So my series on Ottawa Hospital Food sure has sparked some talk.
Happily I received many a call from dietitians and doctors at the Heart Institute who strongly supported my contention that Heart Institutes' shouldn't be serving unhealthy foods.
I also received a bunch of emails and for today's post, I'm going to include one in it's entirety (with the author's permission). It's about food in Canadian Universities and I think it does a great job highlighting shortcomings therein and in the end those in our atrocious Food Guide.
Oh, and that picture up above. That's from the cafeteria at the University of Guelph (click it to get a better view of all the healthy goodness).
Here's the letter,
"Hello,Are you a University student or have similar campus stories? Do you want to send me some pics of the "healthy" food at your cafeteria? Feel free!
I think you are doing great work by exposing the poor nutrition in hospital food. You may also want to expose the poor nutrition offered on University campuses.
The thing about hospital food is that when you leave the hospital, you can go home and cook nutritious meals for yourself. Thousands of Canadian university students do not have this option. This past school year, I lived in a university residence for the first time. I cannot describe adequately how shocked I was about the poor quality of food offered. We had pizza at least three times per week, mashed potatoes that were stretched with a paste of flour and water and most meats were processed deep fried cutlets. The food had so much sodium that it burned my tongue. Although there was a salad bar, most of the contents were mayonnaise salads and leftovers. Fresh vegetables were scarce and often wilted.
Although I am considered obese with a BMI of 38, I have always been conscientious of consuming healthy food. Never before was I in a position where I had no choice but to eat deep fried, high sodium, high calorie food every day. As you would expect, I quickly gained 25 lbs within 3 months of living in residence. Thankfully, I have lost those 25 lbs since returning home.
Not everyone is prone to weight gain as I am. Many of the students were able to maintain their weight or only gain a few pounds extra, but their health was deteriorating. Others had BMIs of over 40. I met many young students who were suffering from high cholesterol and high blood pressure. People in their early 20s should not be suffering from high blood pressure and high cholesterol and I am positive that their health problems are associated with the type of food they are forced to eat while living on campus. I must insist the proper word to use is ‘forced’ because there are rarely kitchens available for student use and depending upon the university, a zero vacancy rate off campus.
Perhaps the most striking thing about my experience with campus food is how these cafeterias proudly conform to the Canada Food Guide. When the cafeteria worker dishes out a dinner platter that consists of a cup of white rice, a cup of white pasta, a cup of mashed potatoes, 2 oz of deep-fried, breaded meat, a scoop of frozen peas and carrots, a bowl of something called pizza soup, and a bowl of ice cream all while pointing to the Canada Food Guide for justification—then something is very wrong."
[Thanks very much to the reader who sent me such a thoughtful and interesting letter]
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My thing about "healthy" food on campus is that I really don't think that many kids care. If they did, they would just eat salads or something. I know none of my friends ever complained, except for maybe the price.
ReplyDeleteI am from California and we were constantly unhappy with our choice of food at the cafeteria. Especially when all freshman had to live on campus and those of us involved in certain scholarships had to stay on campus.
ReplyDeleteIt was very hard to eat healthy. Even the yogurt was full of sugar. We were always complaining about getting healthier options... but apparently the small salad and sandwich bar was suppose to satisfy that need.
Usually our lunch choices consisted of either some type of taco meat, or french fries, onion rings, and chicken nuggets and some type of pasta with white sauce.
The nutitional facts weren't available to us as well. You do great work, I love this blog!
I think Patrick makes the point even BOLDER. No one complains because we all trust the Food Guide. The government would lead us astray to line their pockets with money, or would they? There are studies everywhere linking poor nutrition to hindering the brains ability to learn. Money is the root of all evil. Until someone has the balls to produce good, healthy food and make less profit we all lose.
ReplyDeletegreat blog, thanks so much. unfortunately, the truth to the whole bad food in school and hospital cafeterias comes down to money. which corporate caterer can provide the lowest cost food to the institution while maximizing profit. health and wellness is not a concern, lowest dollar amount per unit is.
ReplyDