My High School Diet 7 During Coronavirus

No meat in this day's High School Meals and that's okay, but there is plenty of dairy and with French Toast an egg is normally used to coat the bread.

The unusual part of this Meal is Ardella's Fun Pack for Lunch. It's just a couple of bread rounds with pizza sauce and mozzarella cheese.

And I can't remember when I had a frosty Slush, but what the heck I'll give it a taste test!

For this new Food Series, I gave myself the assignment to find out what High School kids are being fed during Covid-19. We here in Los Angeles care about the nutrition needs of young people.

I'll be sharing a different Breakfast and Lunch meal every few days. I think you'll be as surprised as I am of the good, the bad, and the ugly...oh boy.

These meals are Grab & Go from my local High School. I'm sure regular school cafeteria fare is different (better?) than the ones I am getting carryout at the drive-thru lane. You can click here to see the first meal I had at my neighborhood Grab & Go.

The GIF above is a Grab & Go walk up at Susan Miller Dorsey High School. 

There seem to be plenty of meal bags laid out on the tables and once I asked if they ever run out and the attendant replied emphatically "Never!"

Breakfast: French Toast, Blueberry Muffin, Apple, Juice, and Milk (always Milk.)

French Toast is a real kid-pleaser and this one is almost perfect except one part which I will talk about later. The bread is soft and the coating extra-eggy. Is it sweet too,  and with a dash of fragrant cinnamon spice.

French Toast is precooked so all you need to do is heat it for a few seconds until warm...or just go ahead and eat it at room temperature.

A very good French Toast, however, there is a strange slick coating, that I'm not sure of...hmmm, I think it is oil? I know it isn't syrup as it's neither sticky or sweet, just a neutral taste. Since the package has no labeling, I guess it will remain a mystery.

It's a 2fer of sweet bread with the addition of a Muffin. I don't know if this was supposed to go the lunch as these 2 meals come in one bag and it's up to me to guess what item goes with breakfast or lunch?

The cupcake is moist and sweet with cinnamon spice. There is no package label but once I broke it open I could see a couple of blueberries. It is a tasty Blueberry Muffin.

Lunch: Fun Pack (Bread Round, Pizza Sauce, Mozzarella Cheese), Carrots, Orange, Frozen Slush.

This is a very good Fun Pack, even when served at room temperature. I guess you could call it a vegan pizza, or an open-faced sandwich?

The bread round is very soft, so not really pizza dough or pita bread. It's a thick slice too and that's fine. I assume the bread is made of whole wheat, like most bread products I've tried so far.

The Marinara Sauce or Pizza Sauce is thick and loaded with herbs and spices, very satisfying in fresh tomato flavor. I liked it a lot and want the recipe!

The shredded Cheese is Mozzarella (I think as there is no ingredients list on the package.) It's very soft and a mild-flavored version -- quite tasty.

The most peculiar thing is the amount of Pizza sauce and Mozzarella cheese to too much for just 2 bread rounds - you would have to really pile it on to finish those toppings. So if you have any bread laying around then get out a slice!

I tasted the open-faced sandwiches at room temperature and grilled. Of course, grilled is better as a cracker bread crispness and flavor come to the fore, but either way works for me.

It was fun to have childhood visions when slurping on a Cool TropicsSlush packet.

Click on any photo to see larger.

It's a short ingredient list and I like that, a nod to healthier fare these days. 

Paradise Punch is lightly sweet and a mild fruit flavor like white grape juice. I liked that there was no lingering cane sugar extra-sweet flavor. 

I refroze the packet since it was lukewarm to the touch by the time I got home. After a half-hour or so I poured and squeezed out the icy parts into a glass. There is a spout to cut along, but next time I would cut lower across the wide part and pour it all out at once. This would enable the packet to be more frozen like a Slush should be.  

Finally, the Orange was sweet and seedless while the Carrots are crunchy and fresh tasting.

For reviews or info about the purveyors of these food items you can check out Fooducate, just enter a product food name and see what pops up about it: https://www.fooducate.com/

And you can learn about Los Angeles Unified School District's Cafe LA (which supplies a lot of the packaged food) here: https://achieve.lausd.net/cafela

And do check back in a few days for more of my latest food series High School Meals.

 Be safe & keep your distance!