Heritage faculty has been enforcing the law that students are required to have an item from each category from the food table.

During lunch, if a student gets their food in the cafeteria, but gets no fruit or vegetable, the lunch staff directs the student to get one of these items before they can checkout.

“It is very important to receive nutrients from the whole food wheel. If you want to be healthy, it is necessary that you incorporate them all into your diet,” said Ana Almaraz, Heritage lunch staff member.

Students deserve to have the choice on what they want to have for lunch. At the end of the day, they pay to eat cafeteria food. The rules in place are a nuisance to students who have to go out of line, grab a random article of food, and go back through line to be able to checkout.

It doesn’t stop students from chucking whatever item they don’t want into the trash after they do leave. It is an unnecessary requirement for students to grab an apple they’ll end up trashing anyway.

“I think that forcing us to get fruit or other stuff at lunch just encourages food waste,” Jessalyn Bewley (11) said.

Perfectly good fruits are thrown out alongside half-eaten burgers, trash, and the leftovers of whatever the cafeteria served that day. These items would have gone to more appropriate places where they could have benefited people in need.

The law cannot enforce a proper diet amongst the youth of Heritage High School nor can the lunch ladies try to convince us to get a banana on our plates.

“If I wanted it to begin with, I would’ve gotten it,” Bewley said.