"Geben Sie mir Kaffee, dann mache ich Phänomenologie daraus." (Give me my coffee so that I can make phenomenology out of it.)
-- Edmund Husserl
Monday, September 12, 2011
Expository Writing:Food-Magazine Piece
Please write an brief magazine entry describing what you learned from your interviews today. Remember, the voice you set for the piece will contribute to the tone of the piece.
The Dining Hall is decent. The Dining Hall is awful. These seem to be the only two opinions on the topic for Culver students, faculty, and staff. However, for Ms. Miracle, a librarian at Culver, the Dining Hall is pretty good – most of the time. Ms. Miracle eats at the Dining Hall two to three times per week for lunch, and about once per month for dinner. Her view is that the Dining hall is healthy for the most part, because there are options like vegetables and fruits that are available for everybody. She says it is perfectly possible for people to make a meal out of a salad, by putting eggs, veggies, and other toppings on it. There is no longer cereal or many dessert options at lunch, which is a large stride the Dining Hall has made towards achieving a healthier environment. Although it tired has gotten healthier, the Dining Hall still is not completely healthy. It is very easy to get tired of the same old salad, sandwiches, and vegetables. Being stuck at a boarding school causes people to be attracted to the hot dogs, burgers, starch-rich pastas, etc. - things that taste good! Even Ms. Miracle falls into this trap occasionally, indulging in some of the fried, processed, fatty foods that are served in the hot food line. This trap lures lots of students, especially incoming freshmen, who do not know exactly what they are eating. This is where part of the solution becomes education. Ms. Miracle explained that if people knew what they were eating, they would make healthier choices. If the nutritional information were to be posted on the wall or on the Daily Bulletin, people would look at it and realize what it is they are going to eat. Ms. Miracle feels the Dining Hall is pretty good in terms of it being healthy, but it all comes down to the educated decisions people make regarding the food they eat. At least she has some good things to say about the DH, unlike many teachers and students around campus who are full of negativity.
When asking the question, “Do you think the food at the Dining Hall is healthy?” I received the answer no. In the eyes of a student of Culver Military Academy this person finds the food to be mainly fattening. They discussed that they “didn’t like” the food and ate there as little as possible, ordering from restaurants in town up to four times a week as well as the shack twice a week. They ordered items such as the BBQ Burger and the BBQ Chicken Pizza stating that he ate them because they were “Sooooo good.” When eating at the Dining Hall the student rarely visits the salad bar. On the other hand, he often ate fruits such as apples and bananas. Sandwiches, such as peanut butter and roast beef, were among the top of the students list. Loving fast food and believing that meats, vegetables, and fruits are the most important foods; this student claims that he eats “differently” at home. He stated he had much more “variety.” The student claimed that he loved to eat out at many different restaurants including Italian, American, and Spanish food cultures. When speaking with the student it came relevant that he was unaware that there were two different types of salads that were offered and was surprised at the other foods offered at the salad bar such as tuna and assorted fruits. The Dining Hall, having to feed hundreds of people per day, consists of a main dish and a salad bar, each of which contain different and multiple foods. It came to me that when talking with the student, he was unaware of other aspects of the dining hall besides from the types of food located at the salad bar. For example, the student was uninformed that there were two different places to obtain a salad. The student, standing strongly by his claim, suggests that “if it doesn’t look right, it isn’t healthy and many of the foods at the Dining Hall do not look right.”
When people often think about the dining hall, the first words they say are unhealthy and awful food. I soon found out that this was not the circumstance with everyone. For forty minutes I was sent on a quest searching for people who may have an opinion on what they consume here, The Culver Academies dining hall. The first lady I talked to, Ms. Turner simply said “over all the dining hall does a good job of feeding nearly 1000 people for 3 meals a day”. This is something that is not usually thought about with teenagers; however Ms. Turner is exactly right. She went on to tell me that yes; the dining hall has plenty of options for vegetarians (many fight against that) and the soups are delicious however we could lower the amount of fat in the hotline meals. My second interview was Miss Baker, overall she agreed that Culver tries to make healthy option but over power them with unhealthy things. I asked her, Due to the economy and Culvers lack of spending money, do you think the dining hall would spend more money to create healthier choices? Miss Baker just said “yes, if they want people to come to Culver then they will have to sacrifice”. Due to the rising cost of healthy foods, it is making it more difficult for institutions and schools to eat healthier. My third interview was held with the garden founder, Miss Grieves. She believes that Culver is offering healthy choices and things have gotten better since freshman year. She is proud to announce that she is one of the people who help provide the dining hall with the abundance of vegetables. Overall I was pleasantly surprised with the responses collected today. I was expecting responses on the other end of the spectrum. I must say Culver, keep doing what you’re doing if three people believe in you, that’s all that matters.
