It takes a certain amount of courage to stand in the cafeteria line on the first day of school. To wait behind strangers in a new environment while slowly progressing towards the inevitable dishing-out of food takes a considerable amount of mental strength–and rightly so. It is challenging not to be discouraged by those infamous tales of cafeteria lore that feature small portions, greasy sausage, and meatball hoagies gone wrong; in fact, many students would rather pack a lunch than risk receiving such a culinary surprise.

Yet here at North Allegheny Senior High School, we students are often too quick to criticize the efforts of the lunch employees. For when was the last time that we cooked a five-star meal for a group of hungry adolescents? When was the last time that we had to slave over a hot stove? When was the last time that we had to cook and eat actual gruel?

But I suppose I am getting ahead of myself. This summer I was lucky enough to be a part of a one-month backpacking expedition in the Yukon Territory of Canada through the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS).

While I would like to overlook most of the details regarding the trip for now, one topic I would like to share is my experience with food. The beginning of the trip saw the “students” of our expedition measure and package twenty-eight days worth of rations that would be split into periods: seven days, eleven days, and ten days. Members of the expedition would be split into cook groups of four and would each carry an allotted amount of food per person.

Due to the nature of the trip, rations could not consist of fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy products, bread, and meat and instead had to be based upon dried/dehydrated foods or sustainable carbohydrates, such as pasta and rice. And while there were exceptions to this pattern—we did receive one onion, two to three carrots, a clove of garlic, a block of cheese, and a tiny amount of sausage each re-ration—the requirement to split these ingredients among four people did not amount to much.

For twenty-eight days my fellow hikers and I were forced to survive on add-water foods (beans, potatoes, vegetables, and milk powder), dried fruits, grains (pasta, rice, couscous, quinoa, rice-noodles, oats), and miscellaneous items (brown sugar, flour, spices, chocolate chips, juice mix, etc.). The beginning of the ration period was the spectacular, as groups would utilize fresh veggies and spices to create Iron Chef worthy masterpieces like pasta alfredo, gado-gado, and even back-country pizza.

Yet just as Newton’s Third Law exists in the world of physics, a similar phenomenon is present in outdoor cooking: For every well-cooked meal, there is an equally horrible and atrocious meal waiting around the corner. End-of-ration cooking saw abominations such as (but not limited to) flavorless corn-meal patties, black-bean and quinoa gruel, and quesadillas with curry-flavored oats — all choked down with a swig of add-water milk.

But at that time we did not care. We were running low on options, and any food that was “hot and a lot” would satisfy our hunger after long days of hiking.

By the time we re-entered civilization, everyone was craving anything fresh. I will never forget the way we tore apart the first bag of spinach we could get our hands on, grabbing as many fistfuls of the bright green leaves as we could. Yet despite being hungry and forced to eat some pretty bizarre meals, I would not change a thing about the entire experience.

I have learned, albeit the hard way, that cooking for hungry teenagers is no easy task. I have learned that it takes courage and skill to create a meal with limited ingredients and still aim to make everyone satisfied. I have even learned to never, ever take fresh fruits and vegetables for granted again – none of us should!

So the next time we students are complaining about the “gruel” that is a fresh chicken-spinach salad at lunch, let us take some time to reconsider. Let us walk up the cafeteria line and thank our lunch ladies for cooking us such a meal, and let us remember not to judge too harshly…

…because things could be a lot worse.