Students boycott school lunches they call worse than prison food

This school lunch isn't cutting the mustard for some high school students.

Image: The School Lunch Project

A group of students at Chicago's Theodore Roosevelt High School (RHS) has launched a boycott protesting what they call small portions of "gross unhealthy food," which is distributed by food service provider Aramark.

Image: The School Lunch Project

These lunches have been offered free of charge to Chicago Public School system (CPS) students since 2013 as part of a federally subsidized program. The lunches were supposed to reduce paperwork regarding who gets lunch, minimize embarrassment of low-income students and ensure that every student got a wholesome lunch, reports WBEZ.
However, the lunches proved so unpopular that nearly 1.8 million fewer lunches were eaten since the program was introduced.
The students at RHS say this is because the food they are served is unhealthy, unappealing and borderline inedible.
The students' project, titled "The School Lunch Project," started with a website and a petition demanding better lunches and is continuing with a boycott. The lunch boycott is set to start Dec. 3, starting with upperclassmen and will continue through Dec. 7 when the organizers call for the movement to go schoolwide and encourage other public schools in the area to do the same.

Image: The School Lunch

The website includes unappetizing pictures and ingredient lists for items like a cheeseburger, which includes ingredients like caramel color, zinc oxide and sugar.
In the website and petition, the students ask for, among other things, an improved lunch program, permission to go off campus for lunch and vending machines in school.
Junior Shirley Hernandez tells WBEZ, "It’s a human right to have decent food, not the lowest quality of food.”
Her civics teacher, Tim Meegan, supports her and is proud the students are seeing how their actions can have an impact on a large scale.

Image: The School Lunch Project

The movement's website says Leslie Fowler (CPS head of nutrition services, who was previously found to have engaged in "questionable conduct," when awarding the CPS lunch school bid to her former employer, Aramak) has urged students to "hold off" on the boycott because the CPS lunch staff is paid by meals served, and a boycott would directly affect the lunch workers' paychecks.
In response, student Jose Santana posts a conflicting quote from CPS lunchroom attendant Louise Babbs: “CPS lunch ladies are paid by the hour, and our members will faithfully report to work regardless because the kids come first. We’ve been fighting for good fresh food for years, and we support any efforts on the part of students to do the same.”
The boycott could theoretically cost CPS and Aramark thousands of dollars, since neither gets their split portion of the federally provided $3.15 per lunch if the lunches go uneaten.
Aramark tells Mashable that contrary to the students' website, it does not provide food to the Cook County prison. Additionally, Aramark says all aspects of the school lunch, from portion sizes to nutritional content, meet or exceed the USDA/National School Lunch Program standards.
Mashable contacted RHS, which had no comment on the boycott.
When the food is unappealing, the ingredients are dubious and the portions are small, free lunch isn't all it's cracked up to be.

By Sarah Spigelman Richter