It seems that most people do not have a positive opinion on the food of the dining hall. So is Mrs. Freymiller, a mother of three kids and a librarian in the Huffington Library. Eating only lunch in the dining hall every day, Mrs. Fremiller switched her eating habit this year. This year, the salad bar and the fruit bucket are the only two places for her to get food. She never goes to the “unhealthy main line” because of “processed foods and junk foods”. Instead of giving her opinions on whether the food in dining hall is healthy or not, Mrs. Fremiller spent most of the time talking about her advices on the changes of the dining hall. I would rather think that she was complaining about the dining hall because when she talked about the food waste in the dining hall, her tone became fast and full of passion. I can tell that Mrs. Fremiller is such a nice person that she can’t stand the extent of waste food in the dining hall. Every time she sees students dump their extra food, she felt guilty about it. So for most of the part we were talking about the quantity of food the dining staff should serve to each student. At the end of the interview, she asked me to bring her questions and suggestions to the staff when we go to the dining hall this week.
Do you think the Dining Hall is healthy? Most of people would answer NO. However, if we think about this question deeply, we can get a different result. Mr. Foley, a librarian and teacher in Culver, has her own opinions about our Dining Hall. She thinks some foods in Dining Hall are really healthy. For example, Culver has a vegetable garden next to the airport, and the vegetables that come out from there are home-made. Meantime, the variety of the foods in Culver offered another reason for people who want to healthy about foods, because people have chances to choose their own foods to keep healthy. However, she still holds the view that Culver has too much processed foods. She thinks that Culver Dining Hall prepared the food well. Culver has large amount of people, but dining hall did well and never happened any food poisoning ever. I mentioned that teens have been given chances to choose food as they want, but they most likely chose the foods that were not healthy such as chips, cheese and burgers. So do we still need to give them a chance to choose, or we just put all kinds of healthy foods in dining hall and make them eat. Mrs. Foley asserts that children are affected by their own parents, so we should start the food education from their parents.
The opinions about the food in the Dining Hall were different. There was an extremely negative opinion, a neutral-negative opinion, and a neutral-positive opinion. Although I was expecting a certain answer, I tried hard to approach to the interviewees as neutral as possible. However, all the interviewees were already thinking that the interview was to mock the Dining Hall when I asked the first question: “Do you think the Dining Hall food is healthy?” My first interviewee, Major Duckett, showed his hatred towards the Dining Hall food. As soon as I asked the first question, he said one word with somewhat a strong emphasis, and left. “SUCKS.” My second interviewee, Mr. Pretzer, surprisingly had a neutral-positive perspective. He said the Dining Hall food is decent and that people can make healthy choices. Although his opinion seemed somewhat unconvincing when he said he only eats 2 meals per week, he said the Dining Hall has improved a lot since he came to Culver 12 years ago. The only problem he sees with the current Dining Hall is the repetitive menu that makes the students to make a hard choice. My third interviewee, Mr. Burgess, gave very specific thoughts about the Dining Hall food. He thinks the food is relatively healthy, but could become healthier. He used to eat every meal from the Dining Hall, but now only eats 3 to 4 meals per week. The reason is that he does not think it is the healthiest choice he can make (he concerns his health a lot). He said that he understands how hard it is for the Dining Hall to concentrate on the quality of the food while concerning the quantity of the food to feed more than 800 people for 3 meals a day. However, if he had a choice between the Dining Hall and something else, he would rather choose something else.
A change has been made! Year after year everyone complains about the dining hall facilities, but it seems that there has been a positive transformation of how the dining hall functions. People that have attend this institution for more than one year will say that the dining hall has the worst and most unhealthy food you can imagine, but what does new professors and students think? As a new professor this year in humanities Mr. Eaton has a different perspective of what the dining hall is. “It is fantastic!” Was the first phrase that came out of his mouth. He explains that even though it is not his favorite place to eat, they have good food for the amount of students they have to feed daily. Also, he truly supports that the dining hall is healthy, but the students and faculty staff that eats there have the option of having a healthy and balanced repast or an unhealthy lunchtime. Salads, bread, fruit, a variety of different seeds, fruits, vegetables, dressings and even meats are offered to make ones food more enjoyable, balanced and healthy. In the contrary, they offer a selection of different types of food that are usually not healthy in the main line. Mr. Eaton states that for students to do not eat healthy food in the dining hall is not a big problem because most of the students at Culver Academies are involved in a sport or at least they go to the gym five days a week. On the other side, faculty members do not have the time to exercise, which truly affects their lives with the usual problems that eating unhealthy provides which are obesity, lack of energy in working hours and others. For this reason, he tries to make wise choices at the dining hall when he is choosing his food. Avoiding the main line food as most as he can and eating the fruit and vegetables they provide in the salad bar.
