TAG Unfiltered
School Lunch Revealed
Ever faced an unappealing salad bar, cardboard pizzas, or never-ending lunch lines? We have! In this episode, we discuss the highs and lows of our school lunch experiences at each of our schools. From differences in lunch pre- versus post-pandemic to comparing school food in other countries, we’ve covered it all. We also dive into the changes and improvements we would like to see made in the future through student body advocacy across districts. Grab your favorite lunch and join us for our first episode!
Ever faced an unappealing salad bar, cardboard pizzas, or never-ending lunch lines? We have! In this episode, we discuss the highs and lows of our school lunch experiences at each of our schools. From differences in lunch pre- versus post-pandemic to comparing school food in other countries, we’ve covered it all. We also dive into the changes and improvements we would like to see made in the future through student body advocacy across districts. Grab your favorite lunch and join us for our first episode!
Welcome to Tag Unfiltered, a podcast made by teenagers for teenagers. My name is Angelina, I go to Gaberlino and I'm a rising senior.
Speaker 2:My name is Angela and I currently go to Temple City and I'm going to be a rising junior.
Speaker 1:My name is Kathy and I currently attend Arcadia High School, and I'm also a rising junior In our first episode we will be talking about teenage nutrition while comparing lunch at each of our school sites Temple City, arcadia and Gaborlino High School.
Speaker 3:So let's start by asking what's everyone's favorite food?
Speaker 2:Well, I have a lot of favorite foods, but I feel like one that I really miss is Soup, plantation's chicken noodle soup.
Speaker 1:Oh my god. I used to love going to Soup Plantation too, with my family. I'm so sad that they got rid of it because of the pandemic, but my favorite food would have to be sushi or any type of Korean food.
Speaker 3:I also really like sushi or pasta too.
Speaker 2:What kind of pasta do you like, Cathy? I?
Speaker 1:like Alfredo. Oh my god, I love Alfredo too. Who makes your Alfredo? I like Alfredo. Oh my god, I love Alfredo too. Who makes?
Speaker 3:your Alfredo. I like the homemade one by my mom.
Speaker 1:Do you ever bring pasta to school for lunch?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've tried a few times. But after sitting in my lunch bag for like four hours it gets kind of wet and doesn't taste really good, so I always have to end up getting school lunch instead, but I think nothing could ever be as bad as school lunch.
Speaker 2:Well, honestly, I don't really buy that much lunch food but I've been bringing more often. But I do pay a visit to the cafeteria when I walk my friends there and I can like see the food and the quality of it. I feel like our school is kind of small so the lunch lines aren't too bad, so I can go in and out with my friend. But I feel like our school is kind of small so the lunch lines aren't too bad, so I can go in and out with my friend. But I feel like the only thing about my school is kind of their salad bar. The lettuce is green. It's kind of gross.
Speaker 2:I don't know it's like brown, it's not that nice and one time we took a photo of it. But I feel like most of the time we don't like to take photos of people getting lunch there. If it's like student life and stuff, we avoid that area.
Speaker 1:Do a lot of people visit the salad bar or do they like get food from the salad bar?
Speaker 2:often. I know some people get it but they don't eat the salad. Is it required to visit the salad bar for lunch? I think originally it was, but I guess now we're high school, like the people in charge can't really like yell at us or anything, and when there's a lot of students I guess they're busy. I don't know why, like you take the salad and you're not going to eat it and throw it away, Just don't get it at all.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of kids do that too, where they get the food they don't need it at my school the lunch ladies, they require you to put like certain, like vegetables and like fruits on your plates, but everyone just ends up like throwing them away right after they get it what a waste.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. Yeah, a lot of kids at my school they'll get lunch, but they only want one thing. But it's required sometimes for the lunch ladies to put specific things on your plate, so they'll just like, for example, like, pick up the pizza and they'll throw, like the juice and the apples and the orange into the trash can.
Speaker 1:I wasn't one to really get school lunch until recently, but the first time I ever got school lunch, I got served this really thin, dry cardboard pizza. And they have the same thing every single day, like there's always pizza at the school, but it's dry, it's greasy and it's thin and the crust is whole wheat and it just looks really unappetizing.
