Cafeteria food is supposed to be healthy at Los Altos High, my niece’s alma mater. But hundreds of students and some teachers prefer the food served by a catering truck that parks near campus. So the superintendent is trying to get the Los Altos City Council to pass a law keeping food trucks 500 feet away from schools and limiting them to 10-minute stops. Apparently, they think the cafeteria can’t compete with Juie Nguyen’s truck. From the Mountain View Voice:
Students say the food they get from the truck is better than that offered by the school’s cafeteria, which they say is not very appealing. (The cafeteria offered egg rolls, chow mein and milk on Tuesday.) Nguyen, 46 and a Vietnamese immigrant, offers fruit salads, water, Polish sausages, egg salads and BLTs.
“This is real food,” said ninth grader Carlos Chavez.
“The cafeteria doesn’t have any of this stuff — burgers and hot dogs,” said Roger Peterson, a tenth grader.
Cafeteria food is “always the same thing” and “has no flavor,” students complained.
Teachers, staff and administrators also buy food from the truck, the Voice reports.
“It works out real good. The kids just like it with all the diversity. The price is better and the food is better than the cafeteria,” said one employee of the high school who did not want to give his name.
My former colleague Joe Rodriguez, a connoisseur of truck-borne tacos, tried Julie Nguyen’s carne asada taco “lean, clean and tasty.” while the cafeteria’s salad bar was “not bad, but not great.” Cafeteria meals are supposed to come at less than 400 calories. Some of Nguyen’s food would meet that limit, though not the bacon cheeseburger.
Eric Dobko, a senior, washed down a steak burrito with a lemony energy drink.“I eat here because the food is tasteless in the [school] cafeteria and overpriced for how bad it is,” he said.
Spencer Huang, a senior who said he never eats in the cafeteria, ordered two carne asada tacos on medium-sized corn tortillas.
“I understand they’re trying to get us to eat healthy,” he said after handing Nguyen $3, “but it’s the delivery that’s bad. It’s mass-produced in the morning and served at noon.”
Joe observes that Los Altos High students with cars often drive to fast-food places at lunch. Before the food truck, those without cars had to eat in the cafeteria or bring food from home.
This surprises people how, exactly? When I was in junior high school (30 years ago), our business class set up an alternative lunch service (mini-pizzas) that was so successful that the cafeteria workers complained and we were shut down.
Isn’t the solution obvious? Julie Nguyen should be contracted to be the school’s cafeteria caterer.
Oh, wait…that would mean she’d have to cope with the federal, state, and local mandates, and the administration, school board, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
Better for all to keep things the way they are.
Go Julie!
The really big question, that the article did not even bother to question, is who gets to decide what really is “healthly food”. Just because something is low calorie does not make it healthly and the 400 calorie limit really worries me, especially for the students that are still growing. Low calorie, low-fat, or low-carb are often highly processed with soy fillers or some other possible filler to lower the content. Which raises the possibility that the cafeteria food might be just a bland version of “junk” food.
I have a severe soy protein allergy, so I have to be very careful with fillers. Fermented soy products like soy sauce are OK because the fermentation process denatures the protein, which is the part I am allergic to. I did not realize I had the allergy to soy until I was an adult and had already caused myself health problems.
The sad irony is that I thought I was doing the right thing by following the advice of the health experts, but it was slowly killing me because I was allergic to the so-called healthy stuff. I also have other food allergies too that complicate manners. Orange juice is another no-no for me personally although I do think it is healthy for most people. I have mostly figured out what diet works for me and I am getting closer back to “normal”, but my diet consists of real food, like whole milk in moderation for instance, that is banned by some health nuts. I mostly prefer small servings of real food, which works really well for me because I have never been a big eater.
I had to learn to trust my own instincts when it came to food and completely block out the health experts in order to find what works for me. Atleast I have the chance to make food choices for myself. I realize that students have the right to bring food in, but that is a very limited choice, plus can’t kids simply bring in junk themselves anyway, or is all food monitored by people who think they know what is best, but are probably doing more harm than good.