My journey started in the library as I stalked the unwary prey,the librarian. I gave her a horrible attempt at a puppy face, but nevertheless, I prevailed and she had no choice but to be interviewed by me (EVIL CACKLE of TRIUMPH!!). I started off by asking did she think the dining hall focuses on being healthy. She exclaimed that she thought the dining hall was trying. I then allowed her to tell me in what ways were they trying. After some time the interview finally was done and I learned a couple of things. I learned that many people do not take the time to eat in the dining hall because of the long lines and it just take to much time to stay. The dining hall does display plenty of healthy options to avoid these long lines, but for some reason these areas do not remain all that occupied. She like many of the staff seems to eat more healthier foods than the students since they know more about their bodies. At some point the dining hall had to take away cereal and other food from lunch and dinner because of how unhealthy it was for the students. Though, the librarian begs to differ and says that if someone wants to eat a certain food who is another person to tell them it is unhealthy for them. The librarian herself eats extremely healthy, but lacks variety in her food intake which she says is because the dining hall can be repetitive when it comes to the salad and fruit bar. Hopefully the dining hall can change a bit and also get a new system with the dishes. But besides all this the librarian remains extremely grateful for the dining hall as I am as sure the students are as well.
The Dining Hall On Monday the twelfth of September two thousand eleven, a journalistic study was performed. Being sent on a quest, I searched for the answer to the most intriguing question floating on campus, do you think the dining hall is healthy? I have had the opportunity to catch up with Culver’s strength and conditioning coach, Ashley Paulson. Ms. Paulson replied to the question stating “yes and no”. A very reasonable response I believe. Ms. Paulson stated “the dining hall could be better but that it wasn’t that bad”. She had multiple points of view on the dining hall. She feels that there are too many fired foods, too many processed foods, and too big of portions being served. However she does state that it is nice to have the salad bar out for lunch and dinner, because the dining hall needs fresh foods. As well, the dining hall has improved their conscience about what they are serving, she told me that when she attended Culver in 04’-06’, the dining hall served soda. Her final statement about the dining hall was that it is beneficial to teenage boys who can eat lots of food and gain little to no weight, because there is always a variety of foods being served (and they can eat all they want). After hearing these facts, I was drawn to ask her what her definition of healthy is. She told me that being healthy is maintaining a fit lifestyle, exercising at least 4 times a week, eating the colors of the rainbow within food groups, and avoiding junk and fried foods. After talking to her for quite some time I was almost out of questions when I thought to ask her if she had seen the movie Super Size Me. Her immediate response to the movie was “disgusting” yet eye opening. She says that although she personally does not crave McDonalds, she can understand how people get addicted to the food because it tastes good and looks good. In all I discovered that although the dining hall may not be promoting the best foods in the dining hall, they are there. The dining hall may serve bad “unhealthy” foods but there are always other choices.
When you think of a public school cafeteria, the thoughts that usually cross your mind are, gross, unhealthy, and mystery meat. But could those words also be used for a boarding school dining hall? When I asked a student attending Culver Academy, if the dining hall was healthy? Her response was yes and no. She then went on to say, that the school has healthy options, like the salad bar, but at the same time the hot line is usually unhealthy and full of sodium. I then proceeded to ask her why she thought the reason for this was, and her response was money. It seems that since the economy is low, we do not have the ability to purchase more nutritious food for the hot line, because it is cheaper to buy the unhealthy food in bulk and freeze it. Later in the interview, I questioned her about the eating habits she has in the dining hall. The student told me that she sometimes eats a salad, but more often than not, she eats from the hot line. Because it has a way of filling her up, but the vegetables on the salad bar do not satisfy her cravings. Another reason that she eats the hotline is because even though she knows it is unhealthy, the food taste good, and she enjoys eating the meals. But even though this student does enjoy the less nutritious meals on the hot line, she says she would also like to see some healthier options that can be served on the main line.
When the topic of dining hall is brought up, the majority of students make a sour face at the thought of the food. Yet after talking in depth with Mrs. Rudd, she had a different opinion on the matter. She didn’t think that the dining hall was completely unhealthy, she felt that the students choices at the dining hall were unhealthy. She discussed all of the healthier options the dining hall has to offer, like the salad bar, rather than the hot line with large portions, or the deserts at dinner. As students at Culver, we are faced with multiple temptations, like the large portions or the famous fries and chicken nuggs, but through education and understanding we should be able to understand what our better/healthier options are. Mrs. Rudd said that choices we make as kids build habits that follow as we grow up. We need to make the healthy choice at the dining hall because we do have that option. Rather than saying that the dining hall is unhealthy, she pointed her finger back at the students saying that the choices they made weren’t very healthy.
