Food Theory: DON'T TRUST Your School Lunch!

The “fries” that are shaped like smiley faces are god tier when it comes to school food

I'm a lunch lady (no my names not Brenda!) and I seriously had so much fun reading the comments below on everyone's favorite school lunch foods! Best part about being a lunch lady is serving those cute kids and seeing them get excited about the food. And seeing that a lot of your favorites are my kids favorites too was awesome! I love that Matt talked about the vegetable serving in the pizza's sauce, it always confused me too. I know there's a lot of controversy when it comes to school lunches but we really do try to make things as healthy as we can with, like Matt said, all the rules and regulations, budgets and people pushing decisions in all directions, there really is soooo much more that goes on in those Nutrition Offices than you realize and it's mostly about making the kids happy and healthy with what we have to work with. I've worked summers in test kitchens and it can be tough to get food to hit all the marks. (stepping down from my soapbox) This was a fun episode, loved that it hit so close to home for me!! My favorite foods from school lunch as a kids were the homemade rolls they used to make and the chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy! And back then (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) they still made desserts for us everyday - Yummmmmmmm!!!

Matpat dunking on and name dropping the mean “sporty girls” will live in my head rent free for the rest of my days

I had something like "Cheezy Dippers" when I was in high-school in Eastern Tennessee. My Mom would give me $2 for lunch and I would bypass the regular food line and go to where the Cheese Bread sticks was being served and it would only be $1 per Cheese stick. Maaann those were the days!!! 😅😂❤

My school used to have a fruit requirement. You could not have your meal unless you had at least 1 fruit (an orange, apple, or banana). They later changed it that you didn’t need anything except the food you wanted (but they would charge you more without telling you). There was a rumor that went around that the janitor would dig through the trash and pull out any fruit that looked like it could be served again. Almost everyone just assumed it was fake, but still didn’t eat the fruit because it was not very fresh. I did an experiment with an apple and really didn’t think anything of it. I made a mark on that apple that looked like it could’ve just been natural, but it was just different enough that I could tell the difference. I was actually disgusted when I found that same apple 2 days later. I never ate anything from that school ever again

Matpat sitting crossed leg, refusing to be lifted by “Sporty Girls” lives in my head rent free 😂

1:25 when he talks about his " experiment " its so goofy j mean bro hung on for dear life

My number 1 favorite school lunch is when they served orange chicken and chow mein, I also liked the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner that they served when it was like a week or something from Thanksgiving and Winter break, I also liked when they served Spaghetti, I also remember we got garlic bread with the spaghetti which makes it a lot better

My school has a student's mom as the main cook. So we always got traditional home cooked meals in the selections of food. It's actually very nice. School usually just gets the raw ingredients delivered by a nearby supplier. (This stuff is cheaper in my country)

I actually did a survey about school lunches at my school. Most people said the lunches were okay, a few kids hate the lunches, and the kids who think that the soggy fries and the dry spaghetti is to die for.

Everybody’s favorite thing they had on the menu at my school was pizza crunchers and they were basically breaded on the outside and cheese on the middle with sauce surrounding the cheese and it had the best cheese pull. But personally, my favorite is the pepperoni pizza that wasn’t shaped like a triangle but more like a boat… Not many people liked them, but I loved them lol. BUT THE HOTDOGS??? THEY WERE SHRIVELED FINGERS BY THE TIME OUR LUNCH CAME 😭

0:01 tuna sandwiches ( my favourite ) and chocolate cake ( big serving ) with custard on the top

I considered myself lucky in high school when I learned that the sweet lunch ladies would work with the culinary class to chop fresh vegetables and grill chicken for our boxed salads. These big homemade salads would count as an entree because of the chicken, hard boiled egg, and breadstick that came with it, but would also have all kinds of good stuff in a couple varieties. I would always pick them up and thank the lunch lady that told me about it, because she definitely felt more like a lunch mom to the students.

Matpat definitely seems like the guy to unironically remember the exact names of 5 school bullies for years

used this for my essay in writing class, thank you

When I was in elementary school, they used to serve pasta once or twice a month. They were the best compared to what we usually ate back there(glowing curries, food that smelt like it’s older than the 6th grade class, and rice that’s sometimes undercooked.)

Matpat: “Don’t trust your school lunch!” Me: “Never did, never will.”

The best thing my school ever served was the “Holiday meal!” This included stuffing that strangely tasted like Rice-a-Roni, mashed potatoes, green beans, and two slices of turkey and the whole thing was covered with turkey gravy! Back when the the Pandemic was bad and they send lunches and breakfast, and when they were delivering the “Holiday meal” I would order extra because it was that good 😋

Our school has Italian dunkers which are basically cheese with some bread rolled around it. They’re really good. They also have cheesy French bread which is some bread that looks to be from a more rounded prince of bread cut into quarters horizontally and vertically if that makes sense. With butter and cheese on top. Not to mention quite a few people seem to like crispitos which are basically ground beef with some sort of seasoning to them wrapped in what I can only assume is a hard tortilla? Besides those food quality had been declining except for the fact they’re finally getting better tortillas which my friends and I are quite pleased with.

12:41 this made me LOL SOOOOO HARD 😂😂 I was in the QSR pizza industry for most of my professional career… I set up and ran many school lunch programs at many different locations, and they all ordered the exact same way: extra sauce, light on the cheese And they were MILITANT that they be made proper