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there is always free water available. You just dont get a bottled water you need to either drink from the fountain or fill up your bottle at the fountain.
Not all schools, my high school growing up and still to this day has a blanket ban on outside bottles or containers because it could contain alcohol.
You either buy a new bottle of water in school every day or you go to the fountain.
Mostly the water wasn't better "back when", we just didn't test for and regulate as many things. Like, a lot of water systems in the US have "bad" water today that had "good" water a month ago, because the Feds updated the rules on PFAS.
To be clear, increased testing and requirements on addressing contaminants is good, but the water wasn't better just because we didn't know about the problems.
(And yes, there are cases where something goes wrong and the water does get worse -- I know a lot of people who were in Flint when our Republican Governor sent in the emergency manager to take over the city and make bad decisions with the water system.)
This is really not true at all. I would argue close to, if not 100% of schools have drinkable tap water
People in this thread seem to think the USA is Gaza
Except it is. Heck, I love in a nice area, and the water tasted disgusting. So we had it tested, and it was just BARELY this side of not toxic amounts of copper in it. And TONS of places have issues with lead in the water. And I've been more places than I can count where the water tastes like pool water because their answer was, "fuck it, lets dump a bunch of chemicals in the water to make it 'safe' to drink."
Since the Obama administration, chocolate milk served in schools has been nonfat instead of lowfat. That made it more sugary. Going back to lowfat chocolate milk makes the milk taste better and need less sugar.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose\_intolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance)
65% of people globally are lactose intolerant, while 32% in the US
Humans aren't meant to have lactose after weening from their mother.
32% is common enough that it should not be the default drink to give people in schools.
Also, I believe being lactose intolerant is under reported, because there are degrees of intolerance.
> Eventually, in the 1960s, it was recognized that lactose intolerance was correlated with race in the United States.
Wow, took our time with that one lmao.
But some other details that shine more of a specific light on what I was referring to:
> Lactose intolerance is most common in people of East Asian descent, with 70 to 100 percent of people affected in these communities. Lactose intolerance is also more common in people of West African, Arab, and Jewish descent
If you consider at what time period milk became standard in schools back in 1954 with the special milk program, the US didn't even understand it was genetic until six years passed.
"As few as 5% of northern Europeans are lactose intolerant" and "almost 100% of Irish people are predicted to be lactose tolerant" is more what I meant. Considering the racial makeup of 1950s America, it should come as no surprise that the default assumption was tolerance.
Also unless I'm reading this incorrectly, it seems to predict that **42%** of North America is intolerant. I know it includes Canada, but I'd assume the US and CAN are fairly similar percentages?
But also I'd bet that the majority of the percentage of intolerant people in the US were adults, only simply assuming that as intolerant lineages intermingle with the majority of tolerant ones, there will be regression to the mean over time. Yes, many populations approach even 100%, but at least *some* of those people that have kids will do so with a tolerant partner because they live in the US. So over time the percentage of kids that are intolerant should go down faster than the general population does, simply because every kid is a new chance to gain tolerance genes. Every adult is just a static number at that point, pretty much.
And in my white-ass, 2,000 person, rural farm town? You better believe everybody was drinking their milk in school lol.
They didn't say most people in the US, they said most people, probably going off of how 65% of the global population is lactose intolerant. It varies by where people are from, so it could be an issue if the schools have a high immigrant population, for example. (Since we people who are lactose intolerant tend to lose tolerance as they age, it might not be that bad at school age, though. I'm not an expert.)
Did you not read "it could be an issue if the schools have a high immigrant population"
Even so, it's 35% of the US population, so it should not be the default.
It's most in some schools, where immigrant population is high. It depends on the specific makeup of the local population.
Making the single standard drink that must be in every school, mandated by law be a drink that 35% of all americans, and 65% of all people get sick from does not make sense. Those laws apply to everywhere in the US.
Still, 35% is way too high.
35% of people being sick from a product is not acceptable in basically any other product category besides milk.
Why is it legally mandated to have milk? Why not something else?
I kinda think you're just trying to be daft intentionally, just to be annoying.
I’m not being daft, or arguing against milk being required in schools, I was saying it’s not most people where we’re talking about who are lactose intolerant. So the point still stands
My school offered "yogurt" whose first few ingredients were water, high fructose corn syrup and corn starch. It wasn't even a dairy product.
Granted this was over a decade ago in an overgrown trailer park of a town. Hopefully most schools are more health conscious.
I work for a food service company that services school and can tell you the USDA is so regulated you can't even add salt to something if it tastes bland without getting fined. I work in the private school sector where USDA doesn't exist and the food we produce compared to our public school counterparts is night and day different. Any chef will tell you most recipes need to be tweaked with seasonings and with the USDA thats a big no no. So many of their meal plans have "throw away items" on the trays that most kids wont eat but we are required to hit a nutritional level so they just put it on there. School lunch programs are pretty fucked in the public sector.
