A deeper look into what you are choosing for nutrition

A high schooler walking into Café Express is basically a kid in a candy store. The choice is yours. Would you rather fill your grumbling stomach with a container of fruit or a golden cookie cooked perfectly crisp? It’s your decision, but one thing that most students are forgetting to consider is the nutritional aspect of things.

Physical education teacher Justin Haberman thinks that the amount of processed food available to students is not necessarily a good thing. While Haberman believes it’s important for students to be able to treat themselves, the habits that kids these days are learning are not necessarily setting them up for healthy living habits in their futures.

“With all these new laws that’ve come into the school cafeterias, they’ve changed it a lot,” Haberman said. “The bad part is that I’ve noticed it’s the choices that kids are making aren’t necessarily the best choices.”

Kitchen assistant manager Carrie Eidsness explained how some of these rules can include that if the Cafe sells an item that’s not part of a meal, it has to be less than 200 calories, and less than 35 percent of those calories can come from fat. According to kitchen assistant Josie Kincaid, the regulations have gotten stricter progressively over the last three years.

“This year, they are going to actually audit us and make sure that we’re following what they expect [from the] state,” said Kincaid.

As nice as it is to be able to treat yourself, Haberman says that it’s more important how you limit your consumption. Haberman says that the other schools that have products similar to the Café Express and face the same struggles.

“It’s hard for kids to understand, they look and say it tastes good, this is what I like, so we just have to keep educating as a health department, as a P.E. department, on what’s out there.”