Starting next year, Cameron High School will be completely free of fried foods. A new government Wellness Program is mandating what foods the schools can and cannot serve their students. The program states the Cameron R-1 School District must reduce the sodium by at least twenty percent and the fat in the foods by at least thirty percent; the best way for them to do that is to get rid of the deep fryer in the high school kitchen.

This will only affect the french fries on the Àla Carte menu, as none of the other items are fried. Next year, when the fryer is gone, the french fries will be baked, and therefore much more nutritious. "The fries will still pretty much be the same, they will just be prepared a different way," says Food Service Director Mr. Clauice Alexander.

Students seem to think the changes made by the government mandates will ruin the taste of the fries, and Sophomore Remington Steen says, "You can't oven bake French fries, it's just not right!"  However, Valerie Slover, one of the lunch ladies at CHS says the cooks will do their best to compensate. "We will try our best to make them crispy like everyone is used to."

But the fries aren't the only things affected by this Wellness Program, as some foods have been replaced with healthier variations such as whole-wheat biscuits and low-fat ranch dressing. The snacks have been regulated as well. Some chips and snacks, such as Goldfish crackers, have to be baked, and other snacks can only be around 100 calories or less.

So what happens to the fryer? Alexander says "We're going to look for a community organization that has given to the school and we are going to give the fryer to them."

A majority of the changes have already come into effect, and by next year the change will be pretty much complete. "Right now, we're just waiting for the oil in the fryer to run out, so in about two months or so that's when we'll get rid of the fryer," Slover says.

The food services are trying to get foods the students like, however. For example, Alexander says, "Students don't like the brown rice that we got from the government, so after all of this brown rice is gone, we'll get back the rice everyone is used too because they like that rice."

For some students, these changes may be difficult to get used to. The fries are one of Cameron High School's favorite Àla Carte items, and only time will tell how the students take to these changes.