School lunches: bring your own or eat what the school provides?

I've always ate a school lunch. Our school's lunches have also gotten much healthier and better since 2009 when Barack Obama took office. In sixth grade, they gave us frozen PB&J sandwiches. FROZEN. Not even kidding. We all signed a petition to make them provide lunches that were better and healthier and they listened to us.

 

I pay £2 a day for some pretty decent quality school lunches

 

I bring my own sandwiches, but I buy drinks and occasionally a cookie or something.

The stuff in my school is overpriced and bad quality too, so I generally avoid that food.

 

Well, I would eat the school lunch, but didn't like the milk. I always brought extra money for "extras." We had "slushy" machines in high school so I would usually buy one instead of the milk. Although, honestly, I didn't really like the food and wouldn't eat it. In elementary school my mom would bring me lunch from different places (Subway, BBQ joint, McDonald's, etc.).

My sister now usually packs a lunch. Half the time it's a homemade sandwich, the other half it's a poorboy sandwich, Subway sandwich, or something similar.

 

I've never been to a school where they provide a set meal; they just aren't the norm here, and I know none that do. There are canteens/cafeterias where students can buy any food that's offered (a low quality café, essentially), so I just bring my own food or go out to lunch if I have the time. The only times I've bought things from my school's canteen are when I've forgotten lunch and needed some of their to get through the day, and when I'm so tired I just need caffeine, no matter how disgusting the coffee is. And it costs a lot; a disgusting and small tub of pasta costs $4.00. At least they only charge $0.50 for a cup of instant coffee, but it's still not really worth it, especially with a hot water tap available for all.

The closest thing to my school providing food is breakfast on Mondays and/or Fridays, but that's just the kind action of one maths teacher and the caretaker who make pancakes and serve them with fruit, jams, honey, and cream in the mornings before class with their own money to make students happy.

 

I'm pretty sure our school lunches violate the health code. There's been countless times where people have gotten expired food. There was even one time in 7th grade where someone had milk that looked more like cottage cheese :lol:. So yes, I bring my own lunch.

 

In Sweden school food is free so I, nor anyone I've ever met, has ever brought their own food to school to eat. The food was decent in elementary school, pretty bad throughout middle school but in high school it was really good. I even ate my breakfast in school during highschool. It cost around 1.3 dollar and it was well worth it.

 

I bought my lunch for a while in elementary school but it was pretty nasty...I'm pretty sure I threw most of it away. I remember we used to have contests seeing who could bounce a hot dog the highest -- definitely something a bit rubbery in there.

Middle school was surprisingly not terrible and I usually had a sub or something with cold cuts. There was a salad bar which would have appealed to me except I know that some kids can be incredibly disgusting and suspected there was some uh, organic matter in there sometimes that didn't belong so I never used it.

I went to a private high school and the food was okay. I quickly figured out that if I was part of the first lunch group I should wait a bit to go up to let any leftovers from the day before get dispersed, but other than that it was okay. Not very healthy though; I had chicken fingers most of the time. Lunch at school was never a big deal for me since my parents gave me breakfast and I'd usually have a big dinner at home. It's the opposite now that I'm working and get home so late; lunch is now my big meal.

 

Bring my own. The stuff my school has is expensive and small and not very good. There's a plaza near my school though with some places to eat and I sometimes go out there during my lunch, but apart from that, I rarely buy my lunch when I go to school.

 

I was on the free breakfast and lunch program every year but one I think, so I normally ate breakfast and lunch at school everyday. When I was in grade school the lunches weren't very good, how in middle school and high school they were actually pretty decent lunches. We had pizza or fish every Friday, I normally had fish, then there was pasta, nachos and chicken nuggets once or twice a month.

We got a monthly menu for the breakfast and lunches so it was pretty easy to decide ahead of time if we wanted to eat a school or pack.

 

I never bring my own lunch. Some of the lunch at my school is freaking nasty. I'm on a free lunch program because my family has some money troubles, and the choices are either okay or flat out nasty. It's different every day. If I have extra money in my pocket, I may just buy a tastier (unhealthier), meal, but if I don't have any money and the choices are gross, then I just skip the lunch.

The boneless "ribs" and the grill cheese are the two meals at my school that I avoid at all times.

 

Back in the day, our private school had a contract with a local independent McDonald's. So, I would get burgers often. Occasionally, they would have a choice between Fillet O' Fish and a Chicken sandwich only. I think they came in like 3 times a week, then they had nasty tacos and something else the other day. LOL. They rarely had fries though. But yeah, it was cool having Big Macs, pies, cookies, and chicken nuggets among other things.

Then in high school, they dumped McDonald's and had a private chef making everything for 4 out of 5 days, but it wasn't that good. We had Little Caesar Pizza Wednesdays though. They made them so quickly that they never cut them evenly, so it was always a situation where students complained when they got the smaller slices.

 

in middle school my cafeteria was constantly causing mass cases of food poisoning, so I would bring my lunch, In high school I just ate the food in the cafeteria, and it wasn't that bad. Now that I'm in Uni I eat mostly in the cafeteria (mainly because they charge you up front $1950/semester) depending on the day it can range from mediocre to horrible, but most of the stuff won't kill you.

 

I'm homeschooled now ( thank god ) but all grades up to 5th i bring my own lunch. In the 5th grade we had the best lunches EVER

 

I've always brought my own lunch, but I have a lot of dietary restrictions so I can't eat school lunches

 

I always bring a pack lunch, I despise the school lunches. ((((*｡_｡)_

 

Very rarely would I pack my own lunch. I almost always ate what my school provided.

The food was actually decent. My high school had a station where the lunch ladies can make you a wrap and grill it. It's like Subway in that sense, except your sandwich/wrap is grilled on a press, not warmed up in an oven. My favorite was the chicken tender wrap with honey mustard

Chocolate milk tasted like diabetes in a container, so I opted for the low-fat milk.

 

Brought my own. Our school lunches were generally pretty terrible (both nutritionally and taste-wise) and were mostly the same thing every day. Home lunches let me have variety and avoid the grease/sodium bombs that were school food.

 

I used to bring my lunch, unless we were really low on groceries. I'd then just suck it up and get the school lunch (at least most of the options were decent).