School Lunch: Disgustingly Gross or Nutritious meal?

Most people already know what school lunch is - I mean, it’s in the name, School Lunch. However, is school lunch at David T. Howard safe to eat and giving students the nutritious food they need?

In my last article on school lunch, School Lunch, Organized or Gross?, I interviewed teachers on the topic of school lunch. Specifically, thoughts of systems in place, school lunch in general, and things such as that. I also left a form at the bottom asking about the students’ opinion on school lunch. Students had a lot to say, and here’s one of the responses to if school lunch had issues or not.

“Once I saw that the milk for the school lunch was expired, plus there are no vegetarian/vegan options for students who don't eat meat. I constantly see the same options for vegetables. Carrots, green beans, peas, etc. I understand there are restraints due to covid but the students need more nutrition in their lunches.”

Based on this I decided to see for myself, so with my friend Andrew A, who buys school lunch, we looked at the milk. The expiration date was the day after he got it. I’ve been asking friends who get school lunch if their milk is expired and the results are the same: Always the day after they get the lunch is when it expires. Here’s another response:

“My problem with the school lunch isn't in the occasional missing utensil or late lunch, but instead on the quality of the lunch itself. The bread is soggy, the meat is overcooked, the fruit is frozen solid, the cheese half the time is chunky, the fruit cups are not ripe, the green beans are slimy, the chicken tenders has white spots, the chicken tenders are soggy, etc.”

This has been sort-of proven. I’ve not seen chicken tenders with white spots and soggy, however the fruit, some of it, is cooked semi-correctly. The bread and the meat have been overcooked and uncooked, which is surisping, considering all of it is packaged food.

From the same student, they answered Is School Lunch Good? Why or why not?

“The school lunch is horrible. The bread is soggy, the meat is overcooked, the fruit is frozen solid, the cheese half the time is chunky, the fruit cups are not ripe, the green beans are slimy, the chicken tenders have white spots, the chicken tenders are soggy, etc. There are problems with every piece of food they give us.”

From this - and the never ending complaints of classmates and friends - I feel that school lunch must be horrid. If it was one or two people, I could say it was just a bad batch or tin, but over 19 people? Saying the same thing? There has to be a reason why everyone would say lunch is horrible.

So I decided to try some myself. On Tuesday, November 16th, 2021, I got school lunch.

Let me rephrase that. I got school lunch, almost tasted it, decided against it, and had my friend Cait St. Clair, on November 16th, try it. Here’s what she had to say:

“Today’s lunch was delicious, the pasta was bland but the sauce made up from it.”

Then, on Wednesday, in Advisory I asked 7th grader Seth Topping his opinion on the school lunch. It was nice to get a new perspective on school lunch - as it is Seth’s first year at David T. Howard Middle, going to another school in Florida.

Me: Hey Seth, can I ask you a few questions on school lunch?

Seth: *turns desk towards mine* I’m ready

Me: Uh- Okay, how do you feel about school lunch, your true opinion. Be mindful that this is going in THE HORN, our school newspaper. *gets ready to type*

Seth: The quality is horrible. Yesterday it was spaghetti and meatballs with sauce, it was tasteless. I’m screaming every time I think, I hope that it’s not dog- you know the rest. (my laughter) Kids actually enjoy eating it. I would gladly be the chef, I would like pay, but free of pay I would need the chef for food that’s not meant for dogs. (laughter) That is my view on the quality of school lunch. Let’s not forget, they’ll say that they serve hamburgers. I open the lunch to see chicken sliders. Last time I checked, chicken and hamburgers are completely different. It taste like it came out of the microwave, and the burger is dry and might taste like pink sludge.

Me: A-okay…..how do you feel about school breakfast, true opinion only.

Seth: My elementary, North Dade Center For Modern Languages, I don’t know if this is a Florida thing but you could get a hot breakfast. It didn’t come in a bag. You get cereal such as honey grams, fruit loops. You could get eggs, bacon, waffles, granola bars, you could get hash browns - like what? But no, here you get a cold bag with rubbish in it, (laughter) why is the muffin cold and dense? You could a white or chocolate milk, you could either get orange juice or apple juice - it wasn’t like you could just get whatever they felt like putting in there.

Because of an unexpected Hurricane drill, me and Seth stopped the interview, just so we wouldn’t run into half done questions, with half done answers.

Thanks to Seth, he opened eyes to other things that were a problem, not just with school lunch, but with school food in general. There’s a big problem about choices, keeping everything simple and cut clean.

A more horrid problem with school lunch is people getting stomach aches from it. In one form a student wrote,

“One day I got stomach issues after eating part of the cafeteria lunch, so I went down to the nurses office and there were about 5 other people, all there for stomach problems.”

This is an issue in itself, and the fact that six people, all there with stomach problems, had gotten sick, possibly from eating lunch (doesn’t say exactly what the stomach problems were the cause of.), and how students are probably still getting this lunch - it’s completely wrong.

I know that not a lot of kids are eating school lunch who get it. Monday, November 15th, two of my friends ate only chips and not the cheese dip because of how chunky and weird it looked.

Another response from the form states,

“I tried school lunch once in sixth grade and have never tried it since. I don't eat meat, and one of the main problems is that every single day now there is some surely modified, inhumanely treated thing that sort of resembles meat. It's great that they are offering free lunches to everyone, but they aren't really offering it to everyone if there aren't options for vegetarians, vegans, gluten-intolerant people, and lactose-intolerant people. They should be trying to serve less animal products, and the other problem is that they use so much plastic and styrofoam to wrap up everything - they really don't care about the earth.”

I’m all about the three R’s, but I also see things from a realistic perspective. We really shouldn’t reuse items because of COVID. Maybe we could have compost and recycling things - make some awareness, but in all, COVID has use using the plastic and styrofoam to warp everything because no one wants to get sick - whether it’s the flu, a cold, or COVID itself.

The options itself are very restricted and you don’t even have to get school lunch to know this. Most of the time it’s some meat or sandwich - grilled cheese, meatloaf, hot dogs, etc - along with some green beans and vegetables. It’s the same choices, no variation, or vegan option. Some people can’t eat school lunch because they don’t know how it’s prepared or if they are allergic to anything.

School Lunch, the sitting portion, is confusing as well. On the 7-4 team, only Ms.Helton has inside lunch, the week November 15th through the nineteenth. This is confusing because you know you’ll be outside for History, ELA, and Science but then Math your inside, which really screws up your plans with sitting with your friends as well as making you (almost) get in trouble because you stay outside, thinking your outside not inside since all your other teachers are outside.

All in all, there are things with school lunch that we can change. While most understand it is a district problem, we can at least fix how we prepare food and try to keep everything the same, because some kids only eat school food at school and nothing else. Now, I have a simple question for all of you readers,

What can be done about school lunch, and how can it be fixed?