at my school they served frozen "burgers" that looked like they were made from ground intestines, pretzel grilled "cheese" sandwich which was soggy bread mixed with some fake velveeta looking shit, and then sometimes they'd bring in dominos, which was always soggy garbage because if I worked their I would also be mad I had to prep 100+ pizzas
I think part of the problem is 1. regulation, 2. lunch ladies. I've worked in the food industry for about 6 years now. At my school they had about 5-6 lunch ladies working, all 50+ year old women who were absolutely garbage at their jobs, the "kitchen" looked more similar to fast food, like a mc dicks, than a real kitchen.
At old folks homes they have set menus, just like schools, except we always had a real kitchen with a real chef. We always had at least 100 residents come down for dinner every night, and it was only ever two of us on the "line."
Honestly, I went to a big school, so it was likely over 150 people coming in for a single lunch, we had three separate ones, even so, 3 cooks + a head chef would be able to make fresh food every day instead of cardboard pizza sitting in a heat window for 3 hours straight.
I really don't know why it's always 5 lunch ladies, I don't get it. They could have healthy food, they could have good food, and believe it, chefs don't make shit for money, there probably wouldn't be a big difference once you fire all the trash ladies. Not like money is the issue here, superintendents make $300,000, some of my old teachers make $100,000. Not because they're exemplary, they've just been there for 20 years. Hell, the old superintendent was actually lining his pockets for probably half a decade before being "forced to resign" after a huge scandal broke out.
Fuck the lunch meme, they need a chef, not regulations.