There have been many questions uprising about College food for the past many years. In the fall of 2014, the big idea of freshman fifteen began across the Country. Many people began putting more thought in about the freshman fifteen out of fear and ways to prevent it from happening. For those of you who don’t know, the freshman fifteen is the idea that when people go to college they end up gaining atleast 15 pounds if not more. Health gurus began talking more about easy and quick workouts college students can do as well as healthy snacks they can eat. However, many people didn’t go into the college campuses and see for themselves what foods colleges offer their students on a regular basis.
When I was a freshman in the fall of 2014 and spring of 2015, I ate at the café and cafeteria on a daily basis. I tried to look for the more healthy options because I didn’t really feel like eating chicken tenders and fries every day of my life and didn’t really like them. So, I tested eating the make your own salads at both the café and cafeteria. The ones at the café were better out of the two. Students got the choice of romaine or spinach lettuce and had options of what to get on the salad. Students also had the choice of getting some kind of meat on the salad which I got a view times but wasn’t impressed. The chicken I got didn’t even taste like chicken but atleast there was a range of toppings to get from. On the other hand, the cafeteria had a salad bar but the vegetables always looked old and not eatable to me. Both places did have fruit but only really had apples but they didn’t even look the freshest on most days.
After the salads and fruits were a tragedy, I had to find other sources to get my vegetables and meat in. So, I decided on getting flat bread panini’s from the café and just get what looked the healthiest at the cafeteria but would usually try to eat some kind of salad if possible. I would try to stay away from the chips and French fries. I always thought that the dining places should offer healthier options to allow students to maintain a healthy lifestyle especially since Point Park has athletes and dancers who attend the school.
For this blog, I decided to go into the cafeteria and café here at Point Park University to capture the essence of what college dining really offers. Instead of going to the faculty to see their take on it, I decided to go to the students. When it comes to college dining, students don’t really have a voice. So, with this blog I wanted to give students the voice on what they think about the food and what changes they would make for the dining places within the school to cater more towards the student’s needs. It is important to give students the voice because they are the people that eat the food on a daily basis to give them fuel for the day.