Opinion
UW: Eat as we say, not as we feed you
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Also by Allegra Dimperio:
- 2012 anxiety mostly hype and hysteria (January 21, 2010)
- Reality TV killing America's sense of the 'real world' (November 30, 2009)
- UW: Eat as we say, not as we feed you (November 16, 2009)
- Freakfest poor tribute to our history (November 2, 2009)
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Low-carb, low-fat, sugar-free, low-sodium diet. These adjectives are music to many Americans’ ears. As a society, we spend an average of $42 billion dollars a year on foods, products and services specifically designed to help us lose weight. But somehow a whopping 34 percent of American adults are obese. We are living in a paradox, and all one needs to do is turn on the TV to see it. It seems commercials for diet pills are squeezed between fast food and “health food” commercials. We are inundated with literature and media telling us to eat healthy, but we still spent $110 billion dollars on fast food alone last year. It is quite obvious that we are a confused country, and sadly, our campus is no exception.
This year, the entire campus was asked to read Michael Pollan’s “In Defense of Food,” a book that points out the flaws of the Western diet while offering us the doctrine of “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” We were then invited to hear Pollan expand on his thoughts at a lecture in which he condemned so-called health foods and essentially ripped to shreds the foods most college students survive on. If we followed Pollan’s guidelines, we would go hungry in the dining halls. We could not enjoy the cereal bar, the fried sides or most of the entrees, and even the salad bar would be suspect. While it is unrealistic to completely abandon the Western diet, as Pollan advocates, this revelation led me to look more closely at what the dining halls actually offer. Pollan would be appalled.
In general, University Housing offers two “low-fat” entrees per meal. This looks like a good thing until you notice the grilled chicken filet sandwich is offered every day, leaving those who have already had one that week only one other low-fat option. If you are a vegetarian, you can pretty much kiss low-fat entrees goodbye and resign yourself to a week’s worth of salad bar. Actually, if you are a vegetarian, the salad bar is often the only viable option, as there are typically only two vegetarian options and one is always the damned Boca burger. The label of vegetarian can also be misleading, because it is expected to be healthier, which is not often the case. The broccoli fettuccine alfredo, for example, comes in with 544 calories and 30 grams of fat.
It gets worse. The truth is most people don’t know how many calories or grams of fat they need. A lot of people who eat in the dining halls aren’t scrutinizing the nutritional information the university has been so kind in providing, and are just eating what looks good. This can prove to be deadly. This past week, caramel apple pancakes were served at Pop’s. They smell good, look good and are cooked to order. Great choice, right? Well, maybe if you skipped breakfast, because these babies come in at 1,153 calories and 55 grams of fat. Also offered this week was the chicken 18-wheeler dealer, a cleverly named entrée comprised of chicken rings and dip, all for the low price of $2.99. With 1,207 calories and 84 grams of fat, it has more than twice the recommended fat intake for an entire day. While not all entrees are as toxic as these, most people eat more than just an entrée. For example, if you had a cheeseburger, fries and cookie, you would have eaten 1,331 calories and 79 grams of fat without any condiments or drink.
Obviously, not everyone eats like this, and there are a good number of students who are health conscious and are choosing a salad instead of a burger. The issue is the university provides a much higher percentage of unhealthy foods than healthy ones. While it provides students with the information and allows them to choose, the university make it increasingly difficult to pick the healthier options. The healthier choices are not only less attractive, but they also cost more. The salad bar costs 25 cents an ounce, and most salads are 12 to 16 oz. This means a salad can cost as much or more than a burger and fries. When you add fruit, it really gets expensive, and many students don’t want to spend $5 on a healthy meal when the less healthy options are cheaper.
The powers that be on campus need to figure out what message they are trying to send. Do they want their campus to be a healthy one? They’ve sent this message by inviting Michael Pollan and by showing films such as “Food, Inc.” to those in University Housing. Or do they want their campus to be just as unhealthy as the rest of the country, which is the message they’re sending through the dining halls. Right now it seems campus is trying to look like one thing while doing another, and this is not something to be proud of. We need to be conscious of what we as individuals are choosing, so we can mindfully represent either the healthy or the health-less. It is time for us as individuals to end the paradox and either commit to healthy eating or admit that it is something we are incapable of doing.
Allegra Dimperio (adimperio@wisc.edu) is a freshman intending to major in journalism and theater.
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Dang you’ve got a lot of complaints. Why don’t you bring a bag lunch if you can’t find any food you like?
“It is time for us as individuals to end the paradox and either commit to healthy eating or admit that it is something we are incapable of doing.”
Who exactly are you talking about? There are plenty of individuals on this campus, including myself, that are both capable and healthy - no paradox involved. If you’re having a hard time managing your eating, then maybe ask for some help.
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Paragraphs were way too long. You lost me half-way through.
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Good grief, kid. Whatever happened to personal responsibility?
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Lawyers. Need I say more?
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Perhaps you should re-read Michael Pollan’s book. He writes that we should avoid any foods labeled as “healthy,” because they most likely are not.
Pollan talks about the “…the doctrine of “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.”
“If we followed Pollan’s guidelines, we would go hungry in the dining halls.” (Your opinion.) You assert that Pollan would “be appalled” by the foods served in the dining halls, and then go on to lambaste the fact that there are only two “low fat” (read healthy) entrees per meal. This is contradictory to your entire point. At NO time in his book does Pollan advocate calorie counting; and in fact he scoffs at the idea that there are good foods, or bad foods. His advices is simply to “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” WHERE does he advocate low calorie, healthy food??? He does not.
