Canada

Even eating at school wasn't a thing for us—when I was in elementary school, only the kids being bussed in (a tiny minority) didn't go home for lunch.

Same here growing up in a small west coast town. There was rarely even a cafeteria that served hot meals until high school and it wasn't much as it was run by students for economics/business class. They also managed a small store that sold junk food and pop.

I did go to high school in Calgary for a bit but I was mostly in shock by the full time RCMP office in the school and the diversity of students beyond the mostly First Nations and Caucasians I grew up with so the lunch situation wasn't really something I recall.

I suspect much has changed since then as this was in the early 90s.

I recall leaving school to go to local fast food joints or the convenience store for something to eat as far back as junior high. I've seen plenty of this with local convenience stores near schools too.

Recently I was in Cranbrook BC and stopped at a Safeway around lunchtime. I was floored at how many students were there getting lunch. It seemed like it was a big deal for the store as I hadn't seen such a large deli and sandwich areas in big city Safeways. The high school was across the street so perhaps it acts as a cafeteria in this case.

I'm curious how public food programs are delivered in schools.

I remember having really great meals when I was in a brazilian public kindergarten/elementary school. Many of the recipes weren't my favourite at the time, but it was a meal. When I returned many years later to a public high school it was really sad to see how it downgraded from actual meals to crackers with "color juice" like you said.