Whether they know the reason for it or not, students have noticed the difference in the cafeteria food. The Texas Public School Nutrition Policy that the government is strictly enforcing this year has changed the way they serve food in the cafeteria, and it is not the yummiest selection of food around.

While it is healthier for students, it is not as tasty. Things that last year were tasty are now plain and lack flavor, like the noodles from the pizza line or the nacho cheese and chips from the Klein line. It leaves people who have eaten at the school for the past few years unsatisfied by the new, subpar flavors provided by the cafeteria.

How it tastes aside, the serving sizes this year significantly. People are getting a few less chicken nuggets than they did before. There are a couple less chips with nachos. They don’t even serve the big chocolate milk bottles, because they happen to go over the required calories even though they serve the same exact chocolate milk but in the smaller milk cartons. And if a student wants more than the one side and one fruit, they have to go back through the line again, because the cashiers will not let them buy more than the appropriate amount of food.

Apparently, another thing that doesn’t meet the new standard for nutrition wellness at the school are the Chick-fil-A chicken biscuits that were sold every Friday morning to raise money for SNAPP in years past. I know it was definitely devastating for me, along with a bunch of my friends, because that was the one day that I knew for sure I would be eating breakfast. It was definitely the most popular and widely supported fundraiser at the school, and they took it away from us. But that’s not the only fundraiser. They took away the fruit snacks, pretzel stick, and popcorn fundraisers as well, as they seem to also not meet the state’s new policy.

The only real upside to this is that it might prompt kids to not sit around eating junk food, because the new way of doing things around here is making it less convenient for students to purchase the amount of food that they want. But, in reality, the people that want a lot of food, because the food that they’re providing us doesn’t seem to be enough for them, will go out of their way to go through the lunch line again.

No one is expecting the school to start serving the same old stuff they served before. Students just need to have the option to get more food available for those days that they forget to eat breakfast without having to backtrack through the same line to get it.

Is it really worth the trouble of changing the entire food service system at our school? Kids that have been eating in our cafeteria for years don’t seem like they’re going to change their diet just because the government has made it a bit more inconvenient for them to eat junk.