As I went to ask the cafeteria staff about making a commercial on the new Sharing Table, hopefully going in the cafeteria, I discovered a book of recipes for our school lunches. For the longest time students have blamed the lunch ladies for the disliked lunches, for example a yogurt and pretzel, but I think it is time to turn our perspective toward the state.

Talking with Amy Thompson yesterday she says that she is very sorry for removing all of the of the popular wraps and salads, but there is way too much waste and all of them must pass the nutrition standards. Can you believe that our school must have a recipe for every single ingredient they must use, including a recipe for making a salad! A simple salad with carrots, iceberg lettuce and a couple of cherry tomatoes needs to pass a specific nutritional value.

A couple of years ago the state came in to our school and wanted to see every single recipe we had, and inspected them said Thompson. Our school lunches have to have a certain amount of colored vegetables per week in order to pass state regulation. Green vegetables and orange vegetables must play a big role in our weekly menus. Thompson knows some of the kids are starving, even after they eat lunch but there is nothing she can do about it because of all of the state regulations she must follow.

I think its time our school starts looking at school lunches with a new perspective. It’s the state, not the lunch ladies, we have to blame.