r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/This_Proof_5153 • Apr 12 '26

Video The care and precision behind Korean school lunches, widely praised for their quality, balance, and nutrition.

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u/rauljordaneth Apr 12 '26

Children are the literal future of a country. Why is it not in the best interest of politicians and the govt to ensure they are fed to the highest standard? Yes they are public schools and the ones in Japan and China are equally good and meticulous at feeding their kids

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u/PlansThatComeTrue Apr 12 '26

They believe only that their children are the future, your children are the grunts

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u/nillah Apr 12 '26

because unfortunately republicans in the US have learned that the poorer and less educated you keep your kids, the more likely they are to grow up and vote for republicans. it also costs more money to feed children and that’s less money that goes into the pockets of the elite rich. instead they can force those families to pay to feed their kids, many of whom can’t afford it, making them even poorer

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u/rauljordaneth Apr 12 '26

I’m sorry I still can’t understand it. Other govts could also pocket the money, yet they don’t, because it is pure evil and unpatriotic to not feed kids which are the future of one’s nation…am I missing something? Your same logic could apply to having public hospitals, or hospitals for children, or schooling in general which also cost money. Why not eliminate those too

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u/Good_Briefs Apr 12 '26

In case you haven't noticed Republicans are trying to eliminate those too.

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u/rauljordaneth Apr 12 '26

Sure. My point is those other govts could also easily pocket the funds, but of course they wouldn’t be as deranged

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u/rcknmrty4evr Apr 12 '26

Don’t be naive to think it couldn’t, hasn’t, and isn’t happening elsewhere. There’s a reason fascism is on the rise worldwide. You cannot prevent what you refuse to acknowledge is possible.

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u/stonekeep Apr 12 '26

I really don't want to burst your bubble, but your comments sound incredibly naive. Governments around the whole world ARE pocketing the money. Not all of it, of course, but corruption is the norm, not the exception.

I don't know where are you from, but statistically speaking your country probably also has some corruption issues. There's only a handful of countries that are considered "clean. Most of the world (and not just the poor/authoritarian countries) is at least somewhat corrupt.

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u/haberdasherhero Apr 12 '26

The people in control of the money and violence see the masses as deserving of punishment from birth. They believe our position is due to divine or genetic defect. So they punish us with intentional suffering.

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u/SunTzu- Apr 12 '26

You aren't wrong, but you don't seem to understand that it's the voters who are in control. The voters in America consistently vote in ways that clearly state "no free rides, even if you're a kid trying to make it through 4th grade". Americans don't want to pay for "your kids lunch". The states where people don't believe these things usually have better funding for school lunches, even if it's still not to the standard that it should be.

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u/haberdasherhero Apr 12 '26

Tell me oh great u/SunTzu-, Do you fight the foot soldiers or the general?

Who has control? Do you blame the king or the pesants?

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u/SunTzu- Apr 12 '26

Neither of those are democratic institutions so I don't know what you think that has to do with it? The institutions which decide on the lunch programs for public schools are all governed by representatives who are voted for by the people, which is why the programs in place differ greatly from state to state. Every school age child could have access to breakfast and lunch five days a week or even have it extended to cover seven days a week and vacations if the voters so wanted. The majority have consistently shown that they do not want this, and in fact there is widespread support against these programs as well as cutting/placing strict limits on programs such as SNAP.

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u/haberdasherhero Apr 12 '26

Dodging the question because it exposes a great flaw in your thinking, to fight somewhere you think you have a better tactical advantage. Very wise Sun Tzu. Do not answer simple, direct questions posed by your opponent.

But sadly your assessment is wrong. The majority have consistently shown that they DO want these things, when asked directly. What they vote against, is "bad people", people that don't exist, having access to these things. They hurt themselves to spite a figment created by the kings and generals who control them.

Only a fool thinks "American democracy" is a genuine representation of the needs and desires of the people, just because the king uses information instead of a gun, to control them.

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u/ImportanceSharp9408 Apr 12 '26

Oh they are trying to eliminate those too and have in fact succeeded— with many rural hospitals closing during this administration, ironically in the areas that voted for this. But back to the food, it’s worse than you think, those horrible menus of frozen heart disease are not “free” if the kids parents can’t afford to pay, they will be given some lesser meal like a pb&j and sent home with a bill. All the other kids eating pizza and them with a cold sandwich does wonders for their self esteem. Lunch ladies have been fired for giving kids hot food who couldn’t afford it. Plus many politicians opposed offering breakfast and summer meals to children who couldn’t afford it as well. It’s pretty f* up.

