My Lunch is Moving | Teen Ink

My Lunch is Moving

October 27, 2011
By a-man007 BRONZE, Ashburn, Virginia
a-man007 BRONZE, Ashburn, Virginia
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Why would the National Lunch Program (NLP) who serves 29,000,000 students a day provide food that is basically full of junk and has little or no nutritional value. These meals are primarily prepackaged and placed in warming ovens before being served. Thus, sometimes they come out undercooked and other times, overcooked, and sometimes just not cooked at all. According to the New York Times, September 24, 2011, Sunday Review, it definitely is not cheaper to serve fat, high processed, and minute ready foods instead of fresh vegetables


This is a big change from the 1950’s when most schools had full cafeteria kitchens where ladies and men from the community worked each day preparing a fresh, well balanced meal. The disgusting truth is, now we are given “some excuse” of a cooked meal that is loaded with sodium and preservatives.


Oh, my gosh, the chicken nuggets are so amazing! They are what every kid needs, a good source of protein and some obscure amount of pig fat. They look and smell wonderful… all brown and tender on the outside. So, everyone buys them thinking they are delicious. Biting into this “food” is a different story. They’re stale, pink, and smothered in grease. I ask you do five small, tasteless chicken nuggets actually fill you up?


The lunch workers heat the pizza up in large quantities and serve it whether it has finished cooking or not. For example, just this week I ordered a slice of pizza that was gooier than pudding and whiter than vanilla ice cream. Then when I picked it up, so much grease oozed out that the pizza looked like it was sweating. I mean, that’s not right! If you pinch the cheese and pick it up it looks like you’re peeling off human skin.


So as usual, when I walk out of the lunch line, my friend asks, “Dude, is that pudding?”

“Nope, that’s my pizza.”


“That’s so gross!”


“It’s a school lunch, what do you expect?”


This is usually what goes on after someone walks out of the lunch line. Sometimes a person says, “Your meal just hopped!” Meaning it’s so undercooked, that it moves when I walk.


Every kid’s dream is to waste $2.80 on a meal that tastes like rubber. “Can I have the enchilada?” a student asks. The cafeteria workers serve (slap on a plate) something that looks like a deformed tortilla with animal guts dribbling out of the sides. Honestly, the only reason people buy these things that are supposed to be enchiladas, is because they are good compared to what they usually serve. At least, they have a flavor (even though that flavor is un-questionably grotesque). For this reason, you can never ask if the food your friend’s lunch tastes good, you must always ask whether it is relatively tasty.


Tell me is it fair for the official of the NLP to be so greedy that they can’t give us children some healthy food? I know that everybody needs to make money but can’t the NLP maybe change the menu reduce and the price until the healthy food service like sort of picks up?


You see, the only reason they stopped preparing healthy homemade meals for our students was because many people did not buy it because it was the same food they got at home. For example, all vegetables and many of the fruits were wasted. Healthy was being tossed in the trash. Do you agree that the NLP is going too far to please the students who prefer processed fast food over a nice “square meal?” My theory is that if somebody doesn’t eat, don’t force him/her. Eventually they’ll get hungry enough and will eat it.


We are the future of this world, so what our parents and school officials show us about good health and nutrition influence our choices later in life. As of now, the adults who provide us with limited school lunch choices are causing us to be lazy, lifeless, and worst of all obese. Think about it? Are you some non-knowing part of this chain?


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