Rant about college cafeteria

[funkosaurus]

I am really upset about the new meal plan my college has. I am going to be a sophomore, so I am forced to by the plan, since you have to live on campus and have the meal plan the first two years.

Last year, it was just a regular points system, you get X amount of points for each semester to spend however you want. This year it is points for breakfast and lunch, and a "all you can eat" style dinner. But this is a big deal because they are deciding for me how much I spend on dinner, so my points for breakfast and lunch are limited. The plan costs $5000 for the year, and we only get $650 points per semester. So that means I can only spend $3 per meal if I don't want to have to buy any more points, and I really don't think I should be forced to do that considering the plan is 5000 to begin with. If I was living on my own, I would only spend $1600 for the school year on groceries AND eat actual healthy food, not the crap they give us.

Oh, and it would be one thing if the food was actually priced decently, but a piece of fruit (that looks like it has been through a war most of the time) costs a dollar. So if I want to get a piece of bruised fruit with a meal, that only leaves me with 2 more dollars to get the rest of the meal with. It is ridiculous. And that is if I only eat 3 times a day, which I do not do. I eat like 6 times a day.

And the food is TERRIBLE. It is appalling. I know that everyone in college probably feels the same way, but I am ranting so whatever.

Oh, and the thing about the all you can eat dinners is that it is so bad for you. Breakfast should be the biggest meal, with every meal after that getting progressively smaller, right? They are making it impossible to be healthy. I cannot eat good, healthy food and I cannot eat the right quantity or frequency that I should be. So I'm going to have to spend even more money on groceries.

I could rant about the school's "gym" too, haha. Just because we are a bunch of music nerds at a conservatory doesn't mean there aren't a few of us who are trying to be healthy. Jeez. But the sad thing is, not many people care, haha. They should, one of my teachers, this crazy russian dude said that Russian orchestras made their members go to a gym 3 times a week.

We kind of need our bodies to be in good working order to use them to make music. It is more physical than it looks.

Soooo yeah. Maybe I'll just go on a fitness crusade at my school this year.

[Amanda76]

In my cabinet at work I have a surplus of:

Canister of Old Fashioned Oats (surely you at least have a community microwave in your dorm?)
Tuna Packets
Peanut butter
Walnuts
Protein Powder
Bottled Water (I drink it room temp)
Sometimes a couple of sweet potatos to microwave. LOL

At the beginning of the week I'll bring fruit like apples or bananas (you could keep apples in your dorm since they last forever and nab whatever's fresh looking from the cafeteria when it looks good).

Surely you can keep a stash like that somewhere in your dorm room? You can keep even more if you can get a mini-fridge and are allowed some kind of indoor grill. Just some options for when the food at the cafeteria is totally unacceptable and so that you have decent things to choose from for your other 3 meals.

Also try asking the cooks to make certain things to your specifications. I used to get the cooks at my college to grill me a chicken breast when all they had was breaded/gravy drenched stuff out. It was never a problem. Sometimes all it takes to get food made how you want it, is to ask.

I do think you should find out who to get in touch with to help drum up support for making changes on your campus, though.

[SophieM]

At my college EVERYONE has to be on the food plan. Granted, it's more lenient in that it's all you eat for all the meals and they are open when they aren't serving "meals" to get snacks or whatever, but the food is still horrible and not healthy.

I'm NOT looking forward to going back to college to eat their crappy food. I DO look forward to our gym though. It's AWESOME!!

[Mrs_Muscles]

That sucks roally bad! I hate how colleges try to control every little aspect of their students' life. It was actually one of the biggest factors in me NOT going to college right out of high school. I looked at the list of requirements I'd have for my own PERSONAL life, and said no way. Like the Army was a lot less controlling lol but, in all reality, I did have more freedom than a lot of college kids. Not all campuses are like that I'm sure, there's got to be others out there who allow their students to learn responsibility. I could go into a HUGE rant as to why colleges are this controlling... but that would open up a can of political views, and I ain't getting into that... especially not in the nutrition thread! lol

What I'd do, since if you want your education, you're really at their mercy... is to see how many other students you can find who have issues with the program. Write a collective letter and start low (cafeteria manager) and just keep working your way up to the top. How about student's with special dietary needs? How are they accomodated? Would it be possible for you to plead to your doctor to write up a "medical recommendation" of some sort for you?

