Indigestion Week
Anyone who has ever eaten at an ASU cafeteria knows that students are not being served the highest quality foodstuffs available. When the food is not unbearably under seasoned, it’s cold. When the food’s not cold, it has a high calorie content and a low nutritional value.
Students who live in ASU residential halls have little choice when it comes to where they eat and are therefore forced to consume what the cafeteria has to offer.
It is true each hall offers students a kitchen, but the facts that there are no grocery stores close to campus and that students are forced to spend at least $1,000 each semester on a meal plan make cooking quite inconvenient.
Recently, the U.S. has been going through a revolutionary movement in the food industry. Citizens have become more conscious of what they eat, and now more than ever before, the general population is more conscious about what they eat and are often times selecting less-processed and organic food instead of highly processed junk food.
ASU’s cafeterias do not reflect this food movement. In order to fix the terrible state of our food, I propose that University and ARAMARK administrators participate in ASU Indigestion Week.
During Indigestion Week, every school administrator (including President Crow) and ARAMARK (the company that runs campus cafeterias) executive will have no choice but to eat cafeteria food for a week. They will be forced to pay for a meal card and will be told that if they do not spend the money on their meal card, their money will disappear into thin air at the end of the week.
During Indigestion Week, administration will be lucky to enjoy dishes such as: Frito fiesta bowls, Condon Bleu Chicken (except not really), fried chicken, starchy mash potatoes, under-cooked rice, greasy hamburgers and pizza, salty soup and omelets made from powdered eggs.
There is no way that participants of Indigestion Week will not begin to feel slow, tired and suffer from, well, indigestion, among other things. This first-hand experience with ASU cafeteria food and its side effects will surely change the participants’ thoughts on the food offered on campus.
If all goes well and ASU Indigestion Week is as successful as expected by program coordinators, ASU and ARAMARK will work harder to offer their students healthier — and tastier — meals.
Beatrice Velázquez
Undergraduate
