Consumer Reports called on the Department of Agriculture today to remove Lunchables food kits from the National School Lunch Program. CR recently compared the nutritional profiles of two Lunchable kits served in schools and found they have even higher levels of sodium than the kits consumers can buy in the store. CR also tested 12 store-bought versions of Lunchables and similar kits and found several contained relatively high levels of lead and cadmium. All but one also tested positive for phthalates, chemicals found in plastic that have been linked to reproductive problems, diabetes, and certain cancers.
Fuck these Java 5 interface name having practically inedible crappy cracker packs.
I know its done to death but I really do blame Michelle Obama for how shitty school lunches have gotten. I dont know how the administration at the time got away with the enshittification of school lunches under the guise of nutrition. Some places were literally passing napkins off as vegetables because they are made of plant fibers.
Would you have a source for this? Either the Obama influence or on the napkins?
The napkin one is harder to find, still searching for it. This politico article explains it pretty well.
I don’t know how you can read that article and come away thinking Michelle Obama’s efforts made school lunches worse. Unless by worse you mean healthier but less popular. The only reason people were attempting to get ridiculous things categorized as a vegetable was because they actually now had to have half a cup of vegetables.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketchup_as_a_vegetable
I remember reading an article on reddit a long time ago, but the closest thing I could find was the ketchup as a vegetable thing in my 5 minutes of google searching. If I find the original article I was referencing Ill put it in another reply.
So you blame Michelle Obama but then link to to an article that references Reagan Era policies. What a moronic and fallacious argument!
What? Lunchables are expensive as hell and have practically no nutrition!
Sounds like someone’s palms were being greased to get them in schools.
To be clear, this is a subset of the lunchables brand specifically manufactured and sent to schools for lunches, which has a higher sodium content than the retail variety you can buy. They don’t want to ban all lunchables
So, it’s either the school-variant with high sodium, or the store variant with lead, cadmium, and phtalates, then?
They did say “similar kits/products” implying it much not be lunchables, which feels an awful lot like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
They said “Lunchables and similar lunch kits”, and CR has a reputation for using honest language, so I don’t think there’s any reasonable confusion here about whether or not Lunchables are affected.
I used to love lunchables, but now that I’m an adult, I can’t believe we were allowed to eat that trash.
I’m in my 30s and I still love them. When I’m really sad I get one and it makes me feel like my life is simpler than it is and helps calm me down, gives me something to do with my hands while not requiring me to be functioning well enough to actually cook. They are trash though can’t argue that lol
Get a block of cheese, crackers, and some kind of lunch meat. Only tool you need is a knife. Plus, you can add variations, like tuna or cream cheese or whatever you want. You pay more up front but get more food out of it and reduce plastic waste.
I appreciate the suggestion and I’m not trying to say it’s bad, just explain what I mean. Actually making my own cheese and crackers is already more steps and a dish into the mix. I don’t love lunchables because I think they’re fine dining I love them because some days I have the capacity to do exactly two things, and that might end up being “buy lunchable, open lunchable”. The nostalgic ‘life is simple’ feel they give me can sometimes boost my mood enough to get more done in a day which is unique to just a couple of foods for me. When I am normal sad I do things like you’re suggesting and I’ve lived with a chef for over a decade so I’ve got a lot of great value to effort knowledge there
Marketing, TV Ads got me as a kid. I feel bad for my mom cooking me real food and my kid self being brainwashed complaining about wanting corporate toxic waste Lunchables
I feel bad for my mom cooking me real food
Why do you feel bad? That’s what parents are supposed to do.
Finger food that wasn’t messy and exploits the fact that kids haven’t yet lost all their taste buds.
Any kid between about 4-11 loves making little food stacks like that.
Given that charcuterie boards are pretty popular I think many people still like making stacks of food.
