By Simon Li, Jonah Ruddock, Eric Yang
The school store is an integral part of East’s culture, and although many students purchase food and drinks from it daily, no one has ever before conducted an objective and thorough analysis of the store’s bountiful fare. On December 1st, we purchased one of every snack and beverage available and ranked them according to value and quality. It was an experience that has left us fundamentally altered, both physically and spiritually. We have braved unspeakable things for the sake of science. We faced these eldritch horrors in order to bring truth to the common man at East.
Our panelists are the renowned food scholar and massive internet sensation Eric Yang (creator of Gumpshroom Gambling), major school store benefactor Simon “4” Li, and Jonah Ruddock.
Refrigerated Foods
Straight out of the fridge (or several hours afterwards), these foods had massive potential and are potentially the least sought after in the store. Would they prove to be a victorious underdog? Let us find out.
First off, we had the chocolate pudding. Unbeknownst to us, an entire variety of pudding flavors were available at the school store. However, at the time, chocolate was the only flavor we could get all six of our hands on.
Frankly, the chocolate pudding was incredibly dense and overpowering. The council members would not recommend trying to consume it through a school lunch straw, especially since, as Eric Yang eloquently put it, “ohmygodIhatethisitsterribleihatechocolate.”
Moving on to the applesauces: the classic cinnamon applesauce was lauded as flavorful and masterfully crafted, albeit lacking in substance.
Initial thoughts of the cinnamon variety included a lengthy discussion of the “watery nature of the applesauce,” which quickly devolved into petty arguments and name calling. However, after the fog of ad hominems had subsided, the members of the council all fell into a common consensus and deemed it “full of flavor” and “better than the other one.”
The other one, the “strawberry-applesauce”, does not even deserve to be mentioned in this article, earning a measly rating of .02. While the cinnamon applesauce only looked watery, the strawberry applesauce stuck to its appearances and tasted more like water than strawberry or apples.
The yogurt section was a harrowing experience. Perhaps if any of us had liked yogurt, they would’ve scored more successfully. Simon said that the Chobani s’mores tasted “like if you fed a cow s’mores.”
The star of the show came through, however, with the Strawberry Cheesecake Chobani, which did a substantial .007 points higher than the s’mores. Jonah appears to have liked them the most, saying that they were “not good… not good.”
Moving on to the solid fermented dairy, the cheese varied in taste, textures, and most importantly in ratings. We believe that a quick rundown of the already short list of cheeses suffices in this article. Here are the cheeses, ranked from best to worst: cheddar, string cheese, and Colby Jack (which we forgot the name of during filming).
Jonah described cheddar as “10/10, goated, the spice of life, the flesh of gods”, while the Colby Jack, lamented Simon, was “just salty, with a weird texture.” String cheese was just “stringy”, which was predicted and verified by Eric. All members agreed that how good string cheese tasted depended heavily on your method of unstringing it.
Turns out, just because you’re the underdog, doesn’t mean you win that game of basketball. Or the food review (sorry, Air Bud). (Sorry, Bernie.) (Sorry, Buttigieg.)
Drinks
The drinks were by far the most painful section. These drinks are what Satan sips on while reviewing your paperwork and deciding which circle of hell you belong in. These drinks are the spinal fluid in the backbone of every bad day you’ve ever had. The only remotely palatable beverages were water, iced tea, Sparkling Ice, Gatorade, Propel, and Mott’s apple juice. The rest: rancid.
“If I had a child, I would let it die of dehydration before feeding it this,” Jonah said, swerving in disgust after a hit of Mango Orange Ice. His other notable contributions included: “Every additional fake water you make me try makes my will to go on decrease exponentially” and “I don’t know why they sell this. This would affect my performance in school. I would be in a weakened state.” Although other council members largely agreed with these views when it came to the detested Propel drinks, they differed in opinion when it came to some of the Ice drinks.
Or so says Jonah, whose opinion varied drastically from the rest of the council. So much so, that he would regularly give out 10s to items other members deemed were disgusting, and 1s when others rated it positively. Well, what do the unbiased members of the council have to say? Let us start with water.