Speaker 2:Yummy.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I'd rather have a salad bar. I don't care if the lettuce is brown. I think Lettuce is lettuce. Kathy at Arcadia, what's a lunch struggle that you guys have.
Speaker 3:One of the main struggles is probably the amount of people there are, since our school is really big and I think there's almost over 3,000 students, or close to 3,000. So everyone lines up at the same time because we only have one lunchtime but there are two lines for it, I think because there's so many people. So they separate into two lines, but it's still really long and people bolt to lunch too right when the bell rings. So people are running to lunch.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of students make fun of other kids when they run to get lunch, but in a way I think it is a bit sad that lunch is the only time for some students to receive food or like receive good nutrition, if it's not accessible to them at home. And it's definitely like kind of been pretty evident pre versus post pandemic.
Speaker 3:How do you think lunch has changed? Like pre versus post pandemic, like the quality and also like the difference between having paid lunch or like free lunch?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the most major change, especially pre versus post pandemic, has to be associated with numbers. So after the pandemic there's definitely been an increase in students who receive lunch at school and also breakfast in the morning, since there is like two options at our school. Just like doing a little research, there were around 800,000 more students who received breakfast and 1.4 million students who received lunch after the pandemic compared to numbers before the pandemic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's really good because you know, like you said, like some people, they depend on school lunches and I think it's good that they don't need to spend money on it anymore, like a small lunch account for school anymore. But it kind of makes me wonder like how, like school lunches because it's free, did the quality go down?
Speaker 3:because I do like see some people, like we see it in school, like the food quality is not the best because I've never experienced like pre-pandemic in high school, in middle school, when I was in like the beginning of middle school, before quarantine, I would say, the school lunches, the options were a lot more broad. I think there was like Asian food too, besides like just American food. But after COVID I think the food quality has gone down and also like the options of different types of food that are provided by the school has like been very limited too. So do you think like a lot of people go off of campus to get food instead of like getting school lunch because of this issue, or do you see people like getting food delivered?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I see a lot of people getting food delivered. We used to like you could order whenever and pick up whenever, but I feel like a lot of students have been ordering a lot from Uber Eats or outside of school, that the gates have been flooded, like we have like cubbies and like the people that buy the food they drop it off and the students pick it up, and every time I pass that area it's like crowded.
Speaker 1:It's almost like a new lunch area for my school, I feel like, I'm so guilty to that because sometimes if, like, I don't have time to like pack my lunch in the morning, I'll ask my mom to drop something off for me in the office. So our school does have a designated area for students to drop stuff off, but we're not allowed to go off campus for off-campus lunch, which was kind of a big thing for us, especially since students want to get off campus. I'm not sure if Arcadia or Temple City does it, but yeah, we do have lunch drop-offs where people are able to also order food or have a family member drop something off.
Speaker 3:In Arcadiaadia a lot of people have been getting lunch delivered. I think there's this like wechat group or something which has like where students can like order their food on and a lot of students like order that. And when I come out like of schools during lunch to get lunch with my sister or something outside of school, I see like this car where they're like just handing out like their deliveries and there's like a a really long line and also a few of my friends they like DoorDash food a lot of the times, but a few times that like they've DoorDash, like their food has gotten stolen.
Speaker 1:I think wait, going back to what you said about the WeChat group, I think, since there's a delivery service, since my school is like predominantly Asian at Gaborlino, there's like the food service, I think it's called like Fenton, where they only deliver Asian food, yeah, and so I think that's been really popular, which is like driving these students to order specific foods from there.
Speaker 3:I think the school lunches like the portions of school lunch, might not be like the best. So what do you guys think about it?
Speaker 2:I think the proportions in my school are not that much, because I have, like, in my friend group there's like a mix of people that bring lunch and buy lunch and my friend that always buys lunch I see that she always picks out like a chicken teriyaki bowl and that bowl looks kind of small, like it is quite small, and like the salad portion too, like you have a big salad bar but on the side of a tray it's quite small. I feel like it's only about like four inches, like four by four. It's not too much for someone to eat and then they just give you like milk. So then I feel like that's not filling enough. Because, like, I feel like everybody has this universal thing Like after school you go eat at home you make something to eat.
