Say cheese - just don't eat it

All Shook Up
    By Ryan Smith

I never liked the taste of school food, except on tater tot day. For 12 years my Empire Strikes Back lunchbox, complete with Yoda thermos, was the only thing that saved me from unsavory, federally-subsidized lunches.

Part of my distaste for cafeteria food stemmed from the fact that it was supposed to be good for me. Teachers handed out monthly menus covered with cartoons of happy corn cobs and frisky apples trying to convince us that lunch was fun, but I wasn't fooled. Everyone knew the food tasted like trash. The broccoli casserole never had a chance--by law, it had to be healthy.

I left my lunchbox at home when I came to Yale. But I came knowing the unalterable law of school food: it tastes bad because it's nutritious. As I expected, Yale University Dining Hall fare met my low expectations for taste. I never guessed, however, that Yale failed to fulfill the second half of the law. And as it turned out, what I didn't know could hurt me.

It took fried cheese to alert me to the danger.

"Kill the fried cheese before the fried cheese kills you," a concerned friend once warned me over dinner. She told me terrible stories about my arteries hardening and lifespan decreasing at that very moment.

I like fried mozzarella cheese--"cheese bricks," if you will--and ate it in defiance of my friend's advice. In defense, all I could say was that it tasted kind of good.

Meanwhile, others rallied to my health-conscious friend's call. I turned to the YUDH "Nutrient Analysis Guide" for support. There must be a reason to serve fried cheese. It must fulfill some vital dietary need. YUDH wouldn't clog my arteries for nothing.

Wrong again. In just one brick lies enough sodium to destroy a colony of slugs (826 mg), and more than one-third my daily calories (718). The 41 grams of fat, more than half my recommended daily allowance, could nurture nothing but a heart attack.

And that's the minimum damage it can do. A tiny disclaimer at the bottom of the sheet warns: "Some nutrient values may be underreported due to incomplete source data." I physically restrained a fellow cheese-lover from going back for seconds.

Though not generally a health-conscious person, I began to worry. I asked Julie, a dining hall worker, why fried mozzarella is on the menu. She gave me a suspicious look. Then she asked me if I had a problem with it. I explained the situation.

"It's natural to like fried cheese," Julie replied. Apparently, lots of people do, in spite of opposition. "It's not you who has a problem," she said. "It's your friends."

I was still unsatisfied. What gives the University the right to serve undergraduates death on a platter, even if they ask for it?

Perhaps if this were an isolated incident, I could overlook it. The frightening truth is that dangerous items of negligible nutritional value are camouflaged throughout the menu. Submitted for your approval: Fried shrimp--1,233 mg of sodium, 44 grams of fat. Falafel with tahini dressing--682 calories, 39 grams of fat.

YUDH recently touted the fact that it has new low-fat, low-sodium meals. According to a Yale Daily News article [9/19/97], YUDH chefs were able to "drastically reduce fat" in over 25 recipes. But that's out of thousands of recipes.

Of course, there is more to a meal than just indicators of fat and sodium; however, nothing can redeem my beloved bricks. Fried cheese has a respectable amount of vitamin A, but I could get more from a slice of pumpkin bread.

So what is it that I want? Tasty food would be nice, but I'm a realist. All I want is food that I can feel good eating (Mother would be proud). Yale forces students living on campus to purchase a meal plan, and so too it should force the dining hall to be responsible in what it serves us.

Extra options are nice, and so are improved recipes, but first there must be a solid, nutritious foundation--like in elementary school. I do believe that YUDH wants to please the taste buds of Yalies, but sometimes it is necessary to defy popular opinion.

Sometimes we must hurt the ones we love, and so I beg YUDH: drop the fried cheese. And the fried shrimp. And everything else of negative nutritional value. Either that, or offer a meal plan that includes a Yoda thermos.

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