Across LAUSD, cafeterias are switching from cartons to bags of milk. In order to drink it, you are meant to poke a straw through the bag or cut a corner off. But transitioning to this new milk delivery system has been confusing and challenging for many students and longtime school milk-drinkers, with many students finding they make for better projectiles than they do refreshing beverages.
“It’s just really weird and just harder to drink,” said eighth grader Donovan Smith. He said when it was in cartons, he used to drink school milk, but now he won’t go near the stuff. Smith thinks bag-related debacles cause more spills, “Cause you have to, like, stick the straw into a bag. It’s tricky.”
Senior Daniel You agrees with Smith. “I have tried [the milk in bags]. It’s disgusting. It tastes like plastic. Maybe because I actually ate some of the plastic.” Right before the interview, You and I watched in horror as the towering figure of Holden Weissler bit down on one of the bags like an apple, not understanding how to get to the delicious nectar inside.
The bags have even vexed administrators. Mr. Rustum Jacob understands students’ qualms. “It’s so weird. You have to hold it a certain way, and like, the straw thing — no one likes the bags.”
Milk in bags isn’t a new phenomenon – it’s a Canadian tradition going back to the 1970s. Mr. Constantinos Tzaferis, our resident calculus teacher and Quebecker, was raised on the stuff. “My mom growing up would always get the bags and they would come in packs of three. And you would have to cut a little corner at the top and you would have these special kinds of containers the bags go in. But that’s how we had milk growing up.” He continued, saying, “I just think they were cheaper than the cartons. That’s why my mom would get them.”
But Tzaferis gravely warned, “Asking American students to adjust to the bags is just asking for trouble. Cartons is the way to go I think.”