Speaker 2:Some of my friends they make instant noodles as a little snack after school. I feel like if school lunch is free, I don't think you should need to resort to that. Unfortunately, I feel like a lot of us are just going to eat at home. We're like just eat a little bit throw it away and go home.
Speaker 1:I feel like that's what they all do yeah, at our school my friend usually only gets pizza, orange and a juice, but she only ever eats the pizza and orange, and for only a single slice. It's pretty small too Single slice of dry cardboard pizza for lunch to sustain a teenager throughout the day is not ideal at all. I feel like, like Angela said, we do like have to go home and like eat a snack, like girl dinner.
Speaker 2:Basically, I feel like our stomachs will be like rumbling by the end of class. Oh yeah, and it's so embarrassing it's embarrassing when your stomach rumbles.
Speaker 1:Yeah, everyone's like, oh my gosh, my stomach rumbled earlier in like AP Environmental Science and it was not fun at all and like it's not something to be embarrassed about. But I think as a society we've kind of made like stomach growling and embarrassment or like something people should be embarrassed about, but it's like so normal, like everyone experiences it.
Speaker 3:So, knowing the quality of food America has, how would you describe the quality of foods from different countries Like Japan? I've heard like their school lunch is really good and like they have different like hot meals every single day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel like a lot of school lunches in America typically is more cold than hot, cold than hot, and I don't know if it's with, like, maybe American culture always being like on the go, because we're always like busy and we're really popular with fast foods. Like you know, you go off of work, you pick it up, like in and out right Now you drive we have drive-thrus and then, like you go out and it's very quick, time, efficient. So I don't know if it's related to that. Like it goes back to our school, because a lot of our foods are just cold lunches, like you can just quickly eat it with your hands and then, like you, go back to school.
Speaker 2:I feel like for Japan and other countries, like I have like a photo of one and there were like four different lunches. They always have a soup and then they have a main dish and then they have a side dish which could typically be like vegetables or something, and then they have a side dish which could typically be like vegetables or something, and then they have milk. But then I also have to keep in mind that these countries it's like everybody's Asian. So then I feel like within their culture and like Asian culture in general. We love to have hot food. It's completely different from American culture. There's also lunches from other countries as well. Like France, saw their lunch, they have steak, carrots, green beans, a cheese and then kiwis and fruit and to me why don't we have that?
Speaker 2:I know it looks so good I'll send a screenshot later but I feel like for us we would pay $24 for that meal. Another school is Spain and they have soup, vegetable bread and then fried rice with shrimp on it. I feel like all of these are very filling and they're very appetizing. Meanwhile, I feel like I don't know American school lunches majority of the time, like Angelina said's, like cardboard pizza, burgers, fries, yeah, and like I get, that's the epitome of American food. But I feel like we can kind of do better than that, you know, especially since, like America has a lot of like diverse people in here, like most of us are kind of like immigrants, like we all came from different parts of the world. So I feel like lunches could be a little better, but I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think America in general is just really diverse compared to like schools in Japan, where most of the students are like Japanese. I feel like America they don't really know like what students enjoy for like lunch, and I think because there are so many students of like different ethnicities, it's kind of like there's a lot of like different plates and like kind of dishes that they might want. So they just like throw like a simple like American school lunch at their students because they feel like that's what everyone might enjoy. But in reality everyone just wants like a different taste and like taste of different cultures their own culture.
Speaker 1:Especially so I think that having different types of meals and different order would be through advocacy. So, especially since I'm involved in the San Gabriel Unified School District's Educational Advisory Committee. Being able to find a balance between the quality of food for students along with the cost of the food since California does have universal free and reduced lunch being able to provide students with nutritious lunch every single day, I think should be the school's top priority and I don't think it would have to compromise the quality. Thank you for listening to today's episode on Tag and Filtered and we'll see you in our next one.