We’ve all heard complaints about our country’s school lunch programs, but how do they stand up to the food prisoners are being bed? The results are in, and they aren’t too pretty. While $14.2 billion federal dollars go towards school lunch programs and prisons are given a mere $205 million, less than one-third of school lunch programs meet the recommended standard for saturated fat in their meals. It turns out that the stuff we’re serving kids in school might actually be worse than prison food. Certainly, prison food isn’t anything to get yourself arrested for, but compared to what school kids get, it’s pretty healthy. A typical school lunch includes one bread item, one starch item, ½ cup of fruit or vegetables, and 8 ounces of milk. The standard prison meal consists of 4 ounces of meat, ¾ cup of starch, ½ cup of vegetables, one bread item, one serving of fruit, and one beverage. Even worse than the fact that prison food is better than school lunches, even fast-food appears to be better.