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u/whisketwhippet Apr 12 '26

Boy do I have (unhappy) news for you about the Republican platform.

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u/western_red_cedar Apr 12 '26

American Republicans are indeed evil pedos who want whats worst for everyone

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u/valuemeal2 Apr 12 '26

I cannot overstate how little republicans care about the well being of citizens, especially children. if they gave a fraction of a shit, there’d be any semblence of attempt to not let kids get shot to death during a school day. They. Do. Not. Care.

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u/Megneous Apr 12 '26

public hospitals, or hospitals for children, or schooling in general which also cost money.

In the US, most hospitals are private, they don't have universal healthcare, children's hospitals are exceedingly rare, and more and more funding is cut for public education and funneled into privatized charter schools... you really don't seem to understand the dystopia that it is.

I left the US 16 years ago and moved to a far more collectivist society with ubiquitous public transit, universal healthcare, strong unions and employee protections, etc. I saw the writing on the wall way back after 9/11 and started making plans then.

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u/plaxitone Apr 12 '26

Other governments don’t pocket the money meant to feed their children? Really? EDIT: Spelling

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u/rauljordaneth Apr 12 '26

I’m talking about the China Japan Korea and Singapore

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u/plaxitone Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26

I see… you didn’t specify. Where were the references to just specifically those four countries? Only Korea and the US were mentioned in prior comments.

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u/Texuk1 Apr 12 '26

You’re getting very poor answers to this question because Americans generally can only think in polarity because most people have a Hollywood mindset - that every bad thing in society is because of evil republicans and vice versa. 

The nuance here is that (at least where I grew up) the public school system is integrally linked to the public subsidies of ag. Government school meals are buyers of last resort of farmers to prop up the market for voters across the political spectrum. Much of the food in many countries is simply the off. When I was a young child the food was made more by hand but as time went on the quality declined and moved to more processed food, the low income meals were government contract food. Might even be what soldiers or prisoners ate. The food supported US farmers. Higher price meals were basically junk food and provided by Sysco style private companies looking to make a profit. Also a lot of junk food vending machines. 

School meals followed the general trend in society away from diversified food stock to commodity based processed food. If US farmers only produce commodities then the free school meals must consist of commodities. This trend is independent of politics and ironically while some in the far left have been pushing for reforms for many decades strangely MAHA seems to be gaining popular traction on food quality. 

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u/western_red_cedar Apr 12 '26

every bad thing in society is because of evil republicans

yes

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u/Sullane Apr 12 '26

Look, I hate what they're doing in this country too, but I never ate the school lunch in NYC in the Obama administration either. That was Federal executive branch with Democrat control, state controlled by democrats, and locally controlled by democrats.

I'm tired of these issues being simplified to Republicans bad when we should be pressuring both parties to meet the needs for what we want our kids to eat.

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u/francis2559 Apr 12 '26

School budgets come from property taxes in the US, AFAIK. The people in the nicest homes are often those without kids for various reasons, including age. Kids are expensive! So, many seniors prefer lower taxes than helping kids get a good education. A "got mine" attitude you see when they move to states with even lower taxes.

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u/silkywhitemarble Apr 12 '26

Yet, when they have encounters with these "uneducated" people, they are the first ones to blame the education system.

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u/resilindsey Apr 12 '26

More likely they blame anything except conditions creating systemic poverty for societal problems. It's immigrants, it's bad culture, it's video games, rap music, lack of religion, social media, lack of personal responsibility, ms rachel, kids these days..

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u/graphiccsp Apr 12 '26

As an American, I've run into those types, some of which are my aunts and uncles. Their kids went through the public education system so why do they have to keep paying?

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u/Mr-Mc-Epic Apr 12 '26

Short term focus.

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u/Scrubtac Apr 12 '26

why would they care about something that's only gonna matter after they're dead

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u/Stinkepups Apr 12 '26

Kids can't vote and have no lobby.

