Gourmet Lunches

This is a satirical essay or a modern "Modest Proposal" on the topic of school lunches. It is inspired by Jonathan Swift's style in "A Modest Proposal".

Gourmet Lunches

Everyday our country faces the problem of millions of children and teens getting hungry at lunchtime, and expecting a decent school meal. It is a rising issue as parents are wanting school cafeterias to actually make the food they serve, and for the food to have nutritional value. They are worried about the health of their children and little issues like obesity. They talk about how in the United States, it “has raised from 7% in 1980 to nearly 18% in 2012 in children and from 5% to nearly 21% over the same period in teens”, but school lunches cannot possibly have an affect on that because children only eat school lunches five out of seven days of the week (“Childhood”).  

Nevertheless, parents and teachers are concerned about the impact school lunches have on the health, growth, and development of their children and students at school, and in general. They do not think the food served at schools is healthy, or comprising of central nutrients that kids need. An act called the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act has even been passed to “[help] transform school food environment in order to promote better nutrition and reduce obesity”, but I can assure everyone that frozen and processed corn dogs, hot dogs, and hamburgers are full of nutrients like protein and carbohydrates to help students learn throughout the day (“Healthy”). School lunches are processed just like the great food at McDonald’s, and Cindy Goody, the official director of nutrition at McDonald’s, informed the public that processed food is good for your health. The interviewer of Cindy Goody wrote that “she and her kids eat [McDonald’s] all the time as part of a balance diet” (Benson). This just proves that there is nothing wrong with processed and frozen foods, and that they are actually healthy.

On top of health and nutrition, the parents are also worried school lunches will lead to bad eating habits throughout their children’s life. This is just irrational; children only eat these meals most of the week. The parents should be focused on more important issues. What is more important? A prepackaged meal that has been assembled somewhere else in the state or country or who knows where, frozen, and then microwaved in the cafeteria, so that the children can eat it right away. These meals are great because you do not have to worry about them expiring. The children may still get food poisoning, but at least it will not be from fresh meals that spoil quickly.

In addition, tweens and teenagers are becoming choosy, and are wanting meals that actually taste good. This is not the school cafeteria’s job. Its job is to just provide some form of edible substance to take away feelings of hunger, that is, if it is not thrown up and back out.

All of these complaints over school lunches has increased, and it has become a pressing matter. Something has to be done to stop the parents and children from complaining, but also satisfy the schools. Therefore, I have come up with a proposal that will make everyone happy. My proposal is that we take daily servings of meat, vegetables, fruit, carbohydrates, and dairy,  and blend it into a pureé that will then be crafted and dried into little bite-sized pellets. This finely prepared children food would be a balanced and healthy meal with complete servings from each category on the food pyramid. On top of that, it would be packed with nutrients. No one, not even parents, could argue the quality and great health value of this masterful food because, after all, many of them feed it to their pet dogs. Think about it, how many times have you seen dog food commercials advertising how healthy their dog food is and how many nutrients it contains. Why not serve this to children everyday at school? Keith Schopp, a spokesman for Nestle Purina, which makes Beneful dog food (you may recognize him from the Beneful lawsuit) says that “Dogs enjoy the product every day” and it has “ingredients that are generally recognized as safe” (Lupkin). How great would it be to serve children food that we know is enjoyable as well as safe and healthy? Making this change would be considered a great improvement in the healthiness of school food and raise the “6% of school lunch programs [that] meet the nutritional requirements established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture” to 100% (“Three”).

Now of course, children might be just a tad weary of eating this new and exciting meal, so I provide that the cafeteria gives a candy bar to those children who eat all of it. Therefore, the parents are happy that the children are eating something of nutrition, and the children are happy with the great taste of the candy bar.

My proposal would also be great for the school cafeteria because it would be incredibly easy for the lunch men and ladies to prepare this meal everyday. All they would have to do is pour it in a bowl! There would be no messy cooking. The dried pellets would not even have to be microwaved. They would just come in a big bag ready to be eaten, and the great thing is, they would take forever to expire because they have been petrified. You could use leftover pellets from a few years back. That is longer than frozen meals that get freezer burn after a while. Plus, everyone knows that cafeterias cannot cook or make freshly prepared meals anyway because it is a school and not a restaurant.

In actuality and all seriousness, school lunches were a part of my life almost everyday, and I found them to be gross and unhealthy even then at my age. This proposal is not something that I want at all for the children and students who eat school lunches. What I really want is for the parents, schools, and government to work together to really provide fresh, tasty, and nutritious meals to serve the children at schools. Children are growing, learning, and using a lot of their energy, especially at school, and they need some real and good food to provide them the nutrients they need to succeed throughout the day. Better meals would also help reduce the major problem of obesity in the United States and teach children good eating habits.

Works Cited

Benson, Jonathan. “Ridiculous McDonald’s Nutritionist Claims Chain’s Fast Food is Healthy.”

naturalnews.com. Natural News Network, 2013. Web. 7 Feb. 2015.

“Childhood Obesity Facts.” cdc.gov. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.p. Web. 7

Feb. 2015

"Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act". fns.usda.gov. N.p., 2014. Web. 8 Feb. 2014.

Lupkin, Sydney. “Lawsuit Claims Beneful Dog Food Kills Pets.” abcnews.go.com. Abc News

Internet Ventures, 2015. Web. 20 March. 2015.

“Three Facts About School Lunches.” lindenhursthfc.com. Lindenhurst Health and Fitness

Center, n.d. Web. 7 Feb. 2015.