The aroma of fresh red beans fills my nostrils. I’m stepping toward the automatic doors when my phone alarm suddenly rings. This single action instantly reminds me that I am once again so close and yet so far away from eating an actual sit-down meal.
And yet the dining halls aren’t making it any easier. They offer no alternatives to dining if I want to enjoy their hot food.
Instead, I’m stuck settling for sushi I have to buy out of pocket.
But it’s not because of my restrictive palate that I’m unable to eat in the dining halls or on campus — it’s because of my class schedule.
With only 15 hours of coursework to my name, I wonder how many other students are unable to take advantage of the great food right at our fingertips. With around 29,000 undergraduates, many of whom are required to have a meal plan — many students are most likely running around like chickens with their heads chopped off trying to fit food into their schedules.
Eating — an essential part of living — now has to fit into our hectic routines. Regardless of however many other places there are to eat around campus, it has been proven time and time again that the fresher the ingredients in the food you eat, the healthier it is.
According to The Council of Maharishi Ayurveda Physicians, a group of doctors dedicated to medicine and prolonging life, more than “90 percent of Americans suffer from everyday digestion problems such as over-eating.”
It’s common sense and yet, without time on our sides — it’s a pain in the gastric intestine to execute.
We opt for using our Paw Points or our own money to buy premade food instead of cooking ourselves. With the dining halls so close, however, the fact that we have to cram fresh food in our schedule seems ridiculous.
Having spent nearly $2,000 a semester for my meal plan, I resent not being able to get full use out of it. I resent that every time I get out of a club meeting, ravenous as a rabid raccoon , the dining hall has already closed.
And while I can’t expect the hardworking chefs and other members of the dining hall staff to work extra late just for me, I think I can at least expect another option for dining.
The University of Florida offers reusable to-go boxes that are returned to the cafeteria for proper cleaning so that they can be reused.
Although the concept seems easy enough, the extra labor and time to take in all these boxes is only part of the problem.
The dining halls make sure to cook only what’s needed for a meal by batch cooking in an effort to reduce food waste, and in allowing for both eating-in and taking-out, we’re almost intruding on this intricate process.
David Heidke, director of LSU Dining, states that “it is all you care to eat, but it’s important that happens within the building. Otherwise you could have a lot of food potentially taken