Our government is indirectly responsible for feeding a lot of people:
- aged care
- school canteens
- prisons
- hospitals
That is a lot of food, and it often won’t be quality, nutritious, appealing, satisfying food. We know this for sure in aged care and hospitals. Schools will vary a lot, but in my experience they are still predominantly fast food but with some healthy options.
Most of this “government” food is provided by for-profit businesses (where to provide better food means lower profits) and/or outsourced to catering companies who will also put profits first.
Seeing as we are paying for this food already, and everyone deserves quality, nutritious, appealing, satisfying food, then I propose a government department or agency that looks after the food for these people, nationwide, directly. Their mandate is to prioritise quality, nutritious, appealing, satisfying food (and variety), and then provide it as efficiently as possible. Quite likely economies of scale would come into play. Quite possibly food could be purchased direct from the growers, with contracts.
There is another category of government food where the new department can take their clues from, or hire experts from – the armed forces. That is where keeping the workers satisfied and healthy is a priority.
Some prisons (in Australia) seem to also feed their inmates well – with food that non-prisoners in aged care and hospital would love to have:
Cajun chicken on couscous, coconut beef, lamb kofta and Thai beef noodle salad are among some of the dinner menu items on offer at Canberra’s jail.
…While some days feature more boring staples like mac and cheese or corned silverside, other days offer somewhat more exotic dishes like “jerked chicken”, zucchini fritters or ratatouille and grilled haloumi.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-20/what-canberra-prisoners-are-eating-in-jail/9677592
In the USA, based on this official menu, the food is as bad as movies/tv tell us it is. Very cheap, and primarily carbs and sugar, with some token veggies and the cheapest, formed meat. Presumably the caterers profit well.
We can learn from Australia’s prison menus and apply it globally. Also, I recognise that in some prisons the inmates are involved in the food service, and that should remain.
In Australia we also have the CSIRO who do great work – rope them in as well.
While we are at it, the same agency can provide absolute basic staples (rice, flour, sugar, tinned tomatoes etc) to anyone at cost or below cost price, along with free nutrition and cooking classes.
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