Chicken. Ring. Things.

Remember the food you ate in High School? Okay, I’ll admit that the taste wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t the  giant vat of beans, meat and mystery ingredient often depicted in movies. It was edible. However, I do remember how my choices were limited to being overly processed and quite unhealthy.

One thing I specifically remember is “Chicken Ring Things”. It’s a chicken nugget that is flatted with a hole punched through the middle. I often thought of how perfectly the name captured its essence. I guess some of it was chicken, it was definitely a ring, but it also had the taste of a “thing”. Although the concept of the Chicken Ring Thing was a bit funny, the lack of fresh food in our cafeteria was not funny. I remember asking why, and the response I was given was that “it needs to be processed that way so it can be shipped from all over the country.”

I think many public schools, such as my old high school, should look into sourcing food locally. Although some local food is processed in the same way, high schools don’t need to rely as heavily on goods that are processed to travel across the country.  There are a lot of fresh, local alternatives that are both healthy for students and support local economies. For instance, consider buying from a local apple producer, like Aslum Produce, Inc. for Madison, instead of buying from a producer across the country.

Can you imagine how healthy and delicious high school lunch would be if stocked with fresh, local produce? If fresh apples replaced fries and unprocessed chicken replaced chicken ring things, I think we would be heading in the right direction.