Unusual History Of School Lunch That Textbooks Love To Skip Over
Ham and cheese on white bread, a carton of milk, a glob of mystery meat plopped onto your lunch tray by a grizzled lunch lady — how did these universal staples of our childhoods come to be? As we've been learning for over a century, the way that public schools feed students often has lasting effects into adulthood. Though it may not be as stomach-churning as mystery meat, the origins of school lunches leave a similar bad taste in our mouths...
An Obvious Problem
It all started with a generations-old dilemma: kids were going hungry. In the late 1800s, education became more accessible to children all over the US, and it became more and more obvious to educators that kids with rumbly bellies were difficult to discipline, let alone teach.
Ellen Swallow Richards
Thankfully, that’s when the aptly-named Ellen Swallow Richards came along. The chemist and engineer also happened to be an expert on home economics, and her company, The New England Kitchen, already provided nutritious meals to low-income and immigrant families. Why not do the same at a public school?
The First Ever School Lunch
So, Richards started the first ever school lunch program at Boston Latin School. The meals of fish chowder and buttered bread weren’t exactly mouth-watering, but they were warm, affordable, and most importantly, filling. After a while, the impact of students having a regular midday meal spoke for itself.
Pay Up
The once-distracted students who suffered from malnutrition or food insecurity at home were easier to teach, not to mention more energized and motivated to learn. Other public schools took note, and by the early 1900s, at least 40 institutions offered school lunch programs — except this time, students had to pay.
