What are students’ favorite school lunches?
Students at VHS have differing opinions on VHS school lunches. “There’s not really good options for enough nutrition and stuff,” said Henry Hampton ‘28. VHS’ current fruit and vegetable menu provided with school lunches consists of Friday salad bar, tater tots, mashed potatoes and gravy, 100% juice varieties and fruit variety. Some students feel as though this selection doesn’t provide enough nutritional value for their everyday breakfast and lunch. “It’s cool, it could use some work, like not all the options are great. Some days there’s just no good options for lunch. Definitely not enough variety,” said Hampton ‘28.
VHS mandates that every student gets a fruit of juice at lunch due to federal nutrition standards. Gabrielle Martinez ‘29 said, “You get either a juice box or a fruit but to make it so you can get both [would improve school lunches].” VHS provides orange juice, apple juice and berry juice. They also provide 20 fruit options that vary depending on the season. Fruits are assorted from tangerines, watermelon cubes and bananas, to peaches, pears and persimmons and 14 more options. The VHS cafeteria is on a two week nutrition rotation and a monthly lunch rotation, meaning a new nutrition every day for two weeks and a new lunch every day for a month. Some meals included in the lunch rotation are pepperoni pizza, cheese pizza, “Bistro Box-Grab & Go”, chicken caesar salad with a dinner roll, sandwich bar, along with the vegetable and fruit/juice choices. Martinez ‘29 said, “I think there’s a good selection compared to the middle and elementary school.”
Some students believe that the quality of the food is not high enough for a proper lunch. John Kaloostian ‘28 said, “They could use less cheap ingredients. I think the time and effort is fine. They just need to get higher quality ingredients.” Students have different opinions about factors of school lunches. “I dont think [school lunches are] a top priority,” said Martinez ‘29.
