Do any of you actually know WHY the school-lunch program started?

[ColesCountyDem]

Trivia:

The school lunch program was instituted under FDR because a.) starving children is not a family value, to Democrats, and b.) because so many draftees were 4F, due to nutritional deficiencies in their diets as children.

Just so you know...

:hi:

edit: spelling/typo

[ColesCountyDem]

1. Thank you all for the recs!

:hi::hug:

[tanngrisnir3]

2. Looks like it was actually Truman, and it started after the war was over.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_lunch_program

The Richard B. Russell National School Lunch Act (79 P.L. 396, 60 Stat. 230) is a United States federal law signed by President Harry S Truman in 1946. The act created a program to provide low cost or free school lunch meals to qualified students through subsidies to schools. The program was established as a way to prop up food prices by absorbing farm surpluses, while at the same time providing food to school age children. <1>

[NMDemDist2]

3. same reason they started Food Stamps

to prop up farmers and absorb extra crops so the prices wouldn't bottom out

[tanngrisnir3]

5. Ah, this I did not know.

[rurallib]

37. That was always the story I heard in farm state Iowa.

[JDPriestly]

40. I heard the story about the surplus food also -- and in Iowa

I'm sure it is correct. There may also have been school lunch programs in the 1930s, but the ones in the 1940s and 1950s were pretty much national, I think.

The farmers also donated extra food through an organization called CARE, which distributed surplus American food overseas.

[ColesCountyDem]

6. True, and it also provided a commodity reserve for distribution in 'welfare' programs.

I hate the term 'welfare', but it was convenient.

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. The commodity program was sorta cool.

We were very poor in mid to late 50's, my Mom divorced from abusive husband, with 3 kids to raise, we were on welfare before it got to be a real nasty vengeful program.
No food stamps then, you got a weekly or monthly commodity box.
Huge block of real butter, huge block of real cheddar cheese, bags of rice, beans, plain paper lableled huge cans of ....vegies? tomatoes? OH, and huge can of peanut butter, the kind you had to stir a lot..it was NOT like Peter Pan stuff. I think maybe flour? And huge box of powdered milk.
And big can of dry oatmeal...these cans were the commercial size.
People traded off the food items.
I remember a lot of Wonder bread sandwiches, I think there was potted meat of some sort involved in the boxes.
Mom was not a good cook, so to us kids, school lunches were heaven. We had tickets that got punched, I have no idea of how they were paid for, there was no difference between the poor and not poor tickets, but most of the kids where I lived were not rich.

Good times, good times.

[cliffordu]

16. I want to go back to getting those ginormous blocks of cheeze.

Fer sher.

[Gormy Cuss]

17. All that and canned beef , pork, and poultry. Rolled oats and rolled wheat flakes. Instant potatoes

Cornmeal. Powdered eggs. Prunes. Raisins. Once in a blue moon we got a can of cocoa powder and a can of evaporated milk, but I'm talking about a different decade -- the late '60s.

The tradeoff was a big event in my neighborhood too. My mother was a good cook and would use just about everything we got.

The state cooperative extension service published a cookbook of recipes tailored to use surplus foods. I have my mother's copy. :hi:

[dixiegrrrrl]

27. Oh how could I have forgotten those god awful powdered eggs?

Maybe they were not that god awful.
My Mom was god awful at cooking.
She once cooked the thanksgiving turkey with the packaged innards in it, and never ever cooked one that was done. Blood would run out when you cut it, and she just said "it's rare...eat up".
gotta give her credit for gravy...she did make great gravy.
Reddish, but good.
:D

[Gormy Cuss]

31. Of all the surplus food we got, powdered eggs were the most disgusting.

My mother tried to doctor them up and serve them scrambled once--blech. We used them in baking, and we did a lot of that to use up the cornmeal and rolled wheat.

It's weird how clearly I remember going to get the food box at a mothballed school building. We use the trusty two wheeled grocery cart to take it home. By the time I was in high school the Food Stamp program was replacing the surplus distribution.

[roguevalley]

33. I taught for nearly 30 years and have seen that some kids only eat at school

it is one of the good programs. people who decry it need to get out an electron microscope and look for their consciences.

