After countless hours of cramming information that might not even be useful five years from now (or in a week), a stampede of teenagers will have their dreams fueled with all the food from their refrigerator or all the food from the McDonald’s corporation. When the bell finally rings for lunch, sprinting students and grumbling stomachs lose appetite when encountered with today’s school lunch. Here is a list of the top five gross lunches that will make your taste buds vomit.

Fish Stick Tacos: This is when you know that the cafeteria ladies are lacking ideas for a “fun” school lunch. When students look down at this food, they start to question “Who thought putting fried fish into a tortilla would be nutritional? Is this even edible?” Not only would this be complicated to eat but the fusion of Mexican and Mediterranean foods does not sound or look appealing.

School Pizza: Not only has school pizza received bashing from movies and books but some schools turn pizza seen on films into reality. Most school pizzas are full of fats and oils that somehow meets the “nutritional value.’‘ No matter how fancy Italian food may sound, the school miraculously turns Italian cuisine into American grease. Although pizza is not a vegetable, that should not stop schools from adding a few veggies to this commonly known lunch.

Chinese Food: Yes, USA worships Chinese takeout, but the creation of Chinese food has lost its authenticity not only in restaurants but also in school lunches. Most of the Chinese food is served with overcooked chow mein or ready to eat rice with chicken covered in sauces tasting too sweet or salty. Surprisingly, most of the Chinese food is not even made using products produced by China but from America. Images even show that some of the rice is incorporated with leftover sauces or oils and  served in a large lump. Obviously, not Michelle Obama approved.

Microwaveable Nachos: One look at this palette of fake meat and cheese will make you too traumatized to stand in the lunch line for a month. The nachos are microwaved for an excessive amount of time, which turns them into a soup of wanna be Mexican food. As a result of this nacho soup slime, the chips turn soggy! Not cool, man.

Hot Dogs: These are one of the times when you look at your tray and go “What the heck is this?” and make a beeline for the exit out of school or into a upperclassmen car, you sneaky underclassmen. Believe it or not, some of the hot dogs have a high chance of being undercooked, so when staring down at a pale pickle shaped meat, raw or undercooked would be the second words after disgusting. Sometimes the hot dogs will be extremely overcooked, to the point that the hot dog will split and the meat will look like the abstract art from your Design 2 class last hour.

Overall, school lunches either cause taste buds to dance or students to use the over said statement “Thanks (Michelle) Obama for almost sending me to the ER”. Just keep in mind that the flavor of food is dependent from person to person because the spectrums of flavors we enjoy are limited. Of course you can always cringe every time you take a bite of school lunch or you can always go the old fashioned way and bring lunch prepared from home.