Lately, there has been a major push in the U.S. to go organic. It’s healthier, tastes better, and helps local farmers.
After all, who wants to eat millions of toxic synthetic pesticides every day? Well, if you aren’t eating organic, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Websites and health shows pull out shocking statistics that scare people into going organic. For example, 48.4% of conventional food from the grocery store carries multi-drug resistant bacteria. If all the food in those bags is organic, the bacteria count reduces to 15.9% (http://annals.org). What happens, though, when you have no control over where your food comes from? This is a problem many college students face. While America encourages a healthy lifestyle, young adults everywhere struggle against the restrictions of college meal plans.
When prospective students first walk into a college dining hall, they see numerous stations with different types of foods in an all-you-can-eat buffet style layout. They choose their meals and enjoy them thoroughly (due in part to campuses serving their
best food on prospective student days). Even for the first couple weeks of college, students think, “Mom and Dad aren’t here. I can eat whatever I want. No more vegetables for me!” So, they load up on the hamburgers, French fries, and chicken nuggets (although the definition of “nugget” remains to be seen), leaving the salad bar and vegetarian stations untouched. However, even if they were to eat from those stations, would their meal be that much healthier?
A typical salad bar contains iceberg lettuce; high-sodium content bacon bits; fatty cheeses; and the all-American favorite, Ranch dressing. While already unhealthy, three out of these four items are over-processed and all of them contain traces of toxic chemicals from pesticides or genetic modifications. If we can’t trust the “freshness” of the salad bar, we definitely cannot
rely on the pizza station or mashed potato bar to give us healthy, natural nourishment. Some may say if college students do not like what their dining halls have to offer, they should buy their own food instead. I say it isn’t that simple.
Students can afford cereal, pop tarts, and new Breakfast on the Go, all of which have incredible shelf-lives. Having food in the dorm room can be quite convenient, especially when you’re not in the mood to go down to the cafeteria for breakfast before your 8:00A.M. English class. But this is exactly where the problem lies. Foods with long shelf-lives are filled with chemicals and ingredients that you typically wouldn’t imagine being in your morning Shredded Wheat. Unfortunately, teenagers often do not look at these labels because their main concern is not the nutritional value but rather the taste and cost of the food. They buy what they can afford and what will last in their dorm room. A $0.99 bag of potato chips lasts longer for less money than a $2.87 bag of oranges. But what about students who wantto eat healthy?
There are a few steps such students can take. First, students with meal plans can still buy healthy snacks at farmers’
markets on the weekends. Most farmers’ markets, however, are open only through Thanksgiving. At least they can be healthy for three months of the year. Second, students can buy a dehydrator to make fruit last longer; some models can be purchased for under $100! Unfortunately, in order to use the dehydrators, students would still have to purchase expensive fruit. Perhaps the most reasonable suggestion is talking to the head of the campus dining hall and asking for more fresh and local foods. The downside to this approach, however, is the amount of time and student requests it would take in order to change the current food system. It is quite possible a freshman student who wanted to implement this change would be a junior or senior before he/she got enough people together to even put in a request, let alone for that request to be enforced.
So how can students eat well at college?
I believe it is the duty of colleges and universities to provide healthy food options for their students. Meal plans are already expensive, but the cost accounts for quantity rather than quality. That is the opposite of what it should be. If students are paying ridiculously high prices for their meals, they deserve to have nutritious options. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to make delicious dishes using healthy ingredients. If universities trained their kitchen staff to make flavorful dishes using only fresh and local ingredients (or even having a station with this option), students would find it easier and more
enjoyable to eat nutritious foods.
By making healthier options easily available, colleges and universities
can eliminate the meal plan blues.
After all, who wants to eat millions of toxic synthetic pesticides every day? Well, if you aren’t eating organic, that’s exactly what you’re doing. Websites and health shows pull out shocking statistics that scare people into going organic. For example, 48.4% of conventional food from the grocery store carries multi-drug resistant bacteria. If all the food in those bags is organic, the bacteria count reduces to 15.9% (http://annals.org). What happens, though, when you have no control over where your food comes from? This is a problem many college students face. While America encourages a healthy lifestyle, young adults everywhere struggle against the restrictions of college meal plans.
When prospective students first walk into a college dining hall, they see numerous stations with different types of foods in an all-you-can-eat buffet style layout. They choose their meals and enjoy them thoroughly (due in part to campuses serving their
best food on prospective student days). Even for the first couple weeks of college, students think, “Mom and Dad aren’t here. I can eat whatever I want. No more vegetables for me!” So, they load up on the hamburgers, French fries, and chicken nuggets (although the definition of “nugget” remains to be seen), leaving the salad bar and vegetarian stations untouched. However, even if they were to eat from those stations, would their meal be that much healthier?
A typical salad bar contains iceberg lettuce; high-sodium content bacon bits; fatty cheeses; and the all-American favorite, Ranch dressing. While already unhealthy, three out of these four items are over-processed and all of them contain traces of toxic chemicals from pesticides or genetic modifications. If we can’t trust the “freshness” of the salad bar, we definitely cannot
rely on the pizza station or mashed potato bar to give us healthy, natural nourishment. Some may say if college students do not like what their dining halls have to offer, they should buy their own food instead. I say it isn’t that simple.
Students can afford cereal, pop tarts, and new Breakfast on the Go, all of which have incredible shelf-lives. Having food in the dorm room can be quite convenient, especially when you’re not in the mood to go down to the cafeteria for breakfast before your 8:00A.M. English class. But this is exactly where the problem lies. Foods with long shelf-lives are filled with chemicals and ingredients that you typically wouldn’t imagine being in your morning Shredded Wheat. Unfortunately, teenagers often do not look at these labels because their main concern is not the nutritional value but rather the taste and cost of the food. They buy what they can afford and what will last in their dorm room. A $0.99 bag of potato chips lasts longer for less money than a $2.87 bag of oranges. But what about students who wantto eat healthy?
There are a few steps such students can take. First, students with meal plans can still buy healthy snacks at farmers’
markets on the weekends. Most farmers’ markets, however, are open only through Thanksgiving. At least they can be healthy for three months of the year. Second, students can buy a dehydrator to make fruit last longer; some models can be purchased for under $100! Unfortunately, in order to use the dehydrators, students would still have to purchase expensive fruit. Perhaps the most reasonable suggestion is talking to the head of the campus dining hall and asking for more fresh and local foods. The downside to this approach, however, is the amount of time and student requests it would take in order to change the current food system. It is quite possible a freshman student who wanted to implement this change would be a junior or senior before he/she got enough people together to even put in a request, let alone for that request to be enforced.
So how can students eat well at college?
I believe it is the duty of colleges and universities to provide healthy food options for their students. Meal plans are already expensive, but the cost accounts for quantity rather than quality. That is the opposite of what it should be. If students are paying ridiculously high prices for their meals, they deserve to have nutritious options. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to make delicious dishes using healthy ingredients. If universities trained their kitchen staff to make flavorful dishes using only fresh and local ingredients (or even having a station with this option), students would find it easier and more
enjoyable to eat nutritious foods.
By making healthier options easily available, colleges and universities
can eliminate the meal plan blues.
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