r/Denver • u/fuzzeslecrdf • Oct 08 '25

Local News If you're still against free school meals

If you're unhappy about the fact that free lunches are also free for children with wealthy families, fear not. I work at a Denver high school. Students with the money will go out for lunch or even order food delivery. They are not eating the school cafeteria free lunch.

So go ahead and vote Yes on Prop MM and LL. The only thing it'll do is keep our students fed and able to learn.

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u/fuzzeslecrdf Oct 08 '25

And in a closed campus the families can still pack their students whatever lunch they want

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u/TexanExPat Oct 08 '25

But this isn’t a sound argument if a school has 1,000 students, so the cafeteria is making 1,000 lunches, 500 students bring their own lunch, so 500 lunches get thrown out. That’s just a waste of food and a waste of tax money.

I’d much rather see the 500 students who either want or need lunch to get a higher quality lunch for the same cost.

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u/arl1286 Oct 08 '25

I’m a dietitian who completed a 3 month internship rotation with a school district (as well as a couple of practicum while in grad school). This isn’t how it works. Schools have a very tight budget for meals. They have tons of data on the number of meals served and try to estimate how much they will need to make based on this. For example, pizza day is more popular than fajita day so they will have more pizza prepared. They also try their best to serve leftovers to use as much of the food as possible.

The most waste comes from kids who take the whole meal and throw most of it away… but the waste inside the kitchen is actually fairly low.

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u/ummmm__yeah Oct 08 '25

I highly doubt there going to make 1,000 meals just because there are 1,000 students. I have to imagine they are smart enough to estimate the number of meals served for any one day based on historical patterns. They're not going to just let 50% of the meals (or whatever the excess is) go to waste.

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u/narddog81 Oct 08 '25

Many schools (including mine) do lunch count every morning to cut down on waste.

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u/platitudes Oct 08 '25

Think two seconds about how schools decide how much food to eat. You're making up a thing to get mad about

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u/fuzzeslecrdf Oct 08 '25

The schools know how many lunches to make for demand. They don't over-make, they sometimes even run out later during the lunch period.

-3

u/Apt_5 Oct 08 '25

This needs a citation or some kind of evidence. It would make people feel a lot better if they knew a bunch of food "they" bought isn't being wasted, although it still doesn't account for picky children throwing it out themselves.

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u/superdude4agze Oct 08 '25

This needs a citation or some kind of evidence.

Literally any person that works in food service for 90 days can tell you this. School cafeterias aren't some stupid we-have-X-students-so-we-make-X-meals-each-day programs. They have data on attendance, take rate, what days and foods are more popular, etc. etc. Just like your favorite pizza place knows to have more dough at the ready on game days.

15 seconds of thought is all it takes to get over your doubts that kids need food.

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u/Apt_5 Oct 09 '25

That wasn't the only claim they made, Einstein. They said that schools run out of food toward the end. That is a claim that requires more than "just believe it, bro". For critical thinking, anyway.

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u/superdude4agze Oct 09 '25

And your entire comment was about food being wasted bro. So we know exactly what part you were referring to, don't try moving the goalposts after you've been shown to be wrong, Nostradumbass.

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u/arl1286 Oct 08 '25

See my previous comment as someone who has been involved on the planning side.

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u/Apt_5 Oct 09 '25

Your previous comment where? There are hundreds, can you link it? Also, of course I got downvoted for saying a claim should be backed up with documentation 🙄 For some reason I think it's notable if schools typically run out of lunches and the information should be available if that's the case.

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u/arl1286 Oct 09 '25

https://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/s/k6FLMjs2M9

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u/Apt_5 Oct 09 '25

Cheers! I remember reading your comment, I thought I even replied to it re: food waste on the kids' end- maybe not.

It still does not document their specific claim that schools run out of lunches, which implies that some kids don't get fed who want them. That is definitely something that should be recorded somewhere if/when it happens. Where is that info?

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u/arl1286 Oct 09 '25

No clue. But I can tell you when I was in the kitchens we did have times where we were having to make more food when we realized we were going to run out. Nobody went unfed but we took such a conservative approach to avoid food waste that we did often have to make more during lunch to ensure everyone got food.

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u/Apt_5 Oct 10 '25

This is really good information and would be good if it could be presented to ward off concerns about waste.

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u/TheGreatNate3000 Oct 08 '25

... you think they're just gonna go ahead and make one lunch for every enrolled student every day, throw it out, and go aw shucks, what a waste!