400 calories? When I was in high school, I was eating around 5,000 calories a day, and still stayed thin as a rail. 400 calories would have hardly counted as a snack, let alone a meal. No wonder the kids want to buy “real food” from the roach coach.
The difference in quality between the two alternatives boils down to the difference in their business models:
* Julie competes for every dollar. Her food has to be good, or she’s out of business. It also has to be clean and safe, in the food safety sense, or she gets a reputation as a “roach coach”.
* The cafeteria cares only about meeting assorted state and federal guidelines for diet, food safety and price. I would bet that nowhere in those guidelines is “flavor” a mandate.
In the end, you get what your economic model demands. It’s no fault of the cafeteria that it’s model doesn’t suit the students’ preferences. If the state or district wants the students to eat in the cafeteria, then set guidelines that involve their preferences.
Better yet, give the students the choice of several outside contractors and let them compete it out for the kid’s business. Schools shouldn’t be fooling around with dietary guidelines anyway.
If they pass a law to move the truck 500 feet away and stay for only 10 minutes, then the consumers will find a way to get to the truck. One person will serve as the go-fer and be sure to arrive at the appropriate time. They might even hop in their cars and drive to the truck, which can’t be good for the environment. Then TPTB will pass a law that you can’t drive to the catering truck, etc. Passing laws that squash the cafeteria’s competition is so much easier than making the cafeteria work better.
What’s wrong with food from home?
Simple solution – closed campus. My high school was a short 5 minute walk away from a mall, but none of us ever went to eat there because we weren’t allowed out of the bulding.
Maybe this is a new edu-fad? Education by example? Examplism?
By crushing the legitimate livelihood of a small businesswoman the student body receives excellent instruction in the results of the irresponsible application of government power. And, at no more cost then the price of passing a law. Everyone wins, except for Julie Nguyen of course.
It’s really a bargain if you think about it.
The food-truck serves fresh fruit salads. I would have KILLED when I was in junior high to have been able to get fresh fruit at lunch instead of the canned peaches and stuff they served. And it sounds like the truck-food is mostly freshly prepared – I know when I was in school, a lot of the cafeteria stuff was made at some central location and then trucked out to the schools to be re-warmed on a steam table. Ugh.
I don’t see why this is a problem. If parents want to micromange what their kids eat, fine, don’t give them money, pack them a lunch. But if the cafeteria food is not as good as what the woman is serving, maybe the cafeteria needs to look at how it prepares food. And it doesn’t sound like Nguyen is serving deep-fried twinkies or food that’s total “trash” – a carne asada burrito may not be low in calories, but it’s got meat and grains and veggies and maybe cheese or sour cream. Sounds pretty balanced to me.
Also: 400 calories for lunch MIGHT work for a tiny, toothpick-slim girl on a diet, but for a kid who’s active in sports, that’s not going to be enough, at least not if he isn’t eating a much larger breakfast or dinner. 400 calories times 3 meals is 1200 calories, which is like the lower limit of what is recommended for dieting adults. (Less than that is offered on crash diets but most doctors say that below 1200 calories isn’t sustainable and probably isn’t healthy.)
Close the cafeteria and convert it to classrooms. Invite a few more lunch wagons to park around campus and compete with Ms Ngyuen–then the food will get better, and cheaper.
I was active in sports in high school, and we had an open campus for juniors and seniors. I used to go out for lunch (fast food, natch), stay after school for practice, stop at McD’s for a Big Mac value meal on the way home, and still eat a full dinner at home. I was RAIL thin and completely healthy (ahh, those were the days). Low calorie does not equal healthy; the kids need a VARIETY of low fat, low sodium, tasty and fresh choices.
If the truck moves, the campus-bound kids will just give money to those with cars and have them go buy their food. How do I know this? It’s what we used to do when we were in school! Some days, I’d bring lunch back for seven or eight people. Nothing tastes better than forbidden fruit!