School Lunch Found Guilty!

Our (Wo)Manifesto

STUDENTS:
We have lunch that is gross and repeated every week and is mostly not eaten because either it is disgusting or because of religion. We should vary the food and let us, students, make the choice of what is to be eaten because we are the ones who will eat it.

The school food is unhealthy and looks non-appetizing. The vegetables are mushy and they smell bad when they’re boiled. The school lunch looks unhealthy and mushy, but in other places, food is paired up with something and is crunchy or smooth. Food should be healthy, fresh, unboiled. Vegetables should be matched up with another food. For example: rice with carrots, green peas. We want fruits that are fresh, non-bruised and taste the way they’re supposed to taste.

The school is making a kitchen in the lunchroom, but why? We ask ourselves, why is there a kitchen and no cooking? We think this kitchen will be useless because the kitchen should be used for cooking, not for heating. We want to see a chef putting ingredients together and cooking something professionally and neatly. There sould be someone actually cooking new and fresh food for us. Now that would be way better.

Every day at lunch when we throw away our trays in the garbage we are wasting money and hurting our earth. We could be hurting our earth with styrofoam, aluminum, plastic and paper. We always get trays and we just throw them away. There should be a station in the back where we get a tray, plate, cup, and fork and sppon, and after we are done, we put everything in the back to be washed. We won’t waste money or hurt the earth anymore if we have regular silverware.

TEACHERS:
We have seen grease stains left from the breads and muffins served to our students. We have seen our students eat the school lunch “nachos” (meant to be a full meal) that consist only of ground beef and tortilla chips. We have had students skip lunch because they said it was “nasty.” We have seen them eat the candy bar and bag of chips they bought from the bodega before school as an alternative. We have heard many complaints about expired milk. We have searched five minutes through a selection of apples to find one not covered with bruises. This is so unfair. We would like our students to have fresh, quality food that makes them excited about school lunch, helps them develop good eating habits early, and that provides them with enough energy to get through the school day.

Currently, our school is undergoing a renovation that will include a new kitchen. When that kitchen is complete, we would like to see it used for washing, chopping, stirring, seasoning and actual cooking – not for unpackaging and reheating. We think a brand new kitchen provides the perfect opportunity to change how things are typically done in school cafeterias.

Our country’s enormous Foodie/Gourmet Culture is apparent in the popularity of food blogs, the Food Network, and shows like Top Chef. We would like to see that kind of enthusiasm aimed at school lunches. There are so many skilled chefs (and wannabe chefs) out there, it is ludicrous to think schools couldn’t find a few who might like to work with kids. The Powers That Be need to empower schools to hire a school chef and kitchen staff, and need to support those positions with the decision-making ability and level of respect they might find in a restaurant, and the kind of budget that will support fresh ingredients and on-site preparation.

As teachers, we work very hard to plan lessons that appeal to the interests and attention spans of our students while also helping them gain the skills they need. We do this by paying attention to what they’re reading, by talking to them about their hobbies, by asking questions about what they had trouble with on their homework, by doing hours and hours of research for fresh classroom materials, and by attending professional development sessions that teach us new methods of delivering information. We would like to see the same level of care put into planning our students’ lunches. School lunch menu planners need to take into account not only what students’ bodies need, but also what they want, and what they’ll actually eat. It is possible to offer our students interesting alternatives to pizza and hamburgers, but healthy food has to be prepared in a way that will appeal to kids.

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