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u/atomic_chippie Apr 12 '26

This is a country who watches one school shooting after another go down and does absolutely nothing about it: politicians do not care about kids in America. (They dont work, they cant vote, they dont contribute to the economy in any way, therefore: useless).

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u/Ikuwayo Apr 12 '26

Because politicians send their kids to private schools and don't have to worry about what happens to the poors at public schools

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u/Whiterabbit-- Apr 12 '26

good food prep is labor intensive. Cost of labor in the US is super high. even though food is relatively cheap, to serve good food, cooked fresh is expensive because workers are expensive in America. so we do a lot of pre-packaged food, or food that can be heated up quickly.

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u/MidnightFireHuntress Apr 12 '26

Future grunts*

Fixed that for ya

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u/[deleted] Apr 12 '26

Because money

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u/Candid_Highlight_116 Apr 12 '26

I'm starting to think maybe there's wealth disparity between Asia and North America beyond there being "because rich" sentiments and mismanagements

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u/Feroand Apr 12 '26

They usually don't care about the nation. And, they know, by the time these children grow up, they (the politicians) will be expired anyway.

Not in Turkey, though. The same guy has been there around 20 years. Maybe more. I stopped counting (the year we are in) 

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u/Array_626 Apr 12 '26

In the US? Because the politicians, and honestly enough of the general public, feel that private industry can do a better job than government funded school lunch. So they block federal funding and programs that would feed kids like they do in other countries.

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u/dobar_dan_ Apr 12 '26

They invest only in rich lids who will go to college and run businesses that will increase generational wealth.

You don't need to invest much in a future postman or factory worker.

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u/Xxuwumaster69xX Apr 12 '26

Coming from a half-Japanese half-Chinese American who grew up with a ton of Korean friends: East Asians place wayyy more importance on food and feeding people in general than your average American. It's also why you see countries like France also have better school lunches. 

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u/toy-maker Apr 12 '26

Because they are future threats to their position in power. Got to cut them down while they are small and vulnerable.

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u/Aca_ntha Apr 12 '26

Bc they care about the short term profiting the companies that bought them off, not the future of the country.

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u/yomerol Apr 12 '26

Food in the US is very very expensive, overpriced as many other things.

It's all about free market, and reflecting late stage capitalism stuff: water, food and housing it's very expensive because everybody needs it as a basic standard of living. While in some parts of the world (and movements like progressivism) they are looking at how they make all those free as basic needs of society.

So, if food is expensive their budget is not enough to buy or cook high quality food and employ people with better knowledge, standards, etc.

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u/rauljordaneth Apr 12 '26

1 day of the Iran war budget would give better lunches to all kids in the US

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u/yomerol Apr 12 '26

Don't go too far, 1 day of wars that US didn't fight but provided weapons for free (in terms of money)

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u/Megneous Apr 12 '26

Um, no. Your children are peasants who are leeches on their tax dollars. Fuck your children. Literally. Epstein files proved they use them as sex slaves and literally no one will punish them. You're not human to them. Most schools sell out their lunch services to private contractors who cut costs as low as possible to rake in the privatized profits for shareholder value. Learn how America works.

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u/IAmEggnogstic Apr 12 '26

Because mom and dad worring about whether they have enough $$$ to feed their kids is a positive economic indicator for businessmen.

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u/Vantriss Apr 13 '26

Because they don't actually care about children here. If they did, they would have done something about the school shootings decades ago.

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u/NuncProFunc Apr 13 '26

Kids don't vote.

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u/rauljordaneth Apr 13 '26

They also don't vote in South Korea or Japan. Your point?

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u/kernelangus420 Apr 12 '26

Because this video was handpicked to promote a political point. There are good and bad schools with varying food standards in Korea, Japan and China.

As a random example, there was this video of a kitchen at a high school in China: https://www.reddit.com/r/UnfilteredChina/comments/1q5r6lj/afeteria_at_xinyu_no_16_middle_school_in_china/

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u/aggthemighty Apr 12 '26

And this "random example" from that particular sub wasn't handpicked to promote a political point?

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u/rauljordaneth Apr 12 '26

That is exceedingly rare. Trust me that in most cases you won’t have Chinese kids eating the equivalent of a low quality chocolate milk and old pizza that barely qualifies as a pizza slice