Is the common perception that the dining hall is not healthy valid? If you have lived in Culver for more than a year, you are probably familiar with how most people at Culver think about the dining hall: bad and unhealthy. According to my interviews with students and faculty members, the general trend of associating the dining hall with negative descriptions was evident. However, as I interviewed, I had to question the credibility of their statements that the dining hall food is bad. Among the four people that I interviewed, only one person said that he has all three meals for a day at the dining hall, and this person was a student. The other three people were faculty members, and they only eat once or twice at the dining hall. None of them goes to the dining hall for breakfast, and only a couple eats there for dinner. How can somebody ever make a valid statement about something when he is not familiar with everything it has to offer? Do people just simply blame the dining hall because other people do so? A person can rarely convince another person to agree with his argument if he does not know what he is talking about. For those people who do not know the dining hall fully and still talk about how bad their food is, a full investigation of all three meals and food of the dining hall would be a nice tool to sharpen their arguments.
I interviewed Mr. Nicholson, who is a philosopher, a high school humanities teacher and a surfer. Mr. Nicholson thinks stay healthy is extremely important and he establishes a personal diet that mostly bases on vegetables and fruits with small amounts of protein foods. When I asked Mr. Nicholson about why he does not go to the dining hall for breakfast, he points out that most foods in the dining hall for breakfast maintain high proteins. And since he is trying to eliminate protein from his diets as much as possible, the dining hall does not offer suitable food choices for him. Most people who want a healthy diet complain about the dining hall for not offering limited health choices. However, Mr. Nicholson gives a different perspective. “The dining hall has certain budget. Therefore, they can only choose certain types of food. And I think they have chosen the best they can. Maybe it is time for faculties and students to make some changes. For example, if all the students committee to not eat donuts or brownies, then the dining hall would have more money to spend on vegetables and fruits.”
Do you think the dining hall at Culver is healthy? Yes. No. Sometimes. Culver students claim that meals are intended to be healthy, but never taste good, essentially causing the students to make poor food choices. Due to the poor tasting food in the dining hall, students often rely on ordering food more than two times per week. “I eat three meals a day in the dining hall. For breakfast I eat cereal and toast. For lunch I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with applesauce mixed with peanut butter. I eat the same thing for dinner.” Said Sarah Stackhouse. The dining hall does not actually provide students with the healthy choices that they seem to want. Sarah continued by saying, “the dining hall never has real fresh fruit and the lettuce never tastes right.” Many students find that their diet changes when they arrive at Culver. Throughout the summer and holidays, students eat healthy foods that taste good, but for some reason these foods don’t exist in the dining hall. “If the food in the hot line tasted better, I would eat it more often” said Stackhouse. Students do not want to be unhealthy, they simply want good tasting food.
It was a little unfamiliar but somewhat serious interview with Ms. Cerny, a resolute vegan. She was asked “Do you think the Dining hall healthy?” to answer. Considering the general response of non-vegetarians showing their detestation of the Dining Hall, I had an expectation of her reaction to be extreme abhorrence. However, her response to my question was a tender generosity; “the Dining Hall is getting a way better as new chef “Larry” came. He has good ideas, is talented and tries hard to get more veggies in people’s daily meals more naturally.” It could have been such an optimistic comment despite of how clean the Dining Hall is and what kind of food they most frequently serve. As one more reversal, she appended her response with the phrase “Institutional” and “apparently not so great”. She started eating only veggies since she was a college student because it is “healthier.” She simply said, “We should not raise animals to kill them. It is good to eat, but we do not need it” Very impressive. As a non-vegetarian, I typically choose meat over veggies. Ms. Cerny clearly stated people’s general tendency over meat and mere but concise examination; “it is hard for one to eat or make a healthier choice between meat and veggies unless he/she is strongly committed to be a vegan or unless the vegetarian food looks super good.” Absolutely true. I would not eat even salad if the veggies in the bowl look brownish and stale like common non-vegetarians. Ms. Cerny, a healthy eater, never goes to hot line, but she believes that the Dining Hall is on the way of getting better, healthier and more nutritious.
“How am I supposed to stay in shape with food like this?” That is commonly heard statement around the Culver Academies when talking about the Culver dining hall. However, Sgt. Plonksi, the Infantry Battalion military mentor, says that the dining “can be healthy.” He believes that are plenty of options to make a healthy meal but it is all about “personal choice.” He admits that he doesn’t always eat the things he should and he even stated that he has “never really liked vegetables.” With this being said, he says that he does try to avoid eating dining hall foods such as the pizza puffs or pizza because of the amount of grease. On days like this, he may eat from the salad bar or make a sandwich. When I asked him if he thought Culver students are healthy, he gave me an answer that I never really thought about: “A lot of students are conscious of healthy eating, but it isn’t always an option based on their schedule.” He believes that with the busy schedule of Culver students, they seem to just “grab what’s ready and go.” So since Culver students are crunched for time and seems the unhealthy foods are more convenient, why don’t we “make the healthier options for convenient.”
