American schools seen by Japanese students.

I have attended either so I can’t comment. FWIW, I think American kids are getting highly nutritious food and the cafeteria is far better than what is shown here in Japan.

I once thought of opening a vegan takeout place. As a contrast joke on FatBoy cigars, I would call these places Slim Joe Schmos. The menu would be whatever you like. Only the freshest and most unique ingredients: all organic would be available. Heirloom tomatoes, spring mix, organic avocado and guacamole made in store, wide variety of organic fruit, sprouts, vegan salad dressings made in store, lightly boiled asparagus and broccoli, pico de Gallo and black bean and corn salsa all from organic ingredients. Bread would have at the most 3 ingredients with no preservatives made from organic freshly milled sprouted grain. The water was well water and the only other adult drinks would be champagne, extremely pure beer and kombucha or apple cider. Wine was not on the menu. Or cheese. There were no soups because they were considered not fresh enough. Chips were allowed but only in limited quantities and had to be organic and non GMO corn. Green juice was freshly made with a wide variety of ingredient choices: celery, spinach, carrots, beet, cucumber, ginger and turmeric. There were no sugar based items.

People would eat there as a way to lose weight faster than medication. They would be warned that their taste buds would lose all taste for meat and dairy. They might grow a fondness for plants. Birds not smelling or sensing chicken eaters might creep closer than is comfortable.

I never actually tried to get that idea off the ground. People told me that the folks who are genuinely suffering, the average person of America would not be able to afford it. That’s not true, that’s what I thought. My demographic would have been WholeFood type customers. WholeFoods for a while was opening stores in only certain American zip codes that made over a certain annual amount per year. A sort of capitalistic discrimination. Is that an anti-capitalist statement? Even when it’s true? WholeFoods is a health store who cares for the health of their customers. But only some customers. Those who they think can afford to shop there. Is that a clear case of Capital deciding who gets to live longer? I don’t think so. I think it’s only capital trying to pursue capital. Money chases money and becomes more. That’s all it is. Why blame capital? Or capitalism?

Would I change things now? Sure. I’d open highly affordable places like those especially where they are needed. In the forgotten towns. Not sure how the supply chains would work but it could be done. If there was funding for such an idea. And that is the secondary costs of where we choose to deploy American capital. Deploying it somewhere, implies that, those dollars won’t be available for somewhere else.