Prescription for a healthy diet: If it tastes good, spit it out.
In high school, there was a "fast food" line selling hamburgers, hot dogs, grilled, cheese, etc., and the "full meal line" serving slop, sludge, and gruel. Guess which line got well over 95% of the business?
Yet the school was still required to have enough "full meals" to serve the student body, which meant massive waste.
But suppliers still got paid . . . which of course was the real point.
Similar deal, except both lines did halfway decent, as all but the french fries on the "fast food" side was crap and the regular food had some good days to offset the bad ones.
But, man, I swear the sprinkled those fries with crack.
My middle school had a salad bar. It cost three times as much as the standard school lunch, but did brisk business.
I always figured that if my HS and MS lunch ladys joined forces, I would be in food heaven.
My issues with these "nutritional" lunches is that they are one size fits all for a health issue that is very induvidial and especially at that age group.
The lean, athletic boys I went to school with would have starved to death on those servings, much less the boys with the bigger builds who were mid growth spurt.
As far as nutrition, well, I saw white bread and not nearly enough veggies and fruit. IMHO, nutritional meals involve a heck of a lot more then just cutting serving sizes.