Fast food shouldn't be served in school.

I would first like to point out that you made a math error when you said that the sample lunch at my school was only 605 calories. When they are all added up it is equivalent to 705 calories. Another thing that I would like to point out is that McDonald's doesn't serve dinner rolls. Where you got your information about a single dinner roll being 200 calories is beyond my knowledge. So, that automatically makes your McDonald's sample meal 200 calories less. Your McDonald's sample meal is only 685 calories. (I looked up McDonald's rolls and I found nothing.) Another thing that you must notice is that I chose different meals because I don't think that chicken nuggets from McDonald's should be served at schools. I did state in my round one argument that "While I don't believe that all types of fast food would necessarily be a good idea; I believe that it could be a good thing if it is done within reason." That is what I have been arguing. That is why I stated two different meals. I was giving an example of a type of meal that could be offered. In looking at your sample McDonald's meal (excluding the non-existent dinner roll) it can be seen that there are less calories and only 5 more grams of fat than that of the average school lunch that I provided. I do not know what school that you go to where the food is 'gourmet' and is under 500 calories, but that's not actually allowed. "Most students had to receive 785 calories at lunch, according to previous guidelines set in 1994. The new regulations say meals must be at least 550 and no more than 650 calories through the fifth grade, 600 and 700 respectively for middle school students and 750 and 850 respectively for high school students." This shows that your school, according to your statement, while offering lunches that are no more than 500 calories, doesn't even meet the standards of a lunch for students in elementary school. That, by law, is a problem. I have lived in many different states over the course of my life. I feel as though that gives me the ability to say that I have honestly never tasted a good school lunch. Asking people all across the country you can gather the information that school food is hardly 'gourmet'. I have never gone to a school in which the students didn't complain about the food. Due to many schools not flavoring their food and not being able to offer salt for the students, there are very few people who will tell you that school food actually tastes better than what they imagine cardboard to taste like. As for your argument of depression, here are some things to think about: "Some evidence does suggest that the trans-fats and saturated fats in some junk foods increase the risk of depression. The latest findings on this topic come from Spanish researchers who followed the diet and lifestyle of more than 12,000 men and women for six years. At the outset, none of the participants had been diagnosed with depression, but at the study's end, 657 were found to be depressed." (That totals to less than 19% of the people who were studied ending up with depression. There is also hardly any evidence that the depression that they were diagnosed with was diet related. Though some people think that it may be, there is no solid evidence stating that the theory is completely correct.) When you say that junk food can cause depression, you have to look at the big picture of it all. Processed foods are also thought to cause depression. Not just fast food in itself. What is school food? What are the chicken nuggets and salisbury steak made out of? All of the meats that schools serve are processed. How is that good for the children? How is it that processed fast food causes depression while processed school food doesn"t? They are both processed and are virtually made of the same ingredients. A quote from Mayo-clinic says this: "More research is needed on the connection between depression and diet." The argument that you are trying to make is one that doesn't have enough solid evidence to be called fact. Without it being fact, there is little you can say that I or someone else wouldn't be able to argue with. Most of the arguments that say that fast food is linked to depression don't specifically say 'fast food'. Many of the pages that I found about your argument name added sugars and processed foods specifically. The food that is served in school is just as, if not more, processed than the food that is served at fast food restaurants. In an article labeled "Why Fast Food is 'Healthier' Than School Lunches: The Shocking USDA Truth" quite a bit of information is shared. A couple of quotes specifically caught my attention. 1.) "The potential prevalence of E. Coli in school lunches has already been scrutinized, but there are more nasty shocks in store for parents and public school students. In fact, the standards governing the preparation and food content of school lunches fall short of minimums imposed upon even fast food restaurants, such as KFC and McDonalds!" (The bare-minimum for fast food restaurants is sometimes not even met by school food. How is that healthy for the children?) 2.) "No parent would feed their child meat only fit for pet food or compost, yet meat from "old birds" is exactly what children are being served at school, as found by USA Today"s investigation. Even KFC and the Campbell Soup Company refuse to buy such meat because of quality considerations, and these corporations stopped doing so more than a decade ago " yet our children are eating this very type of questionable quality meat." (KFC, being a fast food place, is often thought of as a place where low quality food is served. Looking at this quote, we can see that even KFC has higher standards for the meat that they use than the schools do for the meat in their lunches. Students all across the country are eating the food that even a "low-quality" fast food restaurant won't accept. How is that okay for the students? Wouldn't it be much better for the children if they were served better quality food?) 3.) " Not only are school children being served meat unfit for even a McDonalds" burger, but they are also at risk of ingesting harmful bacteria and pathogens hidden within the food. Some reports suggest that fast-food restaurants actually check for bacteria and pathogens between five and ten times more often than school lunch meats. An independent investigation conducted by USA Today concluded that out of 150,000 tests on school beef, most did in fact satisfy the criteria imposed by other large beef buyers. Alarmingly, however, there were cases where the Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), which purchases meat for schools, bought meats with pathogen and E. coli levels which even exceeded acceptable levels for fast-food outlets! Pathogens and bacteria housed in school cafeteria food are thought to be responsible for many stomach virus outbreaks nationwide." (There is proof that schools have been serving meat with pathogen and E. coli levels that are beyond what is acceptable in fast food restaurants. How is that 'healthy'? How is that better for the students than fast food? While some fast food is higher in fat, there are other options than just fried chicken nuggets and greasy burgers with lots of mayonnaise.) As you can see, school food really isn't as 'healthy' as people make it out to me. There are plenty of healthy options off of fast food menus that are higher quality than that of school food. Students are getting sick every year due to low quality school 'meat'. Within reason, fast food wouldn't be a bad thing to offer to students. It would not only be better quality food than what they are being served now, but it would also be something that they would enjoy much more than the current food that they are currently served on a daily basis. If students were given different, healthy fast food options to eat while at school, they would not only be happier with the flavor of the food they are consuming, but parents would have the piece of mind that their children aren't eating such low-quality meat with pathogens and E. coli. Within certain restrictions I believe that fast food would be a great option for schools across the country. Where I got my information: http://www.cbsnews.com... http://www.mayoclinic.org... http://articles.mercola.com... http://www.publicschoolreview.com...