Why don’t schools offer a vegetarian or vegan lunches?
Question by GreatBuddha: Why don’t schools offer a vegetarian or vegan lunches?
I’m doing an argumentative essay and I wanted to know some legitate reasons why schools don’t offer many vegetarian and vegan lunches.
Yes I know that some schools offer veggie or vegan items; however, that’s all by chance. They probably didn’t know French Fries were vegan and vegetarian.
But anyway what are some opposing arguments against having the school offer vegetarian and vegan lunches?
Best answer:
Answer by kryptonitekiller123
because sometimes they can’t afford it
and matter about other things of the school
instead of the food
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
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Perhaps the numbers just aren’t there. If there is not enough demand for any product it just is not offered. And it should not be.
- Costs more to make foods that are not processed – and processed foods are very likely to have some animal derived ingredients in them (i.e. french fries with meat extracts or lipase in them)
- Takes time to research the foods to figure out which ones are vegan/vegetarian – takes time from getting the cheapest, fastest, filling meals out of the door, costs more.
- Less than 5% of the population are vegetarian, so there’s a potential that the food will be wasted when students choose meaty items instead.
- Some parents with little nutritional education will feel that vegetarian food will not provide a complete meal for their children.
The majority of students arent vegans. It would cost a TON of money to have vegan lunches. As for vegitarians, there are plenty of choices. Bread, salad, fruit, veggies.
Hi GreatBud,
The problem they face is next it would be a no sugar meal, then a low cholesterol meal then a all green meal then a all meat meal etc etc.
They simply can’t do everything for every one.
Norm
most people eat meat
because schools are stupid and want their kids to be fat and ?obeice?
Schools are subject to government contracts with the food industry that designate that X number of potatoes, X number of cheese, X number of milk, X number of beef has to be bought and sold in public schools.
There have been repeated movements in Congress to clean up the lunch system in private schools but they’ve been shot down quickly by effective lobbying from meat and dairy industries.
Most schools order lunches from private companies, but these companies are invested in or owned by larger-scale corporations with some brand names you’d recognize (hint hint – - up to you though, it’s for you to do your research, after all!). These private companies are pretty much vested in making lunches that are as cheap for them as possible while still being barely nutritionally adequate.
I remember just a few years ago I was actually starting to become politically active and there was a bill sitting in Congress about removing butter and fatty cuts of meat and introducing at least more healthy meat, if not vegetarian options. Interestingly, the bill was shot down and I found out that the dairy industry has a very strict agreement that they enforce with schools and that certain companies make a TON of money off of selling their product to the school system. These industries lobbied the government, saying that they’d lose a lot of profit if schools cut out their product. Butter is STILL being used to make school lunches.
The actual lobbying and lawmaking process behind school lunches is discussed greatly in the book “Food Politics” by Dr. Marion Nestle, who worked with the USDA, FDA and other areas of American government as a doctor and nutritional advisor and got fed up with the crooked, paid-for-with-lucrative-cash ways and released a lot of information that was previously not well known outside of close circles.
I think you’d love that book, and it has 2 chapters about school lunches and why they’re as bad as they are, the companies responsible, and a detailed outlining of the MILLIONS and MILLIONS of dollars funneled into this crooked system.
Another thing to look at is the fact that public schools in America are paid for by property taxes – if a school is in a very poor neighborhood, they get the worst funding. America is the ONLY country in the world with such a backwards, twisted system – which assures that the rich only get richer and the poor only get poorer and more debilitated. Since the funding is so bad in so many areas of our country, you can only expect the worst of slop on the plate for lunch.
Something else I thought I’d mention – you notice how most public schools have vending machines and sell tons of brand-name junk food, from pop to chips?
It’s because these are the same companies that heavily pay their way into schools – they sponsor school programs, endorse reading programs (like Coca Cola did in my little brother’s school – and when you won you got a prize wheel to receive Coca Cola products and related garbage).
There is also a “news” program called Channel One that thousands of public schools air every single morning in America. This program is heavily sponsored by fast food and junk food companies and they even run ads during the news program. It’s long been transparent that it’s just a vehicle to run advertising even on paid government time in schools – after all the “news” it airs is really nothing important at all, but the advertisements are lengthy and exciting.
It’s a really crooked system you’re about to tackle if you’re researching and presenting information on school lunches. There’s some great books out there, start off with the one I am adding as a source. Good luck.
P.S. Other aspects:
- very small fraction of the population is vegetarian
- people are not interested or politically active in this country and many don’t even know or care about the shadiness behind it all – if more people were invested in it, these bills in congress would pass, but people don’t even know they are THERE, and Congress is sluggish and ineffective because there’s no public interest.
The majority of people literally don’t understand what vegan and vegetarian mean. I told my mother in law I was vegetarian and she said “You will eat chicken wont you??
Many of the cooks are self trained cooks and so they cook a lot of tried and true meals. It would take quite some thought to think outside of this.
I also read a answer which said it was expensive to make vegan – I say on the contrary No its not expensive. Noodles with vegetables, beans on toast, vegetarian ministrone, spaghetti with zuchini, brocali and onions, bean soup, curried chickpeas, bubble and squeak,vegetarian roast (selection of roasted vegetables) or roast vegetable soup, its cheap meals but many people thinks its expensive.
Another reason is turn over – many students do eat meat so they think it will be mostly to make a dish/s for two or three stiduents when majority rules.
Many people thinking vegan or vegetarian think fake meats and tofu cheese – surprizingly there are 1000s of dishes made without fake meats or fake cheese but people just cant get their heads around it.
If they were to offer vegetarian lunches, they’d have to offer Hindu lunches (no beef, pork, turkey, chicken allowed but not on Fridays), diabetic lunches, etc. You can’t please all the minorities out there. Schools offer a variety of foods that don’t contain meat. Besides, if somebody has a special “eating issue”, they should just bring their own foods. Schools aren’t really required to feed students.
Also, it costs more and meat fills you up. MMMmm meat.
here is a good little article
http://www.pcrm.org/news/commentary022708.html
They’re required by the government to serve so much milk and dairy.
Because they can’t afford to cater to dietary minorities. They would have to have diabetic lunches, kosher lunches, gluten-free lunches, allergy free lunches (which would be 100+ varieties in itself), halal lunches, etc…..
I’m not really arguing against though. I’m just saying that it isn’t feasible. Most schools are woefully short on $ $ $ and could better use the $ $ $ they have than to offer a menu to a group that consists of 2% of the population. (U.S.)
Schools should have a salad bar. While I realize it isn’t haute cuisine, it is however an opportunity for ALL to eat healthy raw vegetables if they choose. It doesn’t need to be a super deluxe salad bar, but a nice variety of healthy, raw, vegetable items would be beneficial to everyone.
I think for a number of reasons.
-It is seen that children don’t want to eat “healthy
food”.Which vegetrain and vegan food is seen as.
-Also it costs a lot more than the food they already serve.
More people need to support the options.
I have never had to think about this, as our schools don’t serve lunch or have cafeterias. I’d die if I had to eat somewhere every day that had no vegetarian/vegan options! I wouldn’t eat.
Its an awareness thing. Most schools could do more to cater for those on a specialist diet.
Some kids are vegan due to intolerances to dairy, etc. Schools have got to cater for such children.
Quite honestly, the public school system is the largest market for the meat and dairy industries, and therefore the politicians put in office by these industries are sure to fight for these unhealthy foods to stay on schoolchildren’s plates. ^_^