16 comments:
The Dining Hall is decent. The Dining Hall is awful. These seem to be the only two opinions on the topic for Culver students, faculty, and staff. However, for Ms. Miracle, a librarian at Culver, the Dining Hall is pretty good – most of the time.
Ms. Miracle eats at the Dining Hall two to three times per week for lunch, and about once per month for dinner. Her view is that the Dining hall is healthy for the most part, because there are options like vegetables and fruits that are available for everybody. She says it is perfectly possible for people to make a meal out of a salad, by putting eggs, veggies, and other toppings on it. There is no longer cereal or many dessert options at lunch, which is a large stride the Dining Hall has made towards achieving a healthier environment. Although it tired has gotten healthier, the Dining Hall still is not completely healthy. It is very easy to get tired of the same old salad, sandwiches, and vegetables. Being stuck at a boarding school causes people to be attracted to the hot dogs, burgers, starch-rich pastas, etc. - things that taste good! Even Ms. Miracle falls into this trap occasionally, indulging in some of the fried, processed, fatty foods that are served in the hot food line. This trap lures lots of students, especially incoming freshmen, who do not know exactly what they are eating. This is where part of the solution becomes education.
Ms. Miracle explained that if people knew what they were eating, they would make healthier choices. If the nutritional information were to be posted on the wall or on the Daily Bulletin, people would look at it and realize what it is they are going to eat.
Ms. Miracle feels the Dining Hall is pretty good in terms of it being healthy, but it all comes down to the educated decisions people make regarding the food they eat.
At least she has some good things to say about the DH, unlike many teachers and students around campus who are full of negativity.
When asking the question, “Do you think the food at the Dining Hall is healthy?” I received the answer no. In the eyes of a student of Culver Military Academy this person finds the food to be mainly fattening. They discussed that they “didn’t like” the food and ate there as little as possible, ordering from restaurants in town up to four times a week as well as the shack twice a week. They ordered items such as the BBQ Burger and the BBQ Chicken Pizza stating that he ate them because they were “Sooooo good.” When eating at the Dining Hall the student rarely visits the salad bar. On the other hand, he often ate fruits such as apples and bananas. Sandwiches, such as peanut butter and roast beef, were among the top of the students list. Loving fast food and believing that meats, vegetables, and fruits are the most important foods; this student claims that he eats “differently” at home. He stated he had much more “variety.” The student claimed that he loved to eat out at many different restaurants including Italian, American, and Spanish food cultures. When speaking with the student it came relevant that he was unaware that there were two different types of salads that were offered and was surprised at the other foods offered at the salad bar such as tuna and assorted fruits. The Dining Hall, having to feed hundreds of people per day, consists of a main dish and a salad bar, each of which contain different and multiple foods. It came to me that when talking with the student, he was unaware of other aspects of the dining hall besides from the types of food located at the salad bar. For example, the student was uninformed that there were two different places to obtain a salad. The student, standing strongly by his claim, suggests that “if it doesn’t look right, it isn’t healthy and many of the foods at the Dining Hall do not look right.”
When people often think about the dining hall, the first words they say are unhealthy and awful food. I soon found out that this was not the circumstance with everyone. For forty minutes I was sent on a quest searching for people who may have an opinion on what they consume here, The Culver Academies dining hall. The first lady I talked to, Ms. Turner simply said “over all the dining hall does a good job of feeding nearly 1000 people for 3 meals a day”. This is something that is not usually thought about with teenagers; however Ms. Turner is exactly right. She went on to tell me that yes; the dining hall has plenty of options for vegetarians (many fight against that) and the soups are delicious however we could lower the amount of fat in the hotline meals. My second interview was Miss Baker, overall she agreed that Culver tries to make healthy option but over power them with unhealthy things. I asked her, Due to the economy and Culvers lack of spending money, do you think the dining hall would spend more money to create healthier choices? Miss Baker just said “yes, if they want people to come to Culver then they will have to sacrifice”. Due to the rising cost of healthy foods, it is making it more difficult for institutions and schools to eat healthier. My third interview was held with the garden founder, Miss Grieves. She believes that Culver is offering healthy choices and things have gotten better since freshman year. She is proud to announce that she is one of the people who help provide the dining hall with the abundance of vegetables. Overall I was pleasantly surprised with the responses collected today. I was expecting responses on the other end of the spectrum. I must say Culver, keep doing what you’re doing if three people believe in you, that’s all that matters.
