Low Cal Lemonade Loses Luster

October 28, 2009  
Filed under News

Recently at OHS regular soft drinks and juices have been replaced with artificially sweetened, low- calorie beverages. These changes have many students complaining and wondering where their favorite drinks went.

The cafeteria has been taken over by what is considered healthy adjustments to the schools menu, but many agree that these changes have compromised the taste of what we eat everyday for lunch. So if they are paying for it, should not they have a say in what they are offered for lunch? Salt and sweeteners are absent, and even the lemonades have been tampered.  Yes, lemonades do have a lot of added sugar but they are not nearly as bad for you as sugar- and caffeine -loaded soft drinks. But with those drinks gone, what do they have left? Water? A little H2O is good, but some want a little flavor in their lunches.

Your natural instinct would be to point the finger at the lunch ladies for serving  these flavorless beverages and meals. But who is really to blame? The United States Department of Agriculture and American Beverage Association create these guidelines that school districts have to follow. School cafeterias have to serve meals that have a fat content of less than 30 percent, and fresh fruit and vegetables have to be served in every meal.  Serving skim milk and fat free dressing and the absence of fried foods creates a healthier menu.

The OHS cafeteria staff arrives at the school as early as 4:30 a.m. to start preparing meals, but the usual time is around 5:30. These early morning rises show just how hard these ladies work to keep the students and teachers fed.

But what about the inflated prices that the students have to deal with everyday? All items sold in the school have gone up in price.

“The school needs money and this is the way the school pays for equipment and the upkeep of the kitchen and the school in general,” said director of food services, Marcia Servatius. So upping the prices isn’t because the school board hates the students, it is because they are trying to keep the school up and running.

Even though the school board is looking out for the student body’s “best interests” and trying to keep them healthy and active, the recent absence of lunch favorites make the students wonder. Have they gone too far? Many people think that teenagers in high school are old enough to comprehend and decide for themselves what food they want to put in their mouth and how it affects them physically. Packaging and nutritional information is provided for the diner and there are steps taken to make sure that the American youth become healthier individuals and hopefully the obesity rate falls. But some think that they should have the option of choosing the foods they eat, and if those people make poor decisions they will suffer the long term consequences later in life.

“In the end it, should be up to the student or the school board to decide what they want to snack on? Students want the freedom of choosing what soft drink they want to quench their thirst,” – says junior Tayler Guge.

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Haley Butler

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