All You Can’t Eat

Claire Chiabai, Print Staff

   From 10:25 a.m. to 12:31 p.m., Lake Central students have rotated access to hot lunch served in the cafeteria at the center of the school. Students can choose anything from bosco sticks and spicy chicken sandwiches to popcorn chicken and pizza– or at least, they were able to. Now, some students’ favorites have been wiped off the menu, leaving teenagers in every grade to wonder why.

   “We are hearing from schools all over the country that just aren’t receiving the foods and supplies that they ordered,” National Public Radio interviewee Mrs. Diane Pratt-Heavner, School Nutrition Association, said.

   All across the nation, elementary, middle and high schools are encountering difficulties when it comes to stocking up on the food and supplies necessary to provide lunch to the student body.  With shortages of not only food, but other supplies such as plastic cutlery, schools have less and less options as to what they can include on their menus.

   “Many of the products they buy [instead] at the wholesale stores do not meet federal nutritional guidelines, Ms. Knuth said, adding that while the food is not unhealthy, it contains higher levels of sodium and fat than the products that the district would usually purchase,” cites The New York Times from an interview with Jenna Knuth, director of food and nutrition services at North Kansas City Schools in Missouri.

   Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight to these various obstacles.  For now it seems that, at Lake Central, the popular bosco sticks and spicy chicken sandwiches will be indefinitely removed from the menu and replaced with other foods like the hot dog.

  “[Professionals] expect the nonstop chaos of cobbling together menus on the fly to continue at least through the end of the school year,” National Public Radio said.