What’s on the Menu? NYC Public School Kids Respond.
“Well in my old school in first grade, I didn’t really have that much pizza days or burger days,” said Maya, a first grader at P.S. 058 The Carroll School in Brooklyn. She sat outside the playground eagerly sharing her Kirkland seaweed snack with a friend, who in return offered half of a croissant. Her mom, Martina, noted each time Maya would say a word in American English, “trash” instead of “rubbish” or “chips” instead of “crisps”. The pronunciation of water always left the two giggling.
The family had recently moved to New York City from London. “You had more vegetables,” said Martina about school lunches in London. “Yeah we had more vegetables and fruits,” added Maya. “Not so much cake or biscuits,” said Martina. Martina’s thoughts on NYC school lunches: “It doesn’t look even too healthy.”
But New York City feeds a lot of people. It has the largest public school district in the U.S. with over one million students from 2021–2022. There are over eight million people living in the city overall, and the NYC Department of Education (NYCDOE) offers free breakfast and lunch to in-person students. So with almost ⅛ of the population consuming this food everyday, what do the people eating the food actually think?
“The chicken is like when you eat normal chicken, but a little bit more like when you eat turkey from Thanksgiving. It has a bit of salsa on the outside that they put on the dumplings, [like] a soy sauce,” said Johan, a fifth grader, when describing the chicken dumplings served at P.S. 264 Bay Ridge Elementary School For The Arts in Brooklyn. Some of his other school lunch meals include bagels, cheese sandwiches, and jelly sandwiches. “I love the entire lunch,” said Johan.
Johan’s mom, Marlene Rodriguez, 30, packs snacks like fruit, yogurt, and jello for her three kids if they decide not to eat the school lunches. She works cleaning offices and homes and sells weight loss products to help people take care of their health.
“Well, they eat good, it’s just there are days when they eat pizza or donuts. I’m not one to really eat food like that, but I say, okay once in a while it’s not that bad,” said Rodriguez. Her kids all like the school lunches, which she notes is surprising since they do not typically like to eat out. She adds, “But no, I think the food is good.”
The pressure for healthier options is increasing though, with NYC Mayor Eric Adams’ food related policymaking. In February 2022, Mayor Adams announced the introduction of ‘Vegan Fridays’ in public schools, which has since been relabeled as ‘Plant Powered Fridays’ due to USDA standards requiring milk to be offered.
When the ‘Vegan Fridays’ first rolled out, there was criticism over the meals not being vegan and with kids not wanting to eat the new options. But the NYCDOE monthly menu currently distinguishes between vegan (VE) and vegetarian (V) options, with Mondays and Fridays being meatless menu days.
“I mean school lunch has gotten better and I think it’s because of the lunch ladies. Not everybody grabs food, some people leave the school for the reason that it’s not very appetizing to look at or actually eat,” said Niyireth, a 10th grader at M408 Professional Performing Arts High School.
For Niyireth, the lunches used to be a bigger topic of conversation in middle school and during the start of the Covid-19 Pandemic when it was “the driest food ever.”
She thinks that the difference in taste since the pandemic started and with the new lunch employees comes from the seasonings: “Before it used to be like a pinch of salt and that was it,” she said. “Now you can taste different seasonings and sometimes they add spices to things that used to not have spices.”
“What is served and eaten varies between schools depending on staff,” said Marion Nestle, a Professor Emerita of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, when talking about public school lunches.
“There are two issues: is the food edible and do the kids eat it,” said Nestle. “All combinations are possible and depend on the people doing the food service. In the best schools, the principal cares what kids eat. The food will be OK and the kids will eat it.”
Nestle said what is actually served is determined by the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) rules as carried out by food service personnel.
Nestle wrote in 2020 about conflicts of interest in food and nutrition research. She thought nutrition research posed an ethical problem if industries who funded it could directly market their products using results. When asked whether conflicts might be seen in government food standards, she said: “Yes, of course. We’ve seen that in ketchup as a vegetable, pizza as a vegetable, and the fights over potatoes and whole grains. The [food] industry won all of those.”
This idea of ketchup as a vegetable remains true in schools. Under USDA standards, canned vegetables count towards the fruit and vegetable components of a school lunch program meal; Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration Standards (FDA), ketchup counts as a canned vegetable.
While these conflicts of interests remain, it is also clear that much is being done to improve the health of school meals. But what about kids who are hungry by the end of the school day?
“Apparently the time they have [to eat] is relatively small,” Martina said. Maya usually stands in the middle or back of the lunch line, although when asked how much time Maya had to eat, her answer ranged between 10 minutes to 18. But of course, the time perception of a first grader might not be the most reliable.
The other students interviewed said they had about 40 or 45 minutes in the lunch period, but Johan had about 20 minutes to eat with recess taking up the other half.
What about the time that lunch actually starts?
Niyireth starts her lunch period at 11:17 a.m. “Honestly since it’s so early in the day, usually people eat a snack, or bring a snack,” she said. “Something like that [chips or juice] to calm their hunger, cause then we have a long day after that and we end school pretty late, like 3:30, 4.”
This idea of early lunch is not new, with Johan eating lunch at 11:30 a.m. In fact, 2019 City Limits data showed that 51% of NYC schools ate lunch before 11 a.m, being a potential contributor to why kids are hungry by the end of the school day.
“Well I ask them every time they get back from school, how did it go, what did you eat,” said Rodriguez, Johan’s mom. Some strategies that parents use to see what their children ate include asking them directly or checking their backpacks to see if they ate any pre-packed snacks or food.
“Normally it’s like this. When I have things to make school lunch, I’ll get it, otherwise [I won’t],” said Martina. With her daughter’s move from ‘Fish and Chips Fridays’ to ‘Plant Powered Fridays’, you might wonder which is healthier. But while NYC tries to make their meals healthier, it is ultimately the student’s decision on whether they decide to eat the food or not. When discussing the salad bar option at her school, Maya responded: “A salad bar. No, I never get salad.”