Given the choice between the school water or this bottled, plastic water, the council unanimously decided to go with the latter. Simon, going a bit far to please big water, said, “We all need a little more water in our lives.” Eric dissented, saying, “I don’t need more water in my life,”clearly trying to draw the attention of big water to send him free water. Overall, the water received a rating of .05, a decent score.
The Sparkling Ice had the most varieties by far, coming in at a whopping six different varieties – Cranberry Frost, Apple Cider, Lemon Lime (a Sprite rip-off), Orange Mango, Black Raspberry, and Black Cherry. Most of them were just whelming (adj. not good or bad), such as the Orange Mango and Cranberry Frost. According to Simon “the goat” Li, the flavors simply did not mix well for these drinks.
The Black Raspberry assumes the role of the shining supergiant amongst the dim neutron stars–not because of its complex flavors but due to its simplicity. According to Eric, it “doesn’t pretend to be anything else.”
The teas might just be East’s favorite drink (we honestly don’t know, we’re just guessing), with three different flavors to choose from: Arnold Palmer Half and Half, Arizona Green Tea, and Arizona Lemon flavored Tea.
Despite having a volumetric advantage, the Lemon Tea disappointed us all, tasting “kinda bad though,” according to Eric. Simon, on the other hand, wisely chose not to speak and instead expressed his thoughts and emotions in a scrunched up, displeased look (probably from the lemons). The same could be said of the half and half–without the extra volume. It tasted incredibly whelming, and is, in general, incredibly overhyped. Both drinks received a .05 median score.
The gold betwixt the grains of sand is awarded to the Arizona Green tea, with a stunning rating of .08. Eric praised its genius simplicity, saying that “this is better than the half and half.” Simon, being biased (he bought this nearly every day freshman year) added on to the praise, saying he “could never get tired of it.”
Otherwise, the rest of the drinks matched Jonah’s harsh criticism. According to Simon, the Propels tasted like “if you had left a grape (or any of the alleged flavors) in water for a few days.”
The Gatorade, which coincidentally is the parent company of Propel drinks, also tasted vile. Many of us grew up protesting against the myth that Gatorade is necessary after physical exercise, or in any way good for you, so its taste conjures up the undying bitterness of a stifled perspective.
The golden child lying hidden amongst its brothers finally appeared before our sights: Mott’s Apple juice. It was eye opening. Our lives were somehow bigger after experiencing it. We were inspired to reach heights we had never before acknowledged as possibilities. Even Jonah admitted that it was “really, really good.” The only downside to this truly amazing drink was how little juice it actually contained, a travesty considering we paid a dollar for the bottle. If the school store could lower the price on this delicacy, profits would skyrocket.
Thus, our verdict is in: the only drinks worth buying from the school store, as of the 2021-22 school year, are the Sparkling Ice Black Raspberry, Arizona green tea, and apple juice.
Conclusion
When reviewing our ratings, please keep in mind that we ate everything back to back with no breaks in between. This may have affected our judgment. Also, the refrigerated foods had been left unrefrigerated from sixth period until the end of the school day. In addition, not everything from the school store was reviewed due to either human error or it simply not being present on that given day.
What the school store looks like in your eyes depends on what you need. If you’re looking for snacks with a good value for the money spent, this is a much better option than the vending machine. If you’re looking for quality regardless of price, some sections, such as Flamin’ Hot, are good. Drinks are absolutely not the way to go, unless it’s Black Raspberry Sparkling Ice. We would like to add that the school store did not give us a discount, even though we bought out the entire stock! They also made us purchase a whole bottle of iced tea instead of just pouring a little in our cupped palms so we could try it.
Our tip? Buy in bulk from the grocery store. You get more in value, more selection, and most importantly, NONE of your money goes back to the school!
Lastly, for the third and last time, we would like to thank our crew members: Daren Liu, Ben Keim, Aditya Gupta, Pen Fang, Sophie Zhu, Thomas Jordanov, Mathew Li, Mr. Huber (who had the misfortune of witnessing Jonah drink a combination of five different drinks through a green sea salt veggie straw), and the poor soul working at the school store between 12 to 3 pm on December 1st, 2021.
