Photo Courtesy of Ishikawa Ken, Flickr Creative Commons
Students from Prince George’s County Public Schools in Fort Washington, Maryland. recently claimed that they were served moldy and undercooked food in their cafeteria lunch, and after reportedly appealing to the school district, they have not received an official response. Pictures of these questionable, problematic school lunches are circulating throughout social media networks.
“Criminals are getting better food than we are,” Tamera Perry, a senior at Friendly High School, told FOX 5. “You’re giving us something that’s not healthy, that can possibly cause us to die, and it’s just unacceptable.”
Children deserve more nutritious cafeteria food to grow both physically and mentally. Missing out on essential nutrients hurts everyone at any age, but can be even more detrimental for children who are still growing.
This is unfair and unjust.
We must look at the roots of this problem.
Policies, laws and regulations should be made to allocate more funding regulating school food. In order for this to happen, more public attention must be sought at this matter. Because many people just ignore children’s school food complaints because they are “spoiled” if they complain about food, the public does not know the sad reality about school lunches.
More severe examples of problematic food that the students posted pictures of include moldy burger buns, undercooked meat, moldy mandarin oranges, expired milk cartons and fruit cups, green apple juice cartons and hollowed out chicken nuggets.
According to Perry, the schools recently raised the lunch prices to $3, which she feels is too high for food that is “not edible, inorganic and unhealthy.”
“For some of the population of students, that’s their only lunch, so you’re putting them in a sticky situation where they can either continue to starve or they eat it because that’s the only thing they have to eat,” said Perry.
Unfortunately, it appears that Prince George’s County Public Schools followed the pattern that many institutions and organizations accused of wrongdoings adhere to. The school should have at least known about the recall of milk cartons and fruit cups, but they did not react until the news became viral through social media.
There are probably more school districts around the U.S. with children suffering from inedible food. We must protect our children.
ppark1@ramapo.edu
