Fossil Ridge like every other school in Poudre School District serves lunch in its cafeteria. Now, whether this lunch is healthy, appetizing or has enough choices is definitely cause of dispute within the student body. The majority of students believe that lunch could use improvement with comments like, “It just doesn’t seem healthy” Olivia Jones says. Similar comments from students like Neva Hubbert say that the only healthy part to the lunch given to students at school are the packaged meals. Whether these comments are true is up to debate, so let’s dig in to what really happens in the lunch system at Fossil Ridge.
Fossil itself has a kitchen staff of six. All these staff members have worked the line at one point or another though they do have very significant jobs behind the lines as well. As a team of six they serve about 1,000 kids in the lunch line every day!
The school of Fossil Ridge really doesn’t have too much say in what happens with our lunch anyway. The kitchens and ingredients are controlled mainly by the Poudre School District so any changes that students want made have to be directed to the district itself. This means that all the ordering of the food is done by the district through companies like American Produce.
Although lots of the food comes from large companies the Poudre School District will order from local farmers when the crops are in season, for instance apples that are served at lunch around the season of fall are organic. Many of the comments saying that the school lunch is just awful for you are not entirely true either. Although there are many unhealthy options on the menu, it truly depends on what the student picks for their lunch. For instance, if a student skims through the lunch line grabbing only a burger and fries, is it really the schools fault that that student may be eating unhealthily with all the other healthy options presented to them? Many options are surprisingly healthy for a school lunch; all the nutrition facts can be found here: http://www.psd.k12.co.us/webfm_send/43.
One question really stands out though, how many students are really partaking in a healthy lunch? Nancy King, the kitchen manager at Fossil, says that she sees about half of students partaking in a healthy lunch and the other half making unhealthy choices. So why do students make unhealthy choices then? One of the reasons may be the time constriction and many students really want to go out and talk with their friends. The lunch period being only 45 minutes long may rush students to grab the most easily accessible things and not take items from the salad bar, etc. Nancy King says, “Our job in the lines is to get as many students through the line as fast as we can.” So maybe the problem does not lay within the lunch itself but the student body and the time constraint.
Many people would argue that scratch cooking has always been the best and since the school lunches have drifted away from this cooking it has gotten continuously unhealthy. Well, the scratch cooking is pretty much gone, that much is true. The baking is done at school, from cookies to bread for the sandwiches but it is all done with pre-made frozen dough. The sandwiche meat comes frozen as well and so do pizzas. Although, according to the kitchen manager, the pizza may again be made from scratch. She says that the kitchen is progressively trying to get back to scratch cooking. All the salads are prepared by hand and so are the wraps and deli sandwiches made to order. So believe it or not there is a certain amount of creativity in the Fossil Ridge Kitchen. As the Poudre School website states, “In the face of all requirements and hard work, school nutritional professionals use their creativity to make the cafeteria a fun and welcoming place all year long.” Notice how sometimes you will find a salad with bits of the chicken sandwich cut up into them? Well they don’t come like that, so the kitchen staff tries to make as much variety as possible without breaking the strict guidelines.
Most students know that strict guidelines are in place so that there are no allergies or any kind of poisonous substance in the lunches or any food in the school in general. It is like that rule when having class parties nothing can be home made, that is there to prevent any kind of poisoning. Although it sounds kind of ludicrous but imagine someone getting extremely sick from some random school lunch or any food item; parents would not be happy. So, they are in place to keep students from getting sick but also any angry parents wanting to take the kitchen administration to court.
What has to be kept in mind has to be that Fossil Ridge is on a budget having to feed over 1,000 students in the line everyday so when buying PSD goes for the healthiest option at the cheapest price. Also there is that whole list of regulations and guidelines that prohibit a lot of what can be done to change up the school lunches. “I don’t like how they took the Gatorade out,” Cesar Lopez says, but that is part of some new guidelines introduced this year, reasons as to why can be found on the PSD website.
So this argument on food is far from over, the two sides have fairly good arguments but unfortunately at this point things are hard to change. So this is our cafeteria conundrum; you can decide which side has the better excuses or reasons.
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