What Did School Lunch Used to Look Like?

School lunches have been disgusting at least since this writer was young — but it wasn't always that way. Once upon a time, school lunch in America was a simple, healthy meal meant to nourish and sustain our young people.

The most amazing thing is that these "good old days" of school lunches include what we usually think of as the "bad old days" — the Great Depression. See for yourself in this photo from the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum, which shows a young student praying over her school lunch in 1936. Labeled as "U.S. Works Progress Administration Surplus Commodities: School Lunch Programs during the Great Depression," the photo's caption describes what she's eating as "school lunch of soup, milk, and an apple."

What we wouldn't give today to have our public-school children served "school lunch of soup, milk, and an apple" instead of school "lunch" of sloppy joe, French fries and sugar-laden chocolate milk. It blows my mind that our children ate better at school during the Great Depression than they do now, when we are more prosperous than ever.

While commodity surplus and distribution was official policy back then, just as emergency food assistance and free and reduced school lunch is now, during the 30s the surplus was in whole fruits, vegetables and grains, whereas today we are overflowing with corn and soy and everything corn and soy can be made into. While we haven't stopped helping our disadvantaged citizens with food aid, our cultural and economic priorities that determine what our farmers grow — and what our children eat — sure have changed.

Photo: Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum via Wikimedia