After a long morning at school, many students look forward to lunch as a break to nourish their bodies and rest their minds. Despite the school’s best efforts, they have received mixed reviews on their lunches. Many students have begun to voice their concerns that the school food is not as nourishing as they would like.
The menu in the NCHS cafeteria rotates daily. The students of New Castle say that they appreciate the variety of the menu. Some students say that they like the cafeteria food, but many of the students say that it all is the same: dry and tasteless.
In a survey sent out to the NCHS students and staff, 83.9% said that they ate the cafeteria food occasionally or daily, and a scant number of 39.1% said that they enjoyed the food. Many said that it was “raw and tasteless”, and “Freezer burnt, cold, and stale.” One student said that the milk has strange consistency and has had mold on it in the past.
Sophomore Samuel Brewster said, “It’s very bland, it almost seems like no one cares about the food they make or the kids that eat it. The school system as a whole needs to improve its food. The school should be ashamed of the food they give us.”
Junior Hannah Strunk also shares his concerns, “[The cafeteria should] Not have the same thing on each day of the week except for pizza Friday’s. A more of a wide variety and dessert. I feel like we don’t get “enough” to eat even though it’s based on certain criteria for the “healthy” amount we all should eat.”
According to the SNA (School Nutrition Association), the caloric requirements for the high school breakfast are 450-600 calories, and the lunch standard is 750-850. No more than 10% of calories can be from saturated fat. Every school meal must offer one cup of fat-free or 1% milk. Flavored milk must also be fat-free. Companies have developed lower-calorie-favored milk options that meet the calorie standard. School breakfasts must also have at least one cup of fruit.
Other concerns included some students saying that the later lunch periods have been running out of some foods. Director of Food Services Dee Orick says that this is because “The high school and middle school are different from our elementary schools where the staff gets a count of how many students are going to eat lunch. The staff uses numbers from previous days to estimate how much food they should make. The amount of students eating has been increasing as the school year continues so they are working to make sure they are increasing numbers so everyone gets the meal they want.”
However, not all the students dislike the food. Many students say that they enjoy the sandwiches and the steak bites the most. Sophomore Michaela Barron says, “I actually usually enjoy the cafeteria food.”
Sophomore Benjamin Cauthern says “The mashed potatoes are easily the best and most rich, especially when you mix it with the butter packets.” So does Sophmore Lauren Watterson.
Teacher Gregory Guffey says, “I enjoy the walking tacos”.
According to Politico, school meals cost nearly 14 billion dollars in 2020, this was down from the 19 billion that was spent in 2019. This was mostly due to covid restricting the amount of time the was spent in school.
Due to the Pandemic, universal funding has been made available for schools through June of 2022. This is how New Castle students can currently get free meals. Orick says, “The National School Nutrition Association is currently lobbying the USDA and Congress to make Universal Free meals for all students permanent. If this doesn’t happen, our school corporation will revert back to participating in the Community Eligibility Program (CEP). CEP allows schools with high poverty rates to serve breakfast and lunch at no school to all the students enrolled.”
Biden recently announced his American Families Plan, which in the package he urged Congress to expand some of their nutritional plans. According to Politico, Biden is proposing an additional 17 billion to help allow better meals for schools by increasing their reimbursement rate for high poverty schools to provide free meals.
The cafeteria has also been affected by the critical staffing shortages due to the pandemic. Orick says “In the past, we would have 10-12 employees working in the kitchen at the high school and 6-8 employees working at the middle school. Right now we have 12 employees for both buildings. This affects how many serving lines we can have open at one time.”
The pandemic has not only been affecting the staffing shortages, but it has also been affecting the food suppliers that NCHS gets their food from. Orick says that they have been having trouble getting enough plates and cutlery in for the breakfast and lunch periods. She also says that bread and meat delivery has also been a problem. “I have been going to Walmart and Kroger and purchasing all their hamburger buns so we can keep our sandwich lines open because our distributor has not been able to supply us with buns for the past few weeks. We also have been having issues with fresh produce, poultry, and beef. When the items we normally order are not available, I search for other items that will be close to those and hope that they are available,” Orick says.
Even with all of the works trying their best to accommodate for these drastic new changes, the students say that the food could be improved if just simple changes were made. Many students say that the food could be better if they had the option of grabbing a salt or pepper packet before checking out or having the option of getting more ketchup. Students also said that the pizza could be improved by adding more sauce to it, and it could also be cooked longer.
Concerns for free beverages were also voiced. (Itcupp@ncweb.me) said “A change of beverage. Although we have a minifridge of extra beverages, we HAVE to bring in actual cash to buy it. We can’t use our lunch money account or anything when it comes to extra beverages.”
While some students have their withdraws from the school food, many are just thankful to have a free meal. We are all thankful to the lunch ladies for trying their best to make our lunches the best they can be.
