By Michelle Hernandez

We’ve all been handed those tomato sauces, or dried peaches that we almost never eat, and honestly no matter how many times the lunch ladies hand them to us, I don’t think we’ll start to eat them any time soon. 

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) has made it their mission to provide students with a balanced meal everyday. The NSLP is a federally funded program that provides nonprofit, public schools with low cost to free nutritious meals. 

Although students don’t appreciate all the extra food items that are given, schools receive federal reimbursement for each meal served that meets the USDA nutrition standards. There are rules that require certain portions of fruit, milk, veggies, which limits a student choice. 

NSLP was created in 1946 as a federal measure to prevent malnutrition by providing nutritious lunches to school-aged children.

 With this being said, Granada Hills Charter (GHC) gives us items like milk, fruits, and sauces without the option of denying them. Although it is necessary for the school to try and provide us balanced meals, is it really worth all the food the students end up wasting?

“I know there are many people that are unable to pick the food they want, making me feel guilty when I throw away the extra food items I’m given with my meals” senior Angel Padilla said.

The students disagree with all these extra items that are said to “balance” out our meals. What is an extra tomato sauce going to do for the school pizza that is already changed to make the food more appropriate for the school standards?

When walking around GHC nowadays, you see so many leftover items that were never touched. As students we all know it’s true that there are items that we don’t even give a second glance, but it makes us sad as students to see how trashed we leave our campus due to those extra tomato sauces, or milk cartons. 

At the end of each day, schools are trying to do what they believe is best for their students. On the other hand, many students stick to what they like and don’t want the additional apple slices, or drinks that come with the meals.

During lunch, we as students don’t think about how much we waste because we’ve experienced almost a full day at school and we just want to enjoy our lunches. The intention is never to waste, but people like what they like, and there is no changing it just because we get handed it to eat with our lunch. 

It is so wasteful for the school to give students what they don’t ask for. The counselors stand aside making sure that no one cuts the line, but they catch more people throwing away the complementary items that come with the school lunches. Students should be able to deny food items because it is their choice as to what they consume after such a stressful day at school. 

When observing the lunch lines, 3 out of 15 students actually end up eating the extra items that are given to them. We appreciate the thought behind providing us these nutritiously balanced meals, but we also don’t like wasting all the food we do.

If students are going to be handed extra items, at most the school should have bins that students can drop their items. Wasting itself is such a bad thing, but what’s worse is that our beautiful campus is filled with so much more trash than it has been in the past few years.