The Demise of the 'Freshman 15'?

Given the fact that my two daughters are four grades apart in school, I thought that when I helped the first one with her college search, my errors in judgment at that time would be rectified when the younger daughter stepped up to the plate.

Not so fast. With daughter #2 there's a completely different academic skillset, and mindset to boot. No sorority this time. A quiet dorm, among other wants. But most important to her, access to healthy & lowfat food has to prevail. Initially, the wife & I were quick to dismiss this desire as low on the overall priority list, but now I'm not so sure. A healthy student is a happy student, and she wants to continue the success she's had on Weight Watchers over the last year. Who am I to argue with that logic?

So now we're looking at these schools from a somewhat different angle, having completed the majority of the dog-and-pony campus visits. And you'd be surprised at the food availability variance from one college to another. In a Tom Karst post today, there's a link to an interesting article from the Grand Rapids (MI) Press where Aquinas College is attempting to focus on locally-grown produce. On the cutting edge is a school like University of Wisconsin--Madison, where every single item or dish sold by their restaurants or foodservice has its nutritional values & breakdown posted on the campus website. Impressive.

But for every college or university thinking 'green' and healthy, there are just as many that don't appear to be putting forth the effort. We visited a handful of campuses whose tours included a dorm cafeteria lunch. Granted, they've come a long, long way from the 'mystery meat' hash-slinging days of the 1960's-70's, but in my view the present-day cafeterias, while attractive in their Las Vegas-style food station setup, still include way too many overly-processed entrees and starch-laden side dishes. But I guess that's what most of the students want, and maybe there's a wee bit of envy from here that they can jam 50 tater tots down their gullets & then go for a run, while I can just smell these morsels & have to add a notch to the belt, after taking a Pepcid.

I had a conversation Friday with a western Michigan produce veteran who supplies universities in the area & remarked, cynically I hope, that I'm hopelessly out of the foodservice lingo loop because I was not aware of my 'carbon footprint'. That's their buzzphrase these days, although we'll see eventually whether there's a real desire to improve the environment or it's just their profit-driven cause du jour. Guess it's true--I ain't 'green' enough...

Later,

Jay