Ashley Eddingfield

High school food service manager Stephanie Denboer posing for photo in PVHS cafeteria.

Students across the nation have voiced negative remarks regarding school lunches. But at Pleasant Valley, staff members devote their schedules to create balanced and appetizing meals for teenagers.

Organizations, from the AEA to the USDA, mandate certain guidelines for school food. One requirement is for students to choose at least three of the five components – milk, vegetables, grains, fruit and a meat or non-meat alternative – in every meal. 

Schools must also have age-based calorie limits, larger servings of fruits and vegetables, fat-free milk, more whole grains and less sodium. 

These limitations on lunches can create bland and unsatisfactory meals students have no interest in consuming. “The mac and cheese—you know nobody likes it. Nobody likes it because it is made with a whole grain noodle, but by law, we have to have 51% whole grain when it comes to a lot of the foods,” high school food service manager Stephanie Denboer stated. 

Denboer went to culinary school in Michigan, where she pursued her dreams in the culinary field. However, as a mother of two, she found the culinary industry was not ideal for her. This eventually led to her employment in an unanticipated occupation – the school food industry. She recently began working at Pleasant Valley, and there have been many changes to the menu under her guidance. 

Even with tight regulations governing the items that can be served, she and the remainder of the lunch staff work diligently to provide lunches all students will enjoy. “Poptarts in the morning are now whole grain, so we can meet more of the criteria—so more of the lunches can be non-whole grain,” Denboer said.

The recent changes to school lunches are a collective decision made by the entire team rather than a simple choice of one individual. 

Lunch staff attend food shows to view new meal options they can offer students, given most items are on a specific list of approved meals. “When I go to the food shows, I think the high school needs this. This is whole food. This is whole chicken. This is not processed meat,” mentioned Denboer.

As lunch ladies, Denboer and her team cannot change much about the food as they are required to stay within the government-created guidelines. These requirements regulate how much of each food category a student must be provided per week.

Even through these healthy requirements, many students appreciate the changes the new and old staff have worked on. “I personally really like the new variety of meals they offer, without a lot of repeating meals,” junior Vella Batdorf said.

If students continue to be dissatisfied with the meals served during school lunches, they have the right to sign a petition and bring it to their state representative. With enough passionate students, there is a chance for a change in the guidelines for future students.