Lunchables: now slightly less terrible for kids!

Look, I don't have kids so in many ways I don't care what they have for lunch. Sandwiches, M&M's, a pack of Kool 100's. It's all the same to me. But I do have opinions about Lunchables being given to kids by schools for some reason. 

It's probably for the best that I don't have kids...

"Pack the kids lunch? No, I thought you did.
I was busy waiting for wealth to trickle down.

-Parents in the 80's

In a gross "because business" move, Kraft, the manufacturers of the Kraft Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product I recently used as an analogy for the political Right's naked hypocrisy when it comes to personal freedom, will now be allowed to sell their Lunchables in schools. Lunchables are, if you're unfamiliar, small, plastic boxes with slices of cheese, cold cuts, and crackers. They were first launched in 1989 and gave Reganaut parents a way to save five minutes in the morning. And now schools can get in on compromising kids' nutrition.

Pictured: a disappointing styrofoam
tray of contradictions.

I'm not saying school lunches were ever great. Back when I was in grade school, in the early sixteenth century, tater tots, dry pucks of hambuger, or taco salad--which, incidentally was neither taco nor salad--were really all that was on offer. Lunchables, by comparison, seem both inadequate in portion size and nutritionally suspect. Students will have a choice between a Turkey, cheddar, and cracker version and and assemble your own pizza. And by pizza I mean sauce on a cracker with shredded mozzarella. And pizza sauce is almost a vegetable, right?

Brand awareness being a vital part
of a child's nutritional needs.

The Lunchables to be foisted on students this fall are not the bog standard super market ones, but rather new, "Now Built for Schools" versions with reduced sodium and sugar so as to meet National Schooll Lunch Program requirements. Marketing materials directed at school districts tout the benefits of the new Lunchables including how they now meet the NSLP standards (which I mean, holy shit, what were they giving kids before?) and how Lunchables have 93% brand awareness.

Again, no dog in this hunt beyond the idea that starving children's brains at a young age by giving them nutritionally void bento boxes out of expediency sounds pretty cruel and neglectful. And worse is that they're doing it out acquiescence to corporate interests who've been lobbying the government for decades for access to the school lunch market.

Say what you will about gruel, but at least no one
was quizzing Dickensian orphans on brand recognition.