It seems that most people do not have a positive opinion on the food of the dining hall. So is Mrs. Freymiller, a mother of three kids and a librarian in the Huffington Library. Eating only lunch in the dining hall every day, Mrs. Fremiller switched her eating habit this year. This year, the salad bar and the fruit bucket are the only two places for her to get food. She never goes to the “unhealthy main line” because of “processed foods and junk foods”. Instead of giving her opinions on whether the food in dining hall is healthy or not, Mrs. Fremiller spent most of the time talking about her advices on the changes of the dining hall. I would rather think that she was complaining about the dining hall because when she talked about the food waste in the dining hall, her tone became fast and full of passion. I can tell that Mrs. Fremiller is such a nice person that she can’t stand the extent of waste food in the dining hall. Every time she sees students dump their extra food, she felt guilty about it. So for most of the part we were talking about the quantity of food the dining staff should serve to each student. At the end of the interview, she asked me to bring her questions and suggestions to the staff when we go to the dining hall this week.
Do you think the Dining Hall is healthy? Most of people would answer NO. However, if we think about this question deeply, we can get a different result. Mr. Foley, a librarian and teacher in Culver, has her own opinions about our Dining Hall. She thinks some foods in Dining Hall are really healthy. For example, Culver has a vegetable garden next to the airport, and the vegetables that come out from there are home-made. Meantime, the variety of the foods in Culver offered another reason for people who want to healthy about foods, because people have chances to choose their own foods to keep healthy. However, she still holds the view that Culver has too much processed foods. She thinks that Culver Dining Hall prepared the food well. Culver has large amount of people, but dining hall did well and never happened any food poisoning ever. I mentioned that teens have been given chances to choose food as they want, but they most likely chose the foods that were not healthy such as chips, cheese and burgers. So do we still need to give them a chance to choose, or we just put all kinds of healthy foods in dining hall and make them eat. Mrs. Foley asserts that children are affected by their own parents, so we should start the food education from their parents.
The opinions about the food in the Dining Hall were different. There was an extremely negative opinion, a neutral-negative opinion, and a neutral-positive opinion. Although I was expecting a certain answer, I tried hard to approach to the interviewees as neutral as possible. However, all the interviewees were already thinking that the interview was to mock the Dining Hall when I asked the first question: “Do you think the Dining Hall food is healthy?”
My first interviewee, Major Duckett, showed his hatred towards the Dining Hall food. As soon as I asked the first question, he said one word with somewhat a strong emphasis, and left. “SUCKS.”
My second interviewee, Mr. Pretzer, surprisingly had a neutral-positive perspective. He said the Dining Hall food is decent and that people can make healthy choices. Although his opinion seemed somewhat unconvincing when he said he only eats 2 meals per week, he said the Dining Hall has improved a lot since he came to Culver 12 years ago. The only problem he sees with the current Dining Hall is the repetitive menu that makes the students to make a hard choice.
My third interviewee, Mr. Burgess, gave very specific thoughts about the Dining Hall food. He thinks the food is relatively healthy, but could become healthier. He used to eat every meal from the Dining Hall, but now only eats 3 to 4 meals per week. The reason is that he does not think it is the healthiest choice he can make (he concerns his health a lot). He said that he understands how hard it is for the Dining Hall to concentrate on the quality of the food while concerning the quantity of the food to feed more than 800 people for 3 meals a day. However, if he had a choice between the Dining Hall and something else, he would rather choose something else.
A change has been made! Year after year everyone complains about the dining hall facilities, but it seems that there has been a positive transformation of how the dining hall functions. People that have attend this institution for more than one year will say that the dining hall has the worst and most unhealthy food you can imagine, but what does new professors and students think? As a new professor this year in humanities Mr. Eaton has a different perspective of what the dining hall is. “It is fantastic!” Was the first phrase that came out of his mouth. He explains that even though it is not his favorite place to eat, they have good food for the amount of students they have to feed daily. Also, he truly supports that the dining hall is healthy, but the students and faculty staff that eats there have the option of having a healthy and balanced repast or an unhealthy lunchtime. Salads, bread, fruit, a variety of different seeds, fruits, vegetables, dressings and even meats are offered to make ones food more enjoyable, balanced and healthy. In the contrary, they offer a selection of different types of food that are usually not healthy in the main line. Mr. Eaton states that for students to do not eat healthy food in the dining hall is not a big problem because most of the students at Culver Academies are involved in a sport or at least they go to the gym five days a week. On the other side, faculty members do not have the time to exercise, which truly affects their lives with the usual problems that eating unhealthy provides which are obesity, lack of energy in working hours and others. For this reason, he tries to make wise choices at the dining hall when he is choosing his food. Avoiding the main line food as most as he can and eating the fruit and vegetables they provide in the salad bar.
