American schools offer lunches (sometimes free or of reduced price) to all their students. Yet, arguments arise that such lunches are low-quality. Such arguments have existed for years, but have recent developments shown an increase in the quality of these lunches?
Herrin High School boasts a staff of kind, attentive cooks who work each day to ensure that HHS will get breakfast and lunch. Valerie Stilley is our head cook, and she has answered interview questions regarding our meals. Herrin High School features a variety of lunch options, including a “salad bar, and a cold sandwich with chips. Then the hot lunch, which includes your main entrée and your vegetales and your whole grains and your fruit.” Because of these new options, a rise in students who eat school lunches has been observed by Mrs. Stilley, many of them preferring the lunch options over breakfast food. Mrs. Stilley’s work is evident in this, she and her fellow cooks work to make the lunches “taste good, without too much salt and we try to keep it as fresh and hot as we possibly can.” Overall, HHS cooks do observe a rise in lunch qualities and as Mrs. Stilley says: “I think we’re not using as many packaged items. It’s stuff that we have to cook more, which includes extra work.”
One-hundred and seventeen student responses were gathered following a google form about rising school lunch quality at HHS. To begin, fifty-eight percent of respondents declared their beliefs that HHS lunches have improved. Individually, students listed their favorite meals at school and the top four were: Bosco sticks (15), salisbury steak (8), pizza (7), and the salad bar (5). Furthermore, the interviewees were asked what they wish HHS would serve. Though the responses were incredibly spread out, a few glaring answers were evident. Many students expressed a desire for dessert options, such as ice cream, not sold separately and included alongside the other portions in the meal. Similarly, a student called for a wider variety of drinks, such as bottles of water alongside the personal-sized cartons of milk. Others rallied for more diverse options, one anonymous student saying: “I wish that there would be a variety of options that are more healthy and aren’t just what we have had since kindergarten. Different cultural foods should be offered.” Some also requested a new availability for salt and pepper packets, so they can season their food to their own taste. Finally, another called for a school-wide poll, where administrators would “record what majority of the school ate during lunch so we could see what students like and dislike.”
Overall, it seems that HHS is growing in the quality of its lunches. With varying student opinions and the logistics of feeding a high school such as ours, HHS can happily look forward to a delicious new horizon in our cafeteria.
