If you’ve been in the school lunchroom before, chances are you’ve heard groans of disgust when someone looks at the only food that they have to consume. Or maybe you’ve seen someone toss a half-eaten pizza or hamburger into the trash with a funny look on their face. Let’s be honest, school lunch isn’t exactly a 5-star meal, and I doubt it even scrapes 2 stars (no offense to the lunch staff). The food offered at school is not good, plain and simple. The fries are hard, and the pizza is a greasy slab of cheese on bread. This is certainly not what people want to eat at lunchtime.

I don’t even eat lunch here; I bring lunch, but I used to endure the horrors of school lunch in middle school and some of high school, so I know how bad it can be. A single experience turned me to a person who brings home-cooked meals to school. It was a regular day back in my freshman year, and we were all sitting down with our lunch. A friend of mine opened his burger and took a bite. Along with that bite came something that looked like aluminum foil and some yellow “juice.” I looked on with horror as he spit that bite out. From that day on, I persuaded my mother to let me bring lunch. Best decision ever. Now, every day, people ask me for my lunch because their lunch looks less than appetizing.

I soon found out from friends of mine that the pattern of unappetizing food is consistent throughout Montgomery County. This is totally unfair to students who pay for this food out of our or our parents’ own pockets. We should be able to get our money’s worth for the food that we buy.

It’s not uncommon to see someone eating those purple Doritos and drinking a Flav-Water to wash them down. That can be a big problem. Here’s why. According to CHOICE (Citizens for Healthy Options In Children’s Education), a nonprofit organization, school lunch is an estimated 1/3 to 1/2 of a kid’s daily nutritional intake. If a kid is eating Doritos instead of a full lunch, it is reasonable to assume he/she is not getting his/her full nutritional intake. This affects academic performance, in terms of energy levels and overall health, which is why we need better lunches.
The fact that our lunches are essentially inedible is a problem because we deserve quality food. Just Saying.