Healthier options fill up the birds nest.

Last year, Lawrence schools weren’t allowed to sell students carbonated beverages or those with high sugar content, but this year the district is tightening up the rules even more.

“The rules are that any snack we sell has to be 200 calories or less, no less than eight grams of fat and 18 grams of sugar,“ Birds Nest adviser Phil Roth said.

It’s no secret that it’s difficult to find snack foods that follow those regulations. This makes it tougher for the district to fill up the Birds Nest with healthy options.

“This year we’re allowed to sell any baked chip items, Chex Mix, beef jerky, granola bars, GoGurt, Rice Crispies, an assortment of bottled and boxed juice, plus water bottles, among other things,” said Roth.

There is an exception to the calorie counter: peanuts.

“The peanut oil in them is supposed to be good for students,” Roth said.

For many students this won’t be something to look forward to.

“I’m pretty mad because it was something I looked forward to every lunch and they had a lot of good things that I feel didn’t really have to be taken away,” junior Christina Hasiotis said. “It wasn’t really harming anybody.”

For other students the Birds Nest isn’t the only benefit of lunch time.

“The change won’t affect me as much because I don’t really eat unhealthy foods,” senior Caitlyn Tilden said.

It’s definitely a new change for seniors because they were used to the regulations of their sophomore year when every snack food was available. The sophomores and freshman were never used to the Birds Nest and might feel this change will not have an affect on them.

“At Southwest they didn’t have anything like that to begin with so it’s nothing really new for me. It would have been nice, but not a big deal,” sophomore Evan Barnes said.

Other sophomores feel this change will affect them.

“I don’t think it’s fair that they took out all the unhealthy foods,” sophomore Ahmad Moukaddem said. “It’s good to have something unhealthy once in a while.”