My journey started in the library as I stalked the unwary prey,the librarian. I gave her a horrible attempt at a puppy face, but nevertheless, I prevailed and she had no choice but to be interviewed by me (EVIL CACKLE of TRIUMPH!!). I started off by asking did she think the dining hall focuses on being healthy. She exclaimed that she thought the dining hall was trying. I then allowed her to tell me in what ways were they trying. After some time the interview finally was done and I learned a couple of things. I learned that many people do not take the time to eat in the dining hall because of the long lines and it just take to much time to stay. The dining hall does display plenty of healthy options to avoid these long lines, but for some reason these areas do not remain all that occupied. She like many of the staff seems to eat more healthier foods than the students since they know more about their bodies. At some point the dining hall had to take away cereal and other food from lunch and dinner because of how unhealthy it was for the students. Though, the librarian begs to differ and says that if someone wants to eat a certain food who is another person to tell them it is unhealthy for them. The librarian herself eats extremely healthy, but lacks variety in her food intake which she says is because the dining hall can be repetitive when it comes to the salad and fruit bar. Hopefully the dining hall can change a bit and also get a new system with the dishes. But besides all this the librarian remains extremely grateful for the dining hall as I am as sure the students are as well.
The Dining Hall
On Monday the twelfth of September two thousand eleven, a journalistic study was performed. Being sent on a quest, I searched for the answer to the most intriguing question floating on campus, do you think the dining hall is healthy? I have had the opportunity to catch up with Culver’s strength and conditioning coach, Ashley Paulson. Ms. Paulson replied to the question stating “yes and no”. A very reasonable response I believe. Ms. Paulson stated “the dining hall could be better but that it wasn’t that bad”. She had multiple points of view on the dining hall. She feels that there are too many fired foods, too many processed foods, and too big of portions being served. However she does state that it is nice to have the salad bar out for lunch and dinner, because the dining hall needs fresh foods. As well, the dining hall has improved their conscience about what they are serving, she told me that when she attended Culver in 04’-06’, the dining hall served soda. Her final statement about the dining hall was that it is beneficial to teenage boys who can eat lots of food and gain little to no weight, because there is always a variety of foods being served (and they can eat all they want). After hearing these facts, I was drawn to ask her what her definition of healthy is. She told me that being healthy is maintaining a fit lifestyle, exercising at least 4 times a week, eating the colors of the rainbow within food groups, and avoiding junk and fried foods. After talking to her for quite some time I was almost out of questions when I thought to ask her if she had seen the movie Super Size Me. Her immediate response to the movie was “disgusting” yet eye opening. She says that although she personally does not crave McDonalds, she can understand how people get addicted to the food because it tastes good and looks good. In all I discovered that although the dining hall may not be promoting the best foods in the dining hall, they are there. The dining hall may serve bad “unhealthy” foods but there are always other choices.
When you think of a public school cafeteria, the thoughts that usually cross your mind are, gross, unhealthy, and mystery meat. But could those words also be used for a boarding school dining hall? When I asked a student attending Culver Academy, if the dining hall was healthy? Her response was yes and no. She then went on to say, that the school has healthy options, like the salad bar, but at the same time the hot line is usually unhealthy and full of sodium. I then proceeded to ask her why she thought the reason for this was, and her response was money. It seems that since the economy is low, we do not have the ability to purchase more nutritious food for the hot line, because it is cheaper to buy the unhealthy food in bulk and freeze it. Later in the interview, I questioned her about the eating habits she has in the dining hall. The student told me that she sometimes eats a salad, but more often than not, she eats from the hot line. Because it has a way of filling her up, but the vegetables on the salad bar do not satisfy her cravings. Another reason that she eats the hotline is because even though she knows it is unhealthy, the food taste good, and she enjoys eating the meals. But even though this student does enjoy the less nutritious meals on the hot line, she says she would also like to see some healthier options that can be served on the main line.
When the topic of dining hall is brought up, the majority of students make a sour face at the thought of the food. Yet after talking in depth with Mrs. Rudd, she had a different opinion on the matter. She didn’t think that the dining hall was completely unhealthy, she felt that the students choices at the dining hall were unhealthy. She discussed all of the healthier options the dining hall has to offer, like the salad bar, rather than the hot line with large portions, or the deserts at dinner. As students at Culver, we are faced with multiple temptations, like the large portions or the famous fries and chicken nuggs, but through education and understanding we should be able to understand what our better/healthier options are. Mrs. Rudd said that choices we make as kids build habits that follow as we grow up. We need to make the healthy choice at the dining hall because we do have that option. Rather than saying that the dining hall is unhealthy, she pointed her finger back at the students saying that the choices they made weren’t very healthy.