At every meal YOU have choices. There are salads, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, yogurts etc… YOU are the only one who makes a choice of what to eat. NO ONE forces food down your throat. Take responsibility for your OWN decisions.
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““If we followed Pollan’s guidelines, we would go hungry in the dining halls.” (Your opinion.)” this is an OPINION column. maybe if you read the entire column you would see that the point is that there are more unhealthy options than healthy options in dining halls. if you had attended pollan’s lecture, you would see that he did in fact say there were “bad foods”, and that they were the foods that were preprocessed or “nutrient” ridden, but that isn’t even the point of the article. food service labels their own food as “low fat” (read healthy), and can you even try to say that the point the author brings up about 1000 calorie plus meals is irrelevant? your final point about everyone choosing for themselves is well and good, but the author points out that many people do eat healthy but it is more expensive to do so. nowhere is it stated that anyone is being forced into anything. if you want to completely ignore nutrition information in the false belief there is no such thing as bad good, suit yourself, but open hostility to some valid points is unnecessary
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The author is not just claiming that healthy foods are more expensive. She is implying that because she has to make tough choices and is confronted with foods she does not want to eat, others should change their behavior.
E.g., “The powers that be on campus need to figure out what message they are trying to send.” and “It is time for us as individuals to end the paradox and either commit to healthy eating or admit that it is something we are incapable of doing.”
“Us as individuals” do not necessarily agree with the author’s conception of what eating healthy consists of and thus are not confronted with such paradoxes.
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brilliant!
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Why do people consider MP to be a knowledgeable source of information when he promotes ignorance and shuns science?
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Cause the vast majority of people are sheep. Sad but true fact
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Baaaaaa!
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I work at the dining halls and guess what? When we do have healthy vegetarian options they are BY FAR the least sold item. You even hear people complain about the “shitty selection of food”. The dining halls provide a service and that service is to accommodate what the students want. Most students want the food we serve and we are just providing what they want. Vegetarians are a vast minority to the other meat eaters in the dining halls.
There are plenty of grocery stores around here and there are even kitchens in the dorms. Its simple…if you don’t like it don’t eat there because its really not going to affect the housing food service.
“The healthier choices are not only less attractive, but they also cost more. The salad bar costs 25 cents an ounce, and most salads are 12 to 16 oz. This means a salad can cost as much or more than a burger and fries. When you add fruit, it really gets expensive, and many students don’t want to spend $5 on a healthy meal when the less healthy options are cheaper.”
What is the housing food service going to do? Go to the store and you’ll find that organic food is more expensive and the fruits/veggies are more expensive than the unhealthy foods. You are just making ludicrous judgments when housing food service has its hands tied by what the consumer wants.
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Pollan does NOT in fact advocate eating “low-fat” foods. So the premise of your research outing is suspect. One has to read him a little more carefully than the usual pundit: he’s not part of the whole fad-obsessed “low-carb, low-fat, sugar-free, low-sodium” crowd. In fact, to a knee-jerk responder, his proposal is more subtle and challenging: eat what your grandma would recognize.
Though, I would agree that what institutional food service tends to serve would not fall under his definition of “food” (“too much” not withstanding). Institutional food is usually from Sysco, and is usually of the same quality if not the same source as so-called “fast food”.
It’s hard to eat the way Pollan recommends while in school (or subject to another institutional framework, like say, the military, prison, or summer camp). In each of these cases, we abdicate responsibility for our own nutrition and health to an outside entity that has cost controls at the center of its agenda, not quality. This much should be uncontroversial. Whether it’s a problem or not seems to smell like the same old culture war to some people.
How we can solve this “problem” (if we agree that it’s a problem) is tricky. How can college students living in the dorms take responsibility for their own food choices?
The summation of your piece is spot-on, though… thanks for this. Indeed we need to start making smarter and more mindful choices.
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I agree with this article completely. Sure, you can pack your own lunch, but it the point is it’s harder to be healthy you’re surrounded by hundreds of unhealthy choices.
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“the point is it’s harder to be healthy you’re surrounded by hundreds of unhealthy choices.”
Maybe so, but this isn’t the point of the article. The author is saying that because she has to make tough choices and is confronted with foods she does not want to eat, others should change their behavior.
E.g., “The powers that be on campus need to figure out what message they are trying to send.” and “It is time for us as individuals to end the paradox and either commit to healthy eating or admit that it is something we are incapable of doing.”
This does not follow.
For one thing, many do not agree with the author’s conception of eating healthy. For example, she writes: “a good number of students who are health conscious and are choosing a salad instead of a burger.” It doesn’t follow that eating a salad is healthier than eating a burger. It depends on the overall diet of the person and many other factors.
Also, the University shouldn’t be sending any message. It is up to each individual student to decide what they want to eat. If the majority of students eat burgers instead of salads then of course there will be a larger market for burgers. Cest la vie.
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Actually the University has done many things to try and make foods healthier, but they also have to sell what people want. We are all adults and can make choices on what we want to eat. Why should the university sell foods that people won’t eat?
And who said vegetarian should be healthy? I don’t actually think that is what vegetarian mean. Since you are so health conscious, why don’t you try planning a menu for 20,000 people everyday and see how well you do. I’m pretty sure your “health conscious” menu wouldn’t be too much better than the one they already have.
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I think the author missed a crucial point in Pollan’s book. If MP was going to complain about anything in Housing food, it would be the quality of it, not the nutritional facts. The food provided by housing is, usually, not organic or locally grown. This is by far a more important thing to note.
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If you can explain how locally grown or organic has any significant effect on quality especially when you consider the jump in quality seen with non-organic food, it would be surprising.