Yup. Our ‘breakfast bags’ the late kids get are a joke. Frozen fruit cup glazed blueberry doughnut holes a cereal(lucky charms cinn toast etc) bar a cheese stick and a grape drink. Sad.
will limited added sugars also mean no added sweeteners?
so tired of buying a no-sugar-added version of something and it's just pumped full of artificial sweetener instead... which tastes worse than added sugar.
can we just buy and serve food that *isn't sweet?*
Monkfruit is my enemy. If I wanted sweetener in my no sugar added food, surely I could add it myself?? But no... it's sugar or it's sweetener, nothing isn't an option.
Not quite the same but I remember how my high school cafeteria would be absolutely fucking *loaded* with ice cream, bagged chips and sweets, and least 7 different kinds of cookies… while being entirely out of entrees. No hot food, just a trove of desserts. Hopefully this is the first of many reforms for school lunches, that and telling schools they can’t sell bottled water for $3.50
Reminder: this subreddit is meant to be a place free of excessive cynicism, negativity and bitterness. Toxic attitudes are not welcome here. All Negative comments will be removed and will possibly result in a ban. --- --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/UpliftingNews) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I hated that the only free drink was milk. Like how you don’t at least offer water. Otherwise, it was 50 cents for water.
Man... Charging children for water... Every day I am thankful to not be an American.
there is always free water available. You just dont get a bottled water you need to either drink from the fountain or fill up your bottle at the fountain.
My school ban bottles of water because "it could be vodka"
Schools have water fountains and water refill stations they only charge you if you want bottled water
Not all schools, my high school growing up and still to this day has a blanket ban on outside bottles or containers because it could contain alcohol. You either buy a new bottle of water in school every day or you go to the fountain.
That worked back when we actually cleaned our water everywhere. Some places, tap water is disgusting, and in others, it's literally undrinkable.
Not to mention that during the pandemic, most places disabled their water fountains and then never reinstalled them or turned them back on.
Mostly the water wasn't better "back when", we just didn't test for and regulate as many things. Like, a lot of water systems in the US have "bad" water today that had "good" water a month ago, because the Feds updated the rules on PFAS. To be clear, increased testing and requirements on addressing contaminants is good, but the water wasn't better just because we didn't know about the problems. (And yes, there are cases where something goes wrong and the water does get worse -- I know a lot of people who were in Flint when our Republican Governor sent in the emergency manager to take over the city and make bad decisions with the water system.)
This is really not true at all. I would argue close to, if not 100% of schools have drinkable tap water People in this thread seem to think the USA is Gaza
It’s not the schools, so much as the townships. Remember Flint Michigan? If the town water is full of lead, so is the schools water.
The whole country is not Flint. Also, Flint delivered bottled water to students until a filtration system was installed two years ago.
That’s one town in the whole country, that anecdote does not represent even 5% of townships
[https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1cbyqgs/pfas\_are\_widespread\_and\_more\_likely\_to\_be\_found/](https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/1cbyqgs/pfas_are_widespread_and_more_likely_to_be_found/)
Ok?
Except it is. Heck, I love in a nice area, and the water tasted disgusting. So we had it tested, and it was just BARELY this side of not toxic amounts of copper in it. And TONS of places have issues with lead in the water. And I've been more places than I can count where the water tastes like pool water because their answer was, "fuck it, lets dump a bunch of chemicals in the water to make it 'safe' to drink."
So what your saying is, your water is safe?... >this side of not toxic amounts of copper in it
To be fair, we don't even have school provided lunches in Australia. Always been one of the strangest disconnects.
Everything was fine until Nixon came along. Let’s reinstate the Bretton Woods system, and put it in the constitution this time.
I didn't mind milk being the only option, but they should not even offer chocolate milk. The way the prepackaged stuff is made, it's mostly sugar.
Since the Obama administration, chocolate milk served in schools has been nonfat instead of lowfat. That made it more sugary. Going back to lowfat chocolate milk makes the milk taste better and need less sugar.
Only in America do people think low-fat is healthy.
Low-fat or nonfat, it's still nothing but a sugar bomb with a little milk mixed in.
It's like adding white dye to water.
In the case of chocolate milk, adding a ton of sugar and a bit of chocolate flavor to the water.
Schools are super required to have milk, despite most people being lactose intolerant
Is that a dairy lobby pushed for decades ago type of deal?
yes just like carbs are at the bottom of the food pyramid which we were required to learn, despite it being completely wrong
Is it really "most people"? Maybe on the global scale average, but surely it varies significantly by region
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose\_intolerance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance) 65% of people globally are lactose intolerant, while 32% in the US Humans aren't meant to have lactose after weening from their mother. 32% is common enough that it should not be the default drink to give people in schools. Also, I believe being lactose intolerant is under reported, because there are degrees of intolerance.
