chinese food. But portion sizes are smaller. And that really makes all the difference.

I also guess people walk more. America also sets this dichotomy between "lol ur either a super jock or you never move". Which is how you get people who drive to the gym. And I can't help but noticing the huge percentage of Americans (mostly women) who will take the elevator to get from floor 1 to floor 2. Quite annoying when you're trying to get to floor 7.

[MaxQue]

The Japanese poster is right. The problem in the USA isn't so much the food than the quantities.
In USA, for some reason, servings in restaurants are awlays bigger than elsewhere.

The problem is than they eat too much and are relying too much on cars to move.

[Link]

These kids aren't getting enough to eat at school because their options are either ~800 calories of disgusting pseudo-food or nothing.

Every single objective data point indicates the average US kid is getting too many calories.  Let's not rewrite reality to fit our political points.  Okay?

[Link]

In USA, for some reason, servings in restaurants are awlays bigger than elsewhere.

Free market capitalism.

Really if you are making an omelet how much of the bill you charge the customer is comprised of the cost of the eggs?  The answer is a sliver.  It literally costs you pennies to toss in two more eggs.  The customer gets a huge omelet and they declare your restaurant the best.  The restaurant down the street sees this and and spends a few pennies and makes their omelet bigger.  It's an arms race.  The end result is a fat American populace that has no clue what true serving sizes are.  The idea that free market capitalism solves all problems is childish preschool drivel.

I heard one estimate that McDonald's makes the best margins on french fries and cokes.  In the US cokes are delivered as a relatively cheap syrup.  The restaurant then mixes the syrup with carbonated water and sells the sludge at a ridiculous markup.  They have such huge margins on that stuff they can afford to make the cups bigger and bigger.  Again the American consumer is left with a totally out of whack notion of what is appropriate.

[MaxQue]

I heard one estimate that McDonald's makes the best margins on french fries and cokes.

Talking of McDonald's, in the rest of the world, the servings are smaller there.

[Link]

I heard one estimate that McDonald's makes the best margins on french fries and cokes.

Talking of McDonald's, in the rest of the world, the servings are smaller there.

I've been to McDonald's in multiple countries.  In Europe an adult male will order a small coke and a hamburger from the Euro menu and call it lunch.  That is very normal outside the United States of Obesity.  Americans have no clue about serving sizes.

Majority of kids do not like fish and seafood as an alternative of red and white meat for that matter.

Do you have any objective proof of this or is this something that was pulled from your buttocks just to shore up a shaky partisan point?

[後援会]

No one forces you to eat everything on your plate. That's absolutely ridiculous. I can't even fathom finishing everything on my plate in an American restaurant. That's practically an eating contest. Which I'm actually pretty good at, but that's besides the point.

In the end, you get more food for less money in the United States. And it's the individual who decides how much they want to eat. Making food more expensive doesn't solve anything. If portion sizes were smaller, all you'd get are people who pad their meals with appetizers and desserts. It's like saying we can solve internet addiction simply by making internet service plans more expensive. It's rigmarole.

It's a cultural problem. This idea that the evil corporations are conspiring to make people fat is just typical anti-corporate conspiratorial thinking. Especially considering that people from the two societies in the world with the most powerful corporate lobbies, Japan and South Korea, are much thinner.

I actually love American McDonalds. I can get an extremely quick and reasonably large meal for $2. It's pretty great. Buying anything outside of the dollar menu is for suckers.

[Link]

This idea that the evil corporations are conspiring to make people fat is just typical anti-corporate conspiratorial thinking.

Nobody floated that strawman except you.

[Spanish Moss]

This idea that the evil corporations are conspiring to make people fat is just typical anti-corporate conspiratorial thinking.

Nobody floated that strawman except you.

Yeah, I've never heard that one actually put forth.  They're conspiring to make money, which is what corporations do.  If they knew they'd pull in twice the profit by having low calorie veggie burgers instead, they'd do it in a heartbeat.  It's about the money.

My concern is when they violate laws as a "business decision" (when the risk is lower) to make that money, which corporations do frequently.  But I see no back-room conspiracies going on with McDonalds.

