Hot or Cold Lunch in School?

Recent news reports that a school district is limiting student choice to sunflower butter and jelly sandwiches when students fail to pay debts.

This begs the question why hot lunch is served in school in the first place? How is it more nutritious? What is wrong with protein-rich nut butters mixed with fruit on bread, provided the bread is healthy?

If anything, the only good reason for providing hot lunch in school would be if some students are deprived of hot evening meals at home.

In that case it would make sense to give such students the option of eating a hot meal at school, since they would probably only be getting a cold sandwich for dinner later at home.

But would it stigmatize students if they received a hot lunch then, because other students would associate hot lunches with poverty?

Maybe the solution is just to give all students cold sandwich meals in school and provide hot-meal services in the evenings for students who qualify.