In my country, there’s no US style cafeteria (instead it’s a canteen where it’s up to the student if they want to buy anything) some bring their own lunches (home or leftovers) to school, so why do American kids rely on cafeteria food instead of bringing their own?
I mean, is cafeteria food across American schools that bad? It depends on where one resides or if they attend a public or private school. In my case I went to a private (Catholic) high school and the food there is actually good (& cheap when converted to USD).
It depends on where the school is, and even then it is still an industrialized large scale service.
Dude in Philly when I was a kid it was literal prison food, it came on trays of individual meals that they threw into the oven for 15 minutes to heat it up before handing it off. $2.50 in 1989!
Philly resident here. Was in the school system from grade 5 to 12 (2014 - 2021ish). I hated it.
I remember from Grade 2 to 5 in Brooklyn, NYC, it was SO MUCH BETTER… (not “good” per se, but less bad)
(or maybe it was just Nostalgia and distorted memories idk)