[Sbane]

The first part of your post amuses me. So you want an excess of salt and saturated fats on your food? That's the problem dude! I can't vouch for the quality of the ingrediets (probably the same sh**tty quality as ever) but baking French fries is the right move. And you said they were chewy...that means its full of fiber, something else Americans don't eat enough of. Eating healthy food is never going to be an enjoyable experience. Our brains just aren't wired that way. We want quick calories, fats, refined sugars etc because that would help us survive in the wild. We don't live in the wild anymore, we live in a society of excess.

You have yet to make a case for why this should be a collective standard and not something that you can practice individually. Besides this, you are again missing the point - do you believe it's better for kids to eat nothing because they can't stomach the healthy options at school than to have less healthy options that they would enjoy eating?

Furthermore, you sunk your own argument here.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You are advocating that people fight what their body craves naturally in order for them to be more aesthetically pleasing or cheaper on the Medicare/ER bill. You don't care what makes people, individuals happy, you seem to believe it is a secondary concern so long as our nation has a respectable mean BMI. That is fascism, plain and simple.

Even taking money out of the equation, I would still support this wholeheartedly. We do need to eat better as a nation and exercise more. It is hard to do but must be encouraged at all steps of the way. I wouldn't force anyone though. I think your school is wrong in not letting people go outside for lunch. It it is right in having a healthy menu. Life requires sacrifice, hopefully something you kids will learn soon.

[Paul Kemp]

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Man, it's almost like schools are prisons.

Why do you think I left public school and graduated via a charter high school?

And by "charter high school" you mean you didn't have to leave your house and did all your work on a computer...

[7,052,770]

According to the Daily Show, which I'm assuming is accurate, you can go over the 850 calorie limit with fruits and vegetables, so that takes care of that "problem."  Not to mention there's surely no policing of students trading food items between each other at the tables.

Leave it to Republicans to politicize and oppose giving students healthier lunches...

[Sbane]

I just read the rest of the thread (I was really busy this morning) and the point raised about portion sizes is an excellent one. Not only do we new to stop eating crappy food, we really need to stop eating so much of it. And speaking of restaurants, putting a crap ton of salt in everything is the new thing to do. It gets people hypertensive rather than fat, so they don't care, and the food still tastes good to our brain wired for a life in the wild.

[後援会]

I just read the rest of the thread (I was really busy this morning) and the point raised about portion sizes is an excellent one. Not only do we new to stop eating crappy food, we really need to stop eating so much of it. And speaking of restaurants, putting a crap ton of salt in everything is the new thing to do. It gets people hypertensive rather than fat, so they don't care, and the food still tastes good to our brain wired for a life in the wild.

See, I think that's part of the problem. This drive to stop people from eating "crappy food". When it's not really the healthiness of the food that's the main problem. All this guiltfest that tries to get people to eat food that they don't actually want to eat just causes people to tune the whole thing out.

Also, I never found American food to be that heavy in salt. Even with the extra salt they throw into things. Just because Americans don't seem to be very heavy on pickled/fermented foods and other delicious sources of sodium.

[Sbane]

Eat whatever you want. I'll dispense your lisinopril, metformin and simvastatin when you need it.

[Sbane]

I just read the rest of the thread (I was really busy this morning) and the point raised about portion sizes is an excellent one. Not only do we new to stop eating crappy food, we really need to stop eating so much of it. And speaking of restaurants, putting a crap ton of salt in everything is the new thing to do. It gets people hypertensive rather than fat, so they don't care, and the food still tastes good to our brain wired for a life in the wild.

See, I think that's part of the problem. This drive to stop people from eating "crappy food". When it's not really the healthiness of the food that's the main problem. All this guiltfest that tries to get people to eat food that they don't actually want to eat just causes people to tune the whole thing out.

Also, I never found American food to be that heavy in salt. Even with the extra salt they throw into things. Just because Americans don't seem to be very heavy on pickled/fermented foods and other delicious sources of sodium.

Ugh, I guess I should elaborate. I'm not saying that a steak is crappy food, I'm talking about wisconsin style buttery hamburgers and fries doused with salt. And even then if you make it at home, it's likely to be more healthy than if you buy it at a restaurant. I don't blame the restaurants, they are just trying to get more business. It just pisses me off more because of my personal situation I suppose. I just don't have time to cook at home and there are basically no healthy options out there. Everything either has too little fiber, too much fat or too much salt. Your best option is just to pick something that does not complete the trifecta.

So kids complaining because they have healthy options just strikes me as being silly and well...childish.