Gym Class and Oranges

I like high-school.
Well, I like high-school more then most people seem to. I have a feeling it has something to do with the fact I don't go to some faceless red-white-and-blue joint in the suburbs but an urban arts centered school. Here, the losers can be the cool kids to a certain extent. Not to romanticize anything, its public education and it still can suck. But I have it better then a lot of people I know.
Anyways, its no great secret that America has a problem with crap. Crappy jobs, crappy leadership, crappy schools, and more importanly, crappy food in those schools. Here at SOTA we harbor no illusions about the contents of our "sloppy joes" and "chicken tacos". This morning I had a fascinating conversation in lab with three of my guy friends about the dubious "snack line" and its artery clogging cuisine.
"It doesn't taste like anything." Said one of my friends, a massive brushcutted kid. "I mean, you eat the taco and it tastes like the hamburger, you eat the hamburger and it tastes like the pizza."
"Yeah" added another. "The oranges have like, embryo's growing on them, I was totally freaked out."
Then they turned to me, the resident annoying hippie chef girl.
"Dont eat that stuff." I said. "Its probably from California and has been sitting in some warehouse for three years. Those things are not oranges, they're the undead, like citrus zombies."
This is just a snippet of the things that we think about our food here in public education land. As one of my dear friends put it "It's cheaper."
Yeah it's cheaper, I know its cheaper, thats all we ever hear, is it's cheaper. It's cheaper to sell kids Ding-Dongs that will give them heart disease then to sell fresh oranges with some nutritional value. Which is really cheaper I ask you? Medicare (when they can get it) or fruit?
Our daily menu usually consits of re-heated hamburgers,greenish-tinged ham sandwiches and the pizza Dominoes gives us for a discounted price when it's a day old. All these options come with french fries and the choice of salad and fruit. No one gets the salad, they all get the fries.
Then there's the snack line, the pride and joy of the cafeteria, a tiny room carved out of the wall filled with all members of the fat and suagar-laden genus. Hostess must love us, half the student body subsits on Ho-Ho's, Twixes and Famous Amos. These "snacks" can be washed down with one of the vending machine options, Coke, Gatorade and Tropicana for one dollar. Bottled water costs almost double that.
So with my one dollar left over from whatever I can't buy a bottle of water but I can buy a Pepsi.
And we wonder why most of the lower-income range is fat!
So please, my voting age friends, put your tax dollars towards vending machines that dont sell soda, or FRESH veggies that are cheaper then pizza. People can make all the documentaries and write all the articles they want, but they're pretty much preaching to the choir. I read those articles, my friends don't. But they can taste the difference between moldy bread and fresh oranges just the same as anyone.