Food Options Not Serving Students' Needs
The Pony Express Editorial Board
The Pony Express Editorial Board
The food industry at public schools has been causing problems throughout the student body. Not only do they have a small selection of healthy and non-meat based food items, the plastic packaging for everything from bread to apples contributes to the already bad littering problem around campus.
After Governor Gavin Newsom signed California Senate Bill 364 in July of 2021, all students in California public schools were eligible to receive free school lunch for the 2021-2022 school year. This law provided breakfast and lunch options for all students, and is especially helpful to students who previously faced food insecurity.
However, despite the many advantages the law has provided to students, it also has its disadvantages. One of them being the much larger amount of food that the cafeteria now has to provide. This puts a lot of pressure not only on the school district to pay for larger shipments of food but also on cafeteria workers who now have to prepare and serve food to many more students.
This law is not the root cause to the unhealthy school lunch options but it has created further obstacles to obtaining a well-rounded menu. Many students have complained about the lack of healthy and vegetarian options available at brunch and lunch, with some vegetarian students recounting multiple times to have spent upwards of ten minutes of lunch waiting to get into the cafeteria, only to find no options for them to eat.
Although fruits and vegetables are offered, they are often plain and do not go with the main food being served. Rather than serving raw vegetables that many students do not want to eat, if the school offered cooked vegetables as sides, not only would students be more likely to take the vegetables out of their own free will, but they would also be less likely to leave the vegetables all around campus for birds to come and feast on.
In previous years, there was a box to collect the unwanted fruits and vegetables, but with the return back to campus, there has been no sign of the box. This coming back would help to reduce the amount of fruits and vegetables being thrown in landfills. The apples in packaging and all other fruits and vegetables that would be able to be put out again for students to take could go back to the cafeteria, but the other fruits could be given to the greenhouse students, or another organization, for compositing.
With COVID, this could be difficult due to the concern of spreading the virus, but the school could give all the non-reusable fruits and vegetables to the greenhouse students to compost which would prevent them from going to waste.
Along with the lack of meatless and healthy options, the overuse of prepackaged food causes a serious environmental issue around campus. We know littering is an issue on campus, and when basically all food options are served in plastic wrapping, packaging waste is left all over campus, causing a big buildup of municipal solid waste, polluting the environment.
After Governor Gavin Newsom signed California Senate Bill 364 in July of 2021, all students in California public schools were eligible to receive free school lunch for the 2021-2022 school year. This law provided breakfast and lunch options for all students, and is especially helpful to students who previously faced food insecurity.
However, despite the many advantages the law has provided to students, it also has its disadvantages. One of them being the much larger amount of food that the cafeteria now has to provide. This puts a lot of pressure not only on the school district to pay for larger shipments of food but also on cafeteria workers who now have to prepare and serve food to many more students.
This law is not the root cause to the unhealthy school lunch options but it has created further obstacles to obtaining a well-rounded menu. Many students have complained about the lack of healthy and vegetarian options available at brunch and lunch, with some vegetarian students recounting multiple times to have spent upwards of ten minutes of lunch waiting to get into the cafeteria, only to find no options for them to eat.
Although fruits and vegetables are offered, they are often plain and do not go with the main food being served. Rather than serving raw vegetables that many students do not want to eat, if the school offered cooked vegetables as sides, not only would students be more likely to take the vegetables out of their own free will, but they would also be less likely to leave the vegetables all around campus for birds to come and feast on.
In previous years, there was a box to collect the unwanted fruits and vegetables, but with the return back to campus, there has been no sign of the box. This coming back would help to reduce the amount of fruits and vegetables being thrown in landfills. The apples in packaging and all other fruits and vegetables that would be able to be put out again for students to take could go back to the cafeteria, but the other fruits could be given to the greenhouse students, or another organization, for compositing.
With COVID, this could be difficult due to the concern of spreading the virus, but the school could give all the non-reusable fruits and vegetables to the greenhouse students to compost which would prevent them from going to waste.
Along with the lack of meatless and healthy options, the overuse of prepackaged food causes a serious environmental issue around campus. We know littering is an issue on campus, and when basically all food options are served in plastic wrapping, packaging waste is left all over campus, causing a big buildup of municipal solid waste, polluting the environment.