[ThomWV]

23. Also to dispose of excess stored agricultural products to reduce expense

Storage expense was great and we could not give the Velvia away fast enough. Corn (dried), rice (dried), and milk (powered) excess were also problems that the school lunch program helped solved.

Years and years ago I had to write a paper for an economics class I was taking that covered the causes and effects of milk marketing policy beginning in the early 1930's through the early 1980's. It was not so facinating a project that I can recall every (or in fact any) detail of it other than to tell you that milk production and distribution was under more control in this country than nuclear materials.

[ColesCountyDem]

4. I stand corrected.

I'm old, it's late, and I'm a little tired. Thanks for the correction!

:blush: :hi: :)

[pnwmom]

9. So says wikipedia. n/t

[Shakespeare]

10. It was an ACT OF CONGRESS.

Jesus, you really want to argue the veracity of that? I can cite you chapter and verse of the federal statute if that makes you feel any better.

The wikipedia link gives a full cite of the LAW that established the program. What, exactly, are you contesting?

[pnwmom]

15. I'm not disputing that. I'm saying that there could have been other

motivations for the program besides propping up food prices. For example, perhaps the OP was right about the government having noticed nutritional deficiencies during the War.

[bananas]

22. "ANSWER-National Security. About 40% of WWII draftees were rejected due to...malnutrition"

"ANSWER-National Security. About 40% of WWII draftees were rejected due to ill heath, bad eyesight, or bad teeth due to malnutrition, a result of the Great Depression amongst other things"
More: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=3441535&mesg_id=3441540

[tanngrisnir3]

14. Hey, very good! You can read text at links!

[Cleita]

29. There was still a draft back then and the 4f designation. n/t

[shraby]

7. I can remember my first hot lunch at school.

It was in 1948 I think, I was in the 1st grade and the lunch was rice pudding with raisins..it wasn't much, but it was a start. When I got to high school, the school lunch was prepared with surplus food, and it cost a quarter. For a quarter we got a main dish..potatoes, meat, veggie or soup such as a stew, desert, fruit, bread and butter, milk, and if we cleaned out plate we could get seconds if there was food left. The older boys in school..usually had a huge plate full with several slices of bread stacked on top and all the milk the younger kids didn't want cause they didn't like it. The cook was outstanding.

[ColesCountyDem]

8. Very similar experience here, albeit about 5 years later. n/t

[ConcernedCanuk]

20. rice pudding with raisins - WOW - I haven't had that for over 40 years

.
.
.

My mother used to make that

Seems to me I rather liked it - served warm if I remember correctly

never had it since I left home

hmmmm - maybe I should investigate putting it back in my diet

[zeemike]

28. I was in the first grade in 1949

And I remember that our class room was right above the cafeteria and you could smell the food being cooked and it was hard to concentrate on lessons when you could only think of what they were having for lunch...my favorite was mac and cheese and I think we had it once a week.
But I do remember the rice pudding with rasins...I love that two...but then it seemed I was always hungry, but not because my parents never fed us...I was just a hungry kid with a high metabolism.
And I also remember that every morning before we started class we had a half pint of milk...and I think this was for the benefit of the teachers so they could make sure we weren't thinking too much about food to learn.

[Rhiannon12866]

39. I started school about ten years later, and I remember the morning milk break too.

That's the only time I ever liked milk. You could even get chocolate. My friend's Dad was the milkman who brought it in fresh every morning. :-)

I spent my early school years in rural Northern NY and we didn't have school lunches. You had to bring your own from home. The kids who lived close enough walked home, while the rest of us ate in a classroom. My mother's Polish, so she always gave me too much. I don't remember noticing other kids' lunches, but I do remember sharing. :shrug:

[Flora]

38. I was in elementary school back in the late sixties

and I remember every morning recess we would line up for a little paper cup full of orange juice. I'll never forget the shiny silver utility carts filled with the little cups and the pungent smell of the juice as I got closer in line. For some reason, that was the best orange juice ever.. :-)

Not sure why that program started or why and when it ended.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

11. I bought my hot lunch because I asked my parents to allow me to.

I used to take a lunch box with a sandwich and so forth, and only bought milk at the cafeteria. But there were certain foods they served for lunch that I liked, so we'd check the menu in the newspaper and somedays I'd buy it. You'd pay 1.25 a day, and get a token and then give it to the lunch lady who would fill your tray.

