by Celine Hoang, Social Media Manager and Laura Le, Staff Writer
DISCLAIMER: This review is solely an expression of our opinions of the foods provided by the Huntington Beach Union High School District. In no way, shape, or form does this review reflect the Fountain Valley High School cafeteria or its staff. We were not reimbursed for our taste tests and we paid for all the foods discussed in the review from our own pockets.
Each morning before school in the Huntington Beach Union High School (HBUHSD) cafeterias, multiple breakfast options are offered for students to enjoy. But, are students truly enjoying the food provided by the HBUHSD? There’s only one way to find out, and that’s to dive into the selections and review the options.
We decided to try every option offered except for name-brand foods, such as Pop Tarts and the different varieties of cereal. With $22, we bought four BENEfit Bars of different flavors, a Bridgeford Baked cinnamon roll, a glazed breakfast bun, three muffins, the egg sausage and cheese bagel and a yogurt parfait.
BENEfit Bars are supposedly a healthier alternative to granola bars and contain three grams of fiber per serving; each bar has 286.6 calories and 46.6 grams of carbohydrates. We sampled four flavors of the bars: apple cinnamon, banana chocolate chip, oatmeal chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin. The apple cinnamon was average; the cinnamon didn’t overpower the apple flavor, but it would’ve tasted better if the apple flavor were more robust. However, the oatmeal raisin bar failed to meet our expectations, as the bar was bland had a poor ratio of oatmeal to raisins. The bar should be renamed to Oatmeal BENEfit bar, considering how sparse the raisins were. We both agreed that the Banana Chocolate Chunk initially looked disgusting—it appeared soggy and parts of it stuck to the wrapper; however, it was one of the better bars. We expected the bar to have an overpowering taste, but surprisingly, the banana and chocolate complimented each other.
Our first impression of the Bridgeford Baked cinnamon roll was that it did not look fresh. It was extremely difficult to cut, and wouldn’t be possible to eat without a knife making it difficult to swallow. Each cinnamon roll has 210 Calories and 35 g carbohydrates.
The most confusing and atrocious item on the menu was the glazed breakfast bun. It looked like a cinnamon bun, but there wasn’t a hint of cinnamon. We have a question for the district: why does this exist? If the idea behind this was a warm, sweet and generously glazed breakfast bun, it is completely the opposite: this bun has an an old, sponge-like consistency and tastes like a spoiled donut. The texture looks and feels like an overused kitchen sponge. It is overly sweet, as if they decided that glaze was just sugar and dumped it over the bun. Overall, this is a terrible food item and we seriously wonder who tasted and agreed on serving this.
We also tried an assortment of muffins: blueberry, banana walnut and chocolate chip. Each muffin has 336.7 calories and 52.2 grams of carbohydrates. All of the muffins tasted the same, besides their additional components, such as blueberries, walnuts, or chocolate chips. In addition, the three muffins broke apart very easily. The taste of the blueberries was very faint in the blueberry muffin and there were very few chocolate chips in the chocolate chip muffin that didn’t alter its taste at all. The banana walnut muffin tasted the same as the other muffins, but the walnuts did add a crunch to the muffin.
The bagel with egg sausage and cheese met our expectations with ease; aside from the plastic wrap being difficult to take off, the meal stayed true to its name. It was a standard egg, sausage and cheese between two bagels, containing 334 calories and 35.5 grams of carbohydrates. We enjoyed this and decided to eat the rest for breakfast, making it a standard meal that fits its description.
We tried the yogurt parfait last and it was like a breath of fresh air for us. The parfait includes granola, vanilla yogurt and frozen strawberries and has 231.3 calories and 44.4 carbohydrates. Unlike what we had previously tried, the parfait tasted fresh and true to its name. This parfait was one of the two items we were able to happily finish, the other being the egg, sausage, and cheese bagel.
Overall, the two best tasting items were the yogurt parfait and the bagel with sausage, egg and cheese. They both fit their description, had a good taste and flavor and didn’t make us uncomfortable while eating them. If you want breakfast on Tuesdays, these are our top rated items. We just hope that the HBUHSD takes our review into consideration if they ever decide to update their menus.
Find more nutrition facts here.