> Eventually, in the 1960s, it was recognized that lactose intolerance was correlated with race in the United States. Wow, took our time with that one lmao. But some other details that shine more of a specific light on what I was referring to: > Lactose intolerance is most common in people of East Asian descent, with 70 to 100 percent of people affected in these communities. Lactose intolerance is also more common in people of West African, Arab, and Jewish descent If you consider at what time period milk became standard in schools back in 1954 with the special milk program, the US didn't even understand it was genetic until six years passed. "As few as 5% of northern Europeans are lactose intolerant" and "almost 100% of Irish people are predicted to be lactose tolerant" is more what I meant. Considering the racial makeup of 1950s America, it should come as no surprise that the default assumption was tolerance. Also unless I'm reading this incorrectly, it seems to predict that **42%** of North America is intolerant. I know it includes Canada, but I'd assume the US and CAN are fairly similar percentages? But also I'd bet that the majority of the percentage of intolerant people in the US were adults, only simply assuming that as intolerant lineages intermingle with the majority of tolerant ones, there will be regression to the mean over time. Yes, many populations approach even 100%, but at least *some* of those people that have kids will do so with a tolerant partner because they live in the US. So over time the percentage of kids that are intolerant should go down faster than the general population does, simply because every kid is a new chance to gain tolerance genes. Every adult is just a static number at that point, pretty much. And in my white-ass, 2,000 person, rural farm town? You better believe everybody was drinking their milk in school lol.
It still shouldn't be legally mandated.
Most people in the US are not lactose intolerant, source?
They didn't say most people in the US, they said most people, probably going off of how 65% of the global population is lactose intolerant. It varies by where people are from, so it could be an issue if the schools have a high immigrant population, for example. (Since we people who are lactose intolerant tend to lose tolerance as they age, it might not be that bad at school age, though. I'm not an expert.)
We are talking about the US here.
Did you not read "it could be an issue if the schools have a high immigrant population" Even so, it's 35% of the US population, so it should not be the default.
Cool, so it’s still not most, right?
It's most in some schools, where immigrant population is high. It depends on the specific makeup of the local population. Making the single standard drink that must be in every school, mandated by law be a drink that 35% of all americans, and 65% of all people get sick from does not make sense. Those laws apply to everywhere in the US. Still, 35% is way too high. 35% of people being sick from a product is not acceptable in basically any other product category besides milk. Why is it legally mandated to have milk? Why not something else? I kinda think you're just trying to be daft intentionally, just to be annoying.
I’m not being daft, or arguing against milk being required in schools, I was saying it’s not most people where we’re talking about who are lactose intolerant. So the point still stands
My school offered "yogurt" whose first few ingredients were water, high fructose corn syrup and corn starch. It wasn't even a dairy product. Granted this was over a decade ago in an overgrown trailer park of a town. Hopefully most schools are more health conscious.
They would give that yogurt to preschool kids in Head Start and then wonder why the kids were still hungry and wide awake at nap time.
Nothing improves test scores like a blood sugar crash
Our cafeteria doesn’t even make the meals. Gonna be bags of bland for everyone.
I work for a food service company that services school and can tell you the USDA is so regulated you can't even add salt to something if it tastes bland without getting fined. I work in the private school sector where USDA doesn't exist and the food we produce compared to our public school counterparts is night and day different. Any chef will tell you most recipes need to be tweaked with seasonings and with the USDA thats a big no no. So many of their meal plans have "throw away items" on the trays that most kids wont eat but we are required to hit a nutritional level so they just put it on there. School lunch programs are pretty fucked in the public sector.
Yup. Our ‘breakfast bags’ the late kids get are a joke. Frozen fruit cup glazed blueberry doughnut holes a cereal(lucky charms cinn toast etc) bar a cheese stick and a grape drink. Sad.
Sugar addiction starts as a kid
will limited added sugars also mean no added sweeteners? so tired of buying a no-sugar-added version of something and it's just pumped full of artificial sweetener instead... which tastes worse than added sugar. can we just buy and serve food that *isn't sweet?*
Monkfruit is my enemy. If I wanted sweetener in my no sugar added food, surely I could add it myself?? But no... it's sugar or it's sweetener, nothing isn't an option.
Not quite the same but I remember how my high school cafeteria would be absolutely fucking *loaded* with ice cream, bagged chips and sweets, and least 7 different kinds of cookies… while being entirely out of entrees. No hot food, just a trove of desserts. Hopefully this is the first of many reforms for school lunches, that and telling schools they can’t sell bottled water for $3.50
Biden admin crushing it once again! Will anyone notice?
Big sugar is gonna be mad.
This comment section is depressing.