[funkosaurus]

Thanks for the suggestions, guys, I really appreciate it. Amanda76, I will keep healthy snacks and food around; I can have a fridge in my room, but no cooking devices, luckily there is a kitchen area in my dorm, and a microwave on my floor. It just sucks that I am forced to buy more food despite paying so much for a meal plan. Siiigh. But I think I will ask them to make plain food, because 90% of the time it is smothered in sauces and whatnot. I think I might suggest having plain grilled chicken in the salad bars, they have that in the premade salads (which are 3454890x more expensive), so maybe they could just make a ton of it, have it refrigerated and put in the salad bar.

SophieM, that sucks that everyone has to be on the plan. You're lucky you have a good gym though, haha, we call our gym the closet, it seriously is the size on one. But my jazz teacher told me that before we had the "gym" there was just a lone exercise bike that sat in this dance studio that classes were held in, and one time some guy came in and used the bike while my teacher was having class, haha.

I've emailed the guy in charge of the meal plan, Mrs Muscles, and the RAs have been meeting with him to talk about concerns (we are all kind of mad about the change). He basically told me to buy the more expensive meal plan (of course that would be his suggestion, haha). But he did say that if this plan fails they'll change it. In other news, he has a porn mustache.Oh, and I've been told that even someone who tried to get off of the meal plan for health reasons couldn't.

I love my school, despite all of the insanity that happens there, hahaha.

[margotspera]

damn I feel lucky. I went to a school with great all-you-can-eat food. I could get 10 egg whites on wheat toast, coffee, and milk whenever I wanted!

However, I did live in an apt in an area with no easy access to a complete grocery store. I had to get creative many times. From constant canned tuna and chicken to plain oatmeal- you can always find something to eat if you are creative. I've found that reading through "healty" cook books has given me alot of creative inspiration when I have only a few boring choices!

[JeepCreeper]

When I was in college and living in the dorms, I could opt out of the meal plan altogether. But this was a while ago...We had stone tablets and used burnt pointy sticks for writing utensils.

[LionChick]

hey, when I was in undergrad I went to the school that apparently had the 'number one meal plan" in the country... I think it was only number 1 because EVERYTHING and i do mean EVERYTHING was cooked in pure lard/butter. Chicken... boiled in lard. Veggies... steamed with butter. Bread... with butter. Hamburgers... cooked in lard. Ice Cream everywhere but not a drop fat free. Huge all you can eat Pizza bars (covered with dripping cheese and oil on top). And then the servings were like roughly the size of, oh, the moon. You'd ask for one chicken breast and you'd get three. I know it seems like "well at least you get food" and that's true, but none of it was remotely edible!! Even the oatmeal had butter in it...

The moral of the story is... colleges have 2 objectives with meal plans: 1) cheap and 2) easy. If you want healthy... you have to do the most of it yourself. I'd say use your meal plan money to get the ingredients from meals that are "better valued" on the mp (seafood, chicken, etc.) and use personal money to pick up cheap stuff (bread, potatoes, etc.) that way you make the most of the plan...

Oh, can you sneak tuperware to the all you can eat dinners? Because if you can... well... that might be useful!

[Spottydog]

Meal plans? That sounds like boarding school, LOL.

I guess community college is different, we just have to buy everything with cash on hand (oh and there's a coffee bar) but even the college I WILL go to has a zillion restarants and a few minimarts on campus for students.
What college do you go to?

Hmm, so breakfast and lunch are limited, dinner is not? You could do IF...