I think my mother didn't like it, like somehow she felt it made her look like a bad parent not making her kid lunch when she had the time to do it, but whatever.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Yep, not that many folks know this

and it has been federally funded ever since

I am glad to pay my entrance fee into civilized society when it helps to feed a kid

Damn it, there are days I wonder if the New Deal is just as evil here as over FR...

:wink: :Wink:

4f = lunch program after WW II under Trumman

Any dot connecting to the Truman connection and the service of one Captain Truman as an arty officer in WW I are purely coincidental

[SheilaT]

18. My very first school,

about fifty-five years ago, was a Catholic school and the lunch room was in the basement. All students brought their lunches. No hot lunch or anything else served. However, I do recall at that same school a mid-morning milk break. You could get white milk, chocolate milk, or orange drink. I think it cost about a nickel for the entire week's milk/orange drink. I always got the chocolate milk except for one week when I thought I'd try the orange drink. Yuck! It was watery and I hated it, and gratefully returned to the chocolate milk the next week.

[Greyhound]

19. This was brought up in another post earlier today.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5150891

I'm still a little shocked by the reaction to this Florida story.

[Telly Savalas]

21. It's because he was beholden to the Big Salisbury Steak lobby.

[ejpoeta]

24. i remember when i was in school. there were periods when i didn't have lunch.

i remember twice being forced to eat a school lunch. once was mac and cheese. the second was a hamburger... i got sick both times. that's twice out of years of not bringing a lunch or having a lunch. I try to remember why i didn't have a lunch. my mom was sick for five years of my life... then she died when i was 12. there were six of us kids, though when my mom was sick, the three of us younger were still in elementary school. after my mom died, i remember we didn't have much food in the house. we had landis patties and condiments. just got used to not eating. I used to send my little sister down to a neighbors house so she could be warm and have a decent meal. (we had no heat or running water).

so i wonder why the kids end up getting punished. there may be a reason why their parents don't pay. maybe not, but could someone at least find out!! I know my experience was not a normal one. I look back and wonder if i could have imagined my life were that bad. I don't know if I would have had free lunches at school if that would have changed things. One thing i do know, is that if I were further humiliated after the reality of washing my hair in a freezing cold pot of water and not being able to properly bathe by having to eat cheese sandwiches, i probably would never eat school lunch again in favor of starving. because it's not about a sandwich, it's about the humiliation of knowing you are poor and feeling like you want the ground to swallow you up because they've put a scarlet P on your chest.

[CanSocDem]

25. It's also...

...a huge waste of the teachers time trying to teach a child who has only food on his or her mind.

[itubeutubewealltub]

26. It's funny that you should mention 'starving' children in that post...

Because it has morphed into something a lot more than starving kids. And some of these kids pay for their lunches. If you are referring to free lunches, then that is a different story, but let's not confuse it with NM.

[ColesCountyDem]

30. It's also funny that your response shows a lack of reading with comprehension.

I referred to 'starving children' primarily because that is EXACTLY why the program started: the effects of malnutrition during childhood led to a MAASIVE number of draftees being classified as 4F during WW2.

[pacalo]

32. All I know is that I'm very willing & proud to give my tax dollars to underpriviledged school

children. It's the right thing to do & I can't believe anyone could have the gall to admit openly & self-loathingly"proudly" that they are full of hatred "resent" doing so.

Thanks for providing the info, ColesCountyDem!

[Profprileasn]

34. USDA site

has a history of the program on it.
http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/

[defendandprotect]

35. Wow . . . sadly interesting -- unusual info you don't hear often!

[Th1onein]

36. I'm pretty sure it was because school was the ONLY place that some children could get a meal at all.

That's what my mom told me, anyway. And she was raised during the Great Depression.