Photo by: Katherine Raz AKA back_garage
In last week’s newsletter (click here to sign up, if you haven’t already) I wrote about school lunch programs, and how they cut costs by serving pre-made food in boxes rather than cooking. I got this letter in response.
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I am a lunch lady at my local public school. What you said in your newsletter about schools not wanting to hire people to actually COOK, is correct. They don’t want to SPEND THE MONEY on employees taking all the time it would take to make things from scratch, or even partially from scratch.
The school I work for serves about 1000 (maybe a little less) students. We cook all of the food at one school and then it gets transported to all of the other schools (elementary, middle school). Currently we don’t even “technically” have a head cook, a lady is filling in for the head cook position until they (the school/our boss) figures out what to do. Almost everything we cook is already pre-manufactured … out of a box/can, add water, etc.
Sometimes we’ll serve something like “goulash” which is made with hamburger, noodles, seasonings, tomato sauce … that’s about the closest we get to making anything “from scratch”.
Schools do not want to spend the money it would take to have employees in the kitchen cooking healthy meals, it would take too much time, too many hours. With all the budget cuts, it’s much cheaper to just buy stuff that can be slapped on a pan and cooked. I don’t like it, but that’s a fact.
Since I started working at this job (about three years ago) we’ve had about 4 employees either quit or retire and none of those positions were filled by anyone. The rest of us have just had to adapt and keep going.
Another thing that is unbelievable to me is the commodities we get from the government! It’s CRAP! Sometimes we get meat and one wonders what is in it! We’ll get stuff from the government that doesn’t have an ingredient list on it! We got bags and bags of trail mix recently … nuts, fruits etc (pretty healthy in this case, actually) except that there were NOWHERE on the boxes or bags that told a person what exactly was in the trail mix! I do need to give credit however, several times we have received whole wheat dried pasta/noodles to use. But in most cases, what we receive in commodities looks like someone’s rejects.
I’m not sure what the answer is … especially with all the budget cuts schools are making. It’s a vicious cycle, however, ‘cuz the more crap food you feed the kids, the more behavior problems you’re going to have. And what about what the kids eat at home? I guess one could say that if you feed them well at breakfast and lunch for nine months, it’s kind of like building on a solid foundation? Maybe that will plant seeds for healthier eating and living in the rest of their lives when they’re not at school? I don’t know the answers, I just know it’s frustrating.
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This is Drew again. I wonder if it really is cheaper serving the processed foods. The reason food manufacturers love them is the higher profit margin. In general the more highly processed a food is the more it costs and the more profit there is in it.
Home cooks have a hard time matching the cost of pre-made, because you can’t buy fresh food in bulk and still use it before it goes bad. But institutional kitchens — schools, hospitals, etc. — can do large orders and keep waste to a minimum. With good planning, of course.
So why is the school lunch program so committed to packaged, processed food? Is it because large companies score large contracts with the politicians in charge? Hiring thousands of qualified cooks to work in schools across the country might be cheaper, but doesn’t leave an opening for steering large contracts. Gah, I’m sounding like a conspiracy nut.
When I was in the Marines, there were people back in the kitchen cooking from scratch 20 hours a day. It might not have always been the tastiest food, but it wasn’t re-heated from a box. If the U.S.M.C. — which was still using Korean War-era flak jackets at boot camp in the 90s — could save money buying prepared foods, they’d have done it.
Are there any current military people or family members reading this? Are they still cooking from scratch, or are they doing the same thing as the school lunches?
Want more like this? For more recipes like this, that you can hold right in your hands, and write on, take notes, tear pages out if you want (Gosh, you're tough on books, aren't you?) you might be interested in How To Cook Like Your Grandmother, 2nd edition, Illustrated. Or to learn your way around the kitchen, check out Starting From Scratch: The Owner's Manual for Your Kitchen.
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13 Comments
I think the reason the military mess doesn’t go the way of school cafeterias is that the people eating the food wouldn’t be physically able to do what is required of them (or stay within body weight limits) if they ate that crap 3 meals a day.
My husband is military (Canadian), and our cooks cook from scratch. Currently my husband is deployed overseas at a logistics base outside of Afgh. They actually have highly trained cooked that they bring in from the surrounding area. They also source local foods, so currently my husband is jonseing for bacon something fierce, but the country he is in does not have it readily available. That doesn’t mean that they don’t used canned goods at times.
I’m completely envious. He’s sent pictures of the spread that they get 24/7 (operational base, so they have shift workers). All fresh fruits, veggies, meats. And here I am with two kids, a business and playing dad too. I’ve been relying more on M&M meats for ready made stuff. Its harder as a single mom.
Now, when they go to the feild, if they don’t have the kitchen with them, they get these lovely boil in a bag dinners which are rather horrid. But they have all the necessities to provide enough calories to get through whatever.
