College Lunch

I'm on a field trip at a local college with a group participating in an engineering competition, so I got to experience lunch in a college cafeteria. This is nothing like the ladies in hair nets and mystery meat experience I had back in the day. Here's the kinds of food that you could get (and it was all you could eat for like $7 ). There is a salad bar, a stir fry station, a panini station offering Monte Cristo (I don't know what's on a Monte Cristo, but I think it's something lie a Reuben) and portobello mushroom sandwiches, a tray full of grilled chicken breasts, french fries, baked potatoes, hamburgers, sandwiches and hoagies, toast your own hoagies and, in honor of Black History Month, Roast Pork Loin with collard greens and blackeyed peas salad. I think that's it. The soda machines have 8 choices and there's 3 kinds of milk and and a variety of coffee choices. For dessert there are piles of cookies, cakes and brownies everywhere, serve-yourself scooped and soft ice cream, waffles with toppings, and fruit. Plus there's a cereal bar and probably some stuff I missed. Flat screen and projection TV's with ESPN and C-Span all around. I want to live here. Oh, and I almost forgot the best part, a conveyor belt that you put your tray and dirty dishes on and it just disappears! I really want one of those at home.

I'd venture that it's important to develop decent eating habits before you go to college, because the traditional "freshman fifteen" is probably on the optimistic side otherwise. I didn't see any really skinny people around. They must not be on the meal plan. Unfortunately, the capitalist economic system and healthy eating habits are not really compatible, because to really make money on food you need to "add value," which means processing of some sort which usually involves adding salt, sugar, fat, or all of the above. By the way, it was pointed out to me that you can't eat "healthy foods," because that would imply that your food is alive. You can, however, eat "healthful foods."