Is the common perception that the dining hall is not healthy valid? If you have lived in Culver for more than a year, you are probably familiar with how most people at Culver think about the dining hall: bad and unhealthy. According to my interviews with students and faculty members, the general trend of associating the dining hall with negative descriptions was evident. However, as I interviewed, I had to question the credibility of their statements that the dining hall food is bad. Among the four people that I interviewed, only one person said that he has all three meals for a day at the dining hall, and this person was a student. The other three people were faculty members, and they only eat once or twice at the dining hall. None of them goes to the dining hall for breakfast, and only a couple eats there for dinner. How can somebody ever make a valid statement about something when he is not familiar with everything it has to offer? Do people just simply blame the dining hall because other people do so? A person can rarely convince another person to agree with his argument if he does not know what he is talking about. For those people who do not know the dining hall fully and still talk about how bad their food is, a full investigation of all three meals and food of the dining hall would be a nice tool to sharpen their arguments.
I interviewed Mr. Nicholson, who is a philosopher, a high school humanities teacher and a surfer. Mr. Nicholson thinks stay healthy is extremely important and he establishes a personal diet that mostly bases on vegetables and fruits with small amounts of protein foods.
When I asked Mr. Nicholson about why he does not go to the dining hall for breakfast, he points out that most foods in the dining hall for breakfast maintain high proteins. And since he is trying to eliminate protein from his diets as much as possible, the dining hall does not offer suitable food choices for him. Most people who want a healthy diet complain about the dining hall for not offering limited health choices. However, Mr. Nicholson gives a different perspective. “The dining hall has certain budget. Therefore, they can only choose certain types of food. And I think they have chosen the best they can. Maybe it is time for faculties and students to make some changes. For example, if all the students committee to not eat donuts or brownies, then the dining hall would have more money to spend on vegetables and fruits.”
Do you think the dining hall at Culver is healthy? Yes. No. Sometimes. Culver students claim that meals are intended to be healthy, but never taste good, essentially causing the students to make poor food choices. Due to the poor tasting food in the dining hall, students often rely on ordering food more than two times per week.
“I eat three meals a day in the dining hall. For breakfast I eat cereal and toast. For lunch I have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with applesauce mixed with peanut butter. I eat the same thing for dinner.” Said Sarah Stackhouse. The dining hall does not actually provide students with the healthy choices that they seem to want. Sarah continued by saying, “the dining hall never has real fresh fruit and the lettuce never tastes right.”
Many students find that their diet changes when they arrive at Culver. Throughout the summer and holidays, students eat healthy foods that taste good, but for some reason these foods don’t exist in the dining hall. “If the food in the hot line tasted better, I would eat it more often” said Stackhouse. Students do not want to be unhealthy, they simply want good tasting food.
It was a little unfamiliar but somewhat serious interview with Ms. Cerny, a resolute vegan. She was asked “Do you think the Dining hall healthy?” to answer. Considering the general response of non-vegetarians showing their detestation of the Dining Hall, I had an expectation of her reaction to be extreme abhorrence. However, her response to my question was a tender generosity; “the Dining Hall is getting a way better as new chef “Larry” came. He has good ideas, is talented and tries hard to get more veggies in people’s daily meals more naturally.” It could have been such an optimistic comment despite of how clean the Dining Hall is and what kind of food they most frequently serve. As one more reversal, she appended her response with the phrase “Institutional” and “apparently not so great”. She started eating only veggies since she was a college student because it is “healthier.” She simply said, “We should not raise animals to kill them. It is good to eat, but we do not need it” Very impressive. As a non-vegetarian, I typically choose meat over veggies. Ms. Cerny clearly stated people’s general tendency over meat and mere but concise examination; “it is hard for one to eat or make a healthier choice between meat and veggies unless he/she is strongly committed to be a vegan or unless the vegetarian food looks super good.” Absolutely true. I would not eat even salad if the veggies in the bowl look brownish and stale like common non-vegetarians. Ms. Cerny, a healthy eater, never goes to hot line, but she believes that the Dining Hall is on the way of getting better, healthier and more nutritious.
“How am I supposed to stay in shape with food like this?” That is commonly heard statement around the Culver Academies when talking about the Culver dining hall. However, Sgt. Plonksi, the Infantry Battalion military mentor, says that the dining “can be healthy.” He believes that are plenty of options to make a healthy meal but it is all about “personal choice.” He admits that he doesn’t always eat the things he should and he even stated that he has “never really liked vegetables.” With this being said, he says that he does try to avoid eating dining hall foods such as the pizza puffs or pizza because of the amount of grease. On days like this, he may eat from the salad bar or make a sandwich. When I asked him if he thought Culver students are healthy, he gave me an answer that I never really thought about: “A lot of students are conscious of healthy eating, but it isn’t always an option based on their schedule.” He believes that with the busy schedule of Culver students, they seem to just “grab what’s ready and go.”
So since Culver students are crunched for time and seems the unhealthy foods are more convenient, why don’t we “make the healthier options for convenient.”
Post a Comment