Using government and news reports, Stacker traces the history of school cafeteria meals from the late 1800s through the present day.
How school cafeteria meals have changed
1900: Boston and Philadelphia lead the way
Following the success of Richards’ experiment, the first school lunch programs began appearing in Boston and Philadelphia by the early 1900s. By no means city-wide, these programs were run by charity organizations who would prepare the food in a central kitchen, then deliver it to participating schools. By 1913, it is estimated that there were 40 similar programs in place around the country, serving students for just 1 cent a meal. Meals were composed of things like pea soup, rice pudding, and lentils.
1920s: “The Americanization agenda”
According to Harvey Levenstein, author of “Revolution at the Table,” one of the unspoken early goals of public school lunches was to Americanize the tastes of immigrant youth. He writes: “[the immigrant children] were learning an important lesson: it was the food in their homes, not on the steam tables, which was out of the mainstream, and that to enter that stream they would ultimately have to learn to appreciate its food."
1930s: School lunch and the New Deal
During the worst years of the Great Depression, food was scarce and work even scarcer. As a part of his New Deal, President Roosevelt bought up surplus food from farmers, then hired thousands of out-of-work women to cook and serve the food to hungry public school students. The program was so successful that by 1941 every state (plus Washington D.C.) had a lunch program in place. A typical school lunch at the time included items like veggie soup, peanut butter sandwiches, and the occasional piece of fresh fruit.
1940: WWII ups the ante
In the 1940s, as the U.S. escaped the Great Depression and entered into WWII, it began to understand just how devastating those lean years had been. As the country called up its young men to fight, it realized that up to one-third of them were unfit for service due to malnutrition (compare this to today, when 20% of Americans are unfit for service due to obesity). This was the first time that the welfare of the country’s kids was identified as an issue of national security. Entrees like creamed chipped beef, cornmeal pudding, and a pork dish called scrapple were all popular offerings.
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1950s: Nutritional quality goes down
In the 1950s, with the rise of pre-packaged convenience foods and the government’s emphasis on lowering food costs overall, the nutritional quality of school lunches plummeted. Although schools were serving calorically dense meals, they often offered little in the way of healthy veggies, fresh fruits, or lean proteins, instead offering things like cheese meatloaf and sausage shortcake. The lack of nutrition was one of the driving factors behind the Child Nutrition Act of 1966, which gave control over what schools could offer at mealtime to the Department of Agriculture.
1962: National School Lunch Week established
In 1962 President John F. Kennedy created National School Lunch Week to advocate for healthy and nutritious school lunches for children. The program’s purpose is two-fold—to encourage children and teenagers to make healthier choices and to remind those in charge why continual funding for the National School Lunch program is so important.
1966: School breakfast program begins
Another aspect of the Child Nutrition Act that President Johnson signed in 1966 was the establishment of a school breakfast program. Public schools and daycare centers across the country began offering free or low-cost breakfasts to students in need before the school day began. Typical menu items include fresh fruit, assorted pastries, yogurt, and cereal.
1981: Ketchup is a vegetable
In the early 1980s, the Reagan administration cut federal funding for lunch programs around the country, which resulted in shrinking portions and reduced eligibility for free and low-cost lunch. The cuts also resulted in ketchup being accepted as a vegetable, demonstrating just how far standards had fallen since the first programs were offered back in the late 1800s.
1980s: School lunches become a privatized business
As a result of the budget cutbacks, many districts outsourced their school lunch program to private companies in the 1980s. An effort to save on cost, this meant that nutritional standards were further skimped on and overall quality went down. Frozen and processed fare began to rule the school, with offerings like chicken nuggets, pizza, and chocolate pudding landing on almost every tray.
2000s: Fast food vendors amp up their lunchroom presence
The trend in question? The increased presence of fast food vendors in public school lunchrooms. By 2005 an estimated 50% of cafeterias offered meals from restaurants like McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A, and Little Caesar’s, all of which met (low) federal government standards and helped with funding.
2010: The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act passes
The Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act from the Obama era gives free lunch and breakfast to every kid in school where 40% or more of the student body is food-insecure. This helps to eliminate food shaming, cuts down on administrative work, and ensures that all children, even those who might not technically be food-insecure but don’t always have access to high-quality meals, are fed.
2014: Smart Snacks in School standards implemented
Another recent set of regulations, the Smart Snacks in School standards created guidance around the nutritional values of foods and beverages that are sold in schools outside of the federal meal program. These standards place limits on the amount of fat, sugar, sodium, and calories that are acceptable, with the object of lowering obesity rates.
2020: COVID-19 necessitates curbside grab-and-go
When COVID-19 upended life and the school year at the beginning of 2020, many schools began offering their students meals through curbside pickup. This policy has extended through the 2020-2021 school year, and many wonder if it’s here to stay.
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