A few weeks ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the deliberation held by Vivaan and his teammates, discussing the importance of food wastage here on campus and how action needs to be taken to refine the food options available. It was titled “Solving the Dining Hall Crisis at Penn State” and held on Thursday, February 23. I believe one of their statistics remarked that we waste nearly 455,000 pounds of food a semester. Spending some of my summers living in India, I saw many starving children begging on the street for a morsel of food from any passers-by, but everyone turned a deaf ear to them. It’s disappointing to see that we are lavishly wasting food here, while some people starve around the world and never receive a proper size meal for themselves. Although Penn State has already implemented various programs and many clubs/organizations revolve around this issue, it’s best to continue educating the student population on the importance of food wastage.
Moreover, I believe it’s crucial to refine the food options available here on campus. As someone who has allergies and dietary restrictions, I personally feel that the university fails at providing a diverse set of food selections on a daily basis. For example, there are so many meat-offering dineries available here around campus, but for vegetarians, there’s only a single option — the salad bar. This imbalance between vegetarian and non-vegetarian choices is one of the biggest concerns here on campus. Put yourself in the shoes of a vegetarian for a moment and imagine if a mere salad would be able to get you through lunch and dinner seven days a week. That’s what I thought.
Additionally, I agree with another one of their points that focused on some renovation changes. For example, if you were to go to Fresco y Caliente in Redifer Commons and order a burrito, I have also seen them mix and drop food onto other food selections as they are making the order in a rush, creating huge concerns like cross-contamination. This can be the cause of most foodborne infections. They also need to focus on implementing more sanitary guidelines for their staff. Personally speaking, I have seen them use a knife to help fold a sub by placing it in between the two buns. Everyone fills their sub with different fillings, from non-vegetarian to vegetarian choices. As such, this again creates cross-contamination concerns. Even more alarming, every time before folding each sub, they clean the knife with a musty hand towel — when’s the last time they cleaned that towel?
I agree with most of the points they made during the deliberation and feel their approaches, especially on diversifying food options here, would go a long way to bettering dining life here. Hopefully, dining authorities listen to their policies or programs so that something can be implemented sometime in the future. Getting food shouldn’t need to be a hassle, so it’s best the university acts quickly to make things easier for people like me.