We’re in an obesity epidemic and most people don’t know how to cook even very basic meals.
Make space for it, squish other classes if you need. Make it mandatory, everyone has to take it. Maybe even ongoing through multiple grades.
Edit: Rice, beans, and even basic meats are cheap. To eat healthy you don’t need your meal to be 100% Bell peppers and tomatoes.
Obviously you shouldn’t force anyone to eat what they can’t eat.
Which sounds nice until you realize the reality of all schools actually work, and how a lot of teachers actually think.
“Well the state says we have to do this in the state says you have to eat it, so you have to eat it ”
“But teacher that’s not what the law actually says “
“Don’t talk back to me you have detention “
So you’re saying there might be a bad teacher out there, so you can’t do anything ever. Yeah no that’s not a real argument.
Right. And you’ll have that one teacher who thinks being vegetarian is “just a phase” or some other crap like that, and forcefully override the student’s beliefs. You can have the best intentions in a system like what OP is prescribing, and then there’s that one teacher who takes it way too far.