New Mandate for School Lunches by Christian Munzner

School lunches should include more fruits and vegetables,
and grains have to be at least 50% whole wheat.
Photo by Riley Pitt

     First Ladies of our nation always have a project that they undertake, Nancy Reagan started an anti-drug campaign, Laura Bush promoted children’s literacy and so on and so forth. Mrs. Obama decided that she would like to focus on child-hood obesity. To curtail the fat on our Nation’s youth she, along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, have mandated through federal action healthier school lunches. 

     This mandate is the reason behind our having to pay extra for milk shakes now as well as being forced to have a certain kind and amount of sides. The mandate requires school lunches to include a maximum amount of bread that can be served, more fruits and vegetables, and grains have to be at least 50% whole wheat.

     The mandate comes as a bad time for the Obama Administration, because the phrase “federally mandated” has a bit of a bad taste to it after the Obamacare debate, since that law forced people to buy health insurance or face a stiff financial penalty.

     Andy Randolph(12) said of the new school lunches, “I don’t like that I have to go and pay extra for the only decent food up there, I don’t like certain types of foods and I don’t want to eat them, I don’t like that they make me get specifically what I don’t feel like eating.”

     Other students are happy with the new program Matt Baty (12) said “I’m glad that they are finally making school lunch healthy, I mean I like to eat healthy food.”

Students waiting in various lines for food choices.
Photo by Riley Pitt

     Whether this mandate is taking it too far or not we still must abide by its changes. From now on at the High School we will have baked sweet potatoes on the salad bar every Tuesday and Thursday. The pizza line will have pizza; hamburgers and French fries will appear only on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. We will have Taco Tuesday and Chinese Thursdays; on the main line we will still have something new every day.