Salad Bar Business

Dear Mr. Martinez,

Hello, my name is Justin Wei, and I’m an 8th grader at El Roble. As you are the principal of this junior high school, I decided to write to you about this issue that came across my mind while eating a deliciously juicy cheeseburger.

The lunches at El Roble are usually satisfactory to me, with reasonable portions, pretty fresh ingredients, and the ever-present salad bar. Variety in the lunches is diverse, and the portions are usually just enough to get me through the last two periods of class I have before I go home and pig out on snacks. The salad bar next to the snack store is also a great place to go at lunch. There is always salad, ham, and yogurt, all very nutritious items that complement and balance the not-too-healthy cheeseburgers, orange chicken, tacos, and burritos that I can get in the lunch carts.

As always, one of the goals for schools is to get us students to eat a big variety of nutritious food. But I’m not sure if even half of the students are eating the correct amounts  of veggies and fruit. I think the problem is with the salad bar, which should be the carrier of healthy things. The variety is just not great enough to attract most students. Sure, a lot of people are seen getting carrots and salad on their trays, but it is still a tiny percentage of the school. Most of the people I see just carry their low-on-nutrition food items, without any sign of fruit or veggies.

A recent change that made the students go to the salad bar less was the fifty cents charge on carrots. Who would want to pay extra to eat something healthy when you’re already paying $3.25 for lunch? Before the new charge, I would get the carrots at least two times a week. I had seen a lot of other students get the carrots too, crunching loudly, enjoying them. Now, I have not seen anyone eat carrots in weeks, and I haven’t gone to get any either. Mr. Martinez, I think that leaving the carrots free as part of the lunch would definitely help with having a more diverse salad bar.  

Here are some suggestions for how to improve the salad bar. The ingredients are usually fresh, which is good, but they’re just not diverse enough. Every day, the food is exactly the same. This is why the students and I are not eating the salad bar as much as before. Apart from having the same salad bar food every day, there are the separate containers that hold mysterious-looking things, and olives and radishes that no one touches. It would be a great idea to switch those out for a greater variety of food, like crackers, peaches, and dried berries. Accordingly, you could have the food director change up the items every couple months and switch the style slightly.

Mr. Martinez, please consider this idea. Please understand why our current First Lady wants all schools in our country to have a salad bar. The reason is not just to throw one together really quickly, and announce, “We have a salad bar!” Putting some thought into making the salad bar more diverse will make the students happier, and make the nation a healthier one.

Thank you,

Justin Wei