School Cafeteria Food and Natural Health

School cafeteria food has become a controversial topic over the past few years, as health conscious parents are looking for natural health food options. At home, they often do so by buying locally produced, farm fresh foods, or at the very least, they are purchasing more whole foods, and steering clear from ultra-processed foods. The health foods section in most grocery stores reflects this reality. Why can’t healthy food options also be a part of the menu in local school cafeterias? Don’t our kids deserve the right to healthier food options?

School cafeteria food is bad. Anyone aware of the quality of food in our schools would agree. Yes, you may have a secret desire for that rectangular slice of pizza, but would you consider it a vegetable? Did you know that 2 tablespoons of tomato sauce (not my Aunt Tilly’s sauce, a natural health nut mind you) is considered a vegetable? Crazy talk you say. Yes. It is crazy.


I have taught for 5 years now at the elementary school level. When I first got my job, no one in the entire building was more excited about tater tots than I. No one was more excited about pizza day, O shaped chicken rings that did not really taste of chicken, or the overall beige color of EVERY vegetable served. I was a champion of the cafeteria. I also gained 20 pounds in 5 months. The adult body is not designed for that level of processed foods consumption.

Students know their school cafeteria food is of poor quality. Find any school-aged child and ask them their opinion of the quality of school food. They know. Walk through any school cafeteria at the end of their 20 minute lunch and you will notice they DO NOT eat hardly any of their entrées (the French would not approve of me using this word on such low-cuisine). If you look close enough, you will also notice students always skip the meal and go straight for the sugary delights provided by the cafeteria.

We have a problem. Students have NO healthy options. How many chef salads with iridescent, hyper-processed deli meat would you be willing to eat? Every vegetable except the celery at the bottom of the side salad is cooked beyond the point of maintaining its nutrients (since when were carrots and green beans the same color?). The students would be better off drinking the liquid the vegetables were cooked in. Don’t they deserve more? Don’t they deserve some natural health options in the types of foods they consume?

From a completely selfish viewpoint, I can’t help but highlight another and perhaps just as dangerous truth. Student performance after the processed food pit stop in the school cafeteria could be categorized in this way: sugared and hard to manage, followed by tired and hard to motivate. You could easily graph it. We could put the graphs in our data notebooks. Not really inspired education. Natural health needs to be a topic discussed in the policies at the local school level. As parents and advocates for students, it is time we start advocating for better school cafeteria food options.

-Brad Clark is a an Elementary School teacher and regular contributor to the site.

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