Crisp lettuce, sauteed peppers, charcoal-grilled cauliflower florets on a soft flour tortilla: This is the average lunch for freshman Mahita Dheenadhayalan. “It was really, really good. I believe it was a very fresh interpretation of Mexican cuisine,” Dheenadhayalan said.
Dheenadhayalan, like other students and staff members, finds difficulty in packing healthy and appetizing lunches for school. To avoid the rush of lunch packing at the last minute, it’s important to create a routine that allows for purposeful and balanced meal packing. Still, finding time to cook specific meals for lunch can be challenging especially with the busy lives that students and teachers lead inside and outside of school. “I should be improving my daily routine, but I feel like in the mornings there’s not time to put together a sandwich or whatever, except for grabbing stuff that’s already basically done. So, unless it’s like something I cooked the night before for dinner, basically, and then I’m just taking that as a leftover, then I’ll pack that up the night before,” AP Physics teacher Gavin Kramar said.
One solution is to pack lunches the night before and cook intentionally with the priority of healthy and easy meals. “I’m a meal planner so I do a whole system at home of cooking for one, and so I put meals in. and I plan to cook it. Then I freeze individual portions, which end up being my lunches. So I do like to cook, but I find I just don’t have as much time to cook during the school year, but I love trying out recipes,” AP Statistics teacher Michelle George said.
Kramar prioritizes his well-being and makes sure to eat despite having a busy schedule. Like most teachers, Kramar allows students to come in during advisory and lunch for extra help and retakes, which doesn’t leave enough time to enjoy a home-cooked meal. “I’ll try to eat during my, like, off period and sometimes I’ll try to eat in advance of lunch because I know I might get distracted during lunch. If I just don’t eat it at all, I just drink more coffee,” Kramar said.
Despite her busy schedule Dheenadhayalan makes sure to always have lunch after learning her lesson in the past. “[When I don’t eat lunch] I feel really hungry and sad because everyone around me is eating their lunches, but I just have no lunch,” Dheenadhayalan said.
George recognizes the downside of skipping lunch on academic performance in students and overall mood in teachers. “I don’t like to be hangry. If I don’t eat, I get tired, and I’ve definitely seen students get tired when they don’t eat. They just can’t focus and it’s hard for them to keep going through the school day when they’re hungry,” George said.
However, lack of time forces teachers like Kramar and George to have “emergency” snacks in their desks that aren’t able to replace a full meal. “Sometimes it’ll be food that I buy from the grocery store the day before. Other times maybe some frozen food. I have a freezer in my office, so I can keep some emergency type meals if I never get around to bringing any food,” Kramar said.
Kramar looks forward to lunches from outside and appreciates when he gets a break from packing meals every day. “Every other week, there is a group order for the staff. I think it was Chopt so I would get like some wraps delivered and I would always kind of forget about it until it happened, and then it would be like, ‘Oh yeah, I have a like a chicken wrap waiting for me to downstairs’ but anytime you get lunch by surprise, that’s pretty good. Actually, the real best answer is anytime we get the lunch catered by the PTSA; those are always the best,” Kramar said.
George’s favorite crock pot meal includes spaghetti with sausage. “I’m a pasta person, so I make my own spaghetti with meat sauce that I love. I get fresh Italian sausage from a farm and it just makes the whole dish really yummy, so it’s always my favorite when I cook that for dinner and then I always bring the leftovers for lunch.