Institutionalized persons — prisoners and children — are unfortunately the victims of the worst food products our system can offload onto them. If it can’t go to them, it goes into pet food or gets dumped on the developing world in some form. Have you seen what is approved for WIC/food stamps vs. what isn’t? Hint: fresh vegetables have JUST been approved. This year.
I think there’s been a relatively recent separation in quality between institutionalized cuisine and military cuisine, the former getting worse and the latter getting better. My dad talks about C-rations and B-rations being pretty bad during the Viet Nam war (all of it from tins), but my husband cooked from scratch in the Marines in his kitchen tours during the first Gulf war.
Courtney, if you’re just guessing at that, you’re smarter than you think. Mission: Readiness, a group composed of senior retired military leaders recently released the report, Too Fat to Fight. The key finding:
Jennifer, what are M&M meats? I’m not familiar with that term.
Linda, field rations have never been tasty. Did your dad eat C-rations and B-rations on base, too, or just in the field?
M&M meats is a single aisle frozen foods franchise in Canada that sells a ton of varieties of frozen food at reasonable prices. They have everything from flash frozen steaks to heat and eat single servings and desserts. For the prices, the quality isn’t too bad on most of the items.
I hope you don’t mind me jumping in and answering for Jennifer, but I’m Canadian so I know what she’s referring to. M&M Meat Shops is a Canadian food store that specializes in minimal prep meals. They carry a huge range of frozen vegetables, fries, chicken strips, fish, burgers, soups, casseroles, individual meals,seasoned chicken breasts, pork, roasts etc. all very good quality. You pay for all of that prep though! I’ve had several different items and most are quite good. I’m tech challenged but here is the website, go to : http://www.mmmeatshops.com
Cool, it linked for me. : )
This touches on a topic that I have been thinking about recently because I just finished watching the show ‘Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution’. He decided to take on the school food system down in West Virginia. (I guess he had already tried to reform the school lunch system in England.) I was conflicted in how he handled the whole thing but it touched on the issues of fresh food versus processed food and not enough staff in the school kitchens to do ‘real’ cooking. If anything, I think the show helped to draw attention to the issue of what are we feeding our kids at school.
My family watched Jamie Oliver also (I’m a huge Jamie fan). My son is enrolled in a charter school that is ahead academically, but behind lunch-wise. they do not have a ‘working kitchen’ with ovens, etc since it is a small school. The food is prepped offsite and brought in for lunch. my son NEVER buys the lunch. He mentions often that it looks ‘fatty’ or ‘not very appetizing’. (he’s 10). He has asked me to ask the school to have a salad bar at least once a week so kids have a healthier choice. I am trying to get him to write a note to the principal regarding a salad bar because a note from a student would have more weight than a parent saying anything. I have also decided to join the parent board and hopefully implement some changes to the school lunch menu. (we are planning on expanding the school next year by 2 or 3x and I hope to see a functioning lunchroom/cafeteria.) It’s really sad that most kids don’t know what real, homemade, non hfcs bread taste like, or never have fresh, raw veggies to eat.
The reason prepackaged food is “cheaper” is because WE are paying for it with government subsidies.
An example is “chicken nuggets”- it’s all the reject chicken parts, pureed, and then doped up with as much corn/soy as possilbe, while still being able to use “chicken” in the ingredients list.
Corn/soy is so heavily subsidized in the USA that peanut butter manufacturers drain the peanut oil off of peanut butter (sell it for deep frying), and replace it with soybean oil (since it’s practically free)
I’m former USMC. 96-2000, yes, the kitchen had GIANT pots cooking all but 3 hours of the day. Shift work. But the USMC prides itself on hard work and no short-cuts. Most of America does not think that way.
While this is not for everyone, we home school our 3 kids. For us cooking from scratch is way cheaper than anything processed from a can, box or bag. Yes we even mill our wheat for bread. But since we are all home anyway we all chip in to get it done. My kids can actually taste the artificial flavors, dyes and preservatives in processed food. Often they can taste the difference from corn syrup and cane sugar in foods, as well. They just won’t eat processed food given a choice and sometime hunger is their choice. BTW my kids love the recipes and have learned to adjust them to fit our not corn syrup life style.
just my thoughts.
Oh yeah, you can totally taste the difference between corn syrup and cane sugar in foods, and the less you use it, the more you notice. Artificial sources of glutamates are WAY overused, and a crutch for bad seasoning in a heck of a lot of foods. And don’t get me started on the salt. Just look at a “Pasta Side” which has 30 % of your RDV of salt. Holy smokes that is a lot. AND it has MSG!
Cooking from scratch is cheap (a loaf of bread takes maybe 30 minutes of work you were going to piss away in front of the TV, and is more fun-and costs only about a dollar, maybe 1.25 including energy costs.)
But it’s also healthier, you know how much of what you are eating, and you even eat less because of the work involved.