By Thomas Emanuel
I am a dietary ethicist. I don’t eat meat and only drink milk rarely (hurrah for soy protein); I buy organic and/or local whenever possible and try to avoid brand names. I don’t eat junk food, and I refuse flat-out to eat fast food or shop at Wal-Mart.
I do this because I don’t like the means by which big companies produce their food – paying immigrants 30 cents an hour to pick tomatoes, for instance, or razing the rainforest in order to make room for cattle so McDonald’s can get cheap hamburgers.
Therefore, I alter my shopping habits, withdrawing my support from objectionable companies and throwing it instead behind brands and products that I can feel good about buying. In my own small way, I use the laws of economics against the likes of Chiquita.
By forcing me to pay $650 a semester for a meal plan, however, Aramark and USD have robbed me of my choice to eat ethically. U.Dining offers commercial, brand-name products: enriched macaroni product and bleached white bread, Frito Lay and Sara Lee. Don’t eat meat? Hope you like salad and… salad. If I had my druthers, I would never eat any of the food offered at the MUC.
Theoretically, I could still choose not to eat there. But that would be wasteful – they’ve already got my money. I might as well get some use out of it.
The problem is, I don’t even get that much bang for my buck. Not only purchase a meal plan for mass-produced, unhealthy meals; we are also made to pay exorbitant prices for them. A cup of cantaloupe costs $3. I could buy a whole cantaloupe for less than that!
It could be argued that we’re paying for the convenience, but we should be able to choose to pay for the convenience. For my part, I’d rather make the walk to Jones. Furthermore, it’s not as if we can force prices down by refusing to buy, because we are required to pay in the $650 or $1,000 in order to live in the dorms – it’s either use it or lose it. It gives new meaning to the term “Monopoly money.”
I am not advocating USD get rid of meal plans altogether. Many students have no problem with having a meal plan; it certainly makes life simpler when you live at North Complex to walk downstairs and have an all-you-can-eat buffet at your fingertips. Then again, it makes life simpler not to think about where your food comes from too.
Perhaps USD could make meal plans default, but not mandatory. That is, they could offer students the possibility of opting out of meal plans, with the understanding that if a student does not actively opt out, she will automatically be charged for one. This way, most students would probably still end up paying for a meal plan, while those of us who don’t want to have to choose between eating at the MUC every night and wasting our money would be left with other options.
Of course, I should be thankful – and trust me, I am – that I’m even in a position to complain about meal plans; my life could be much worse. But despite my great good fortune, it would still be nice not to have to pay too much money for food that I neither want nor feel comfortable purchasing.
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