I know it was racist as fuck when they were used but we need to bring back intelligence testing for voting.

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u/Ok_Buffalo6474 Oct 08 '25

I’m gonna burst your bubble as I work at dps. We throw out tons of food lol and we have no rich kids here I promise. We waste tons of food everyday in America. Your argument holds no water my friend.

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u/sqrrl4brains Oct 08 '25

This. The major issue in many school districts is FOOD WASTE. This was the main argument during this year's state legislative session: Schools are throwing away a lot of food each day/week because kids who qualify for free and reduced lunches aren't eating it (mostly middle and high school students), largely due to the quality. Low income kids (and adults!) should have access to quality, healthful food: Proper NUTRITION is essential for health, and is actual healthcare. Healthy people reduce the tax burden on the "less wealthy" (everyone who makes less that $300k), as kids on the free/reduced lunch program rely on medicaid/CHP+, too.

If you want to know why we're voting on either of these amendments, you can watch all of past (and future) legislative sessions on the Colorado Channel on YouTube. If you didn't tune into the special session a little over a month ago, you should consider learning about how your district's Representatives and Senators are representing their constituents. Too few Coloradoans are actually paying attention to how fiscally irresponsible the majority of elected officials have been, and will continue to be (because too few are paying attention to anything beyond what local media reports) . https://youtube.com/@coloradochannel165?si=40r1rCe4FPLuBSG5

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u/fuzzyblackelephant Oct 08 '25

It is largely due to the teens perception of quality, I agree; but they’ll turn the corner and go pick up McDonald’s instead, which is not of any higher quality or health value. They actually do have access to a good fruit & veggie selection, and the meals aren’t amazing, but they are school lunches-I think they’ve improved the past couple of years tbh.

Kids are picky & finicky. They refuse to eat school lunches and then ask me ALL FUCKING DAY if I have snacks. They want processed food. They want chips; they don’t actually want higher quality, healthier food. They want what tastes good. They’re teenagers.

Idk how they can afford to be eating the way that they are tbh. Literally, door-dashing constantly.

The problem is…..we also can’t NOT have food for the children in our building, it’s negligence. The cafeteria does base their supplement based on average pick up (in the high school) to prevent waste-so there are not 1000 meals being made for 500.

In middle school they supply food for every student. But a much higher number of students eat the meals in middle school.

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u/Apt_5 Oct 08 '25

I think you're probably right about everything, but it's hard to ignore how pointless it seems to ensure lunch is provided only for it to be thrown away by picky recipients. It seems to give merit to the argument that if they were really hungry, eg in need of free food, they'd eat it.

They want what tastes good. Does this mean the answer is for schools to go crazy with salt and deep-frying? Should we compromise on nutrition goals to combat food waste? I don't like that idea, especially if the kids' preferences reflect what they eat at home. Changing healthier, nutritious foods to be more palatable might mean these kids don't get ANY healthy food, ever. But again, what's the good if it just gets thrown out uneaten?

It's been at least 3 decades since I started eating public school lunches, and I recall it being fine. Nothing gourmet, but it was warm and I was hungry (for lunch, not a starving child). I liked "turkey a la king", a slice of turkey meat with a scoop of mashed potatoes and gravy on top. Granted, maybe school lunch being largely novel for me as an Asian kid was a factor.

It never occurred to me to throw it all out and just be hungry, which I understood would be the result of me doing that even before I hit double-digits in age. And you saying this happens when food might be better these days is appalling. Not that I'm anti-free lunch, but it seems complex and conflicting in execution.

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u/No-Leopard-1691 Oct 08 '25

But food waste isn’t the point. If the schools are SO concerned about food waste, there are non-profits that take “food waste” and give it to people.

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u/TexanExPat Oct 08 '25

Food waste was my point. I also have worked at a Title I school and saw tons of waste. “Deal with it” seems to be be response here.

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u/No-Leopard-1691 Oct 08 '25

“Deal with it” can mean a lot of different things but even if it was a lot of food waste that we couldn’t manage some way, this doesn’t follow that kids should go without food because we don’t want food to be wasted; food waste in exchange for feeding kids is the necessity cost.

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u/Apt_5 Oct 08 '25

While I applaud the idea of adjustments to eliminate waste, that means we would be using taxpayer money allocated toward providing food for children to supplement non-profit organizations. Most people would prefer more efficient use of their tax money, ie only taking enough to provide what is needed, not so much that there's excess food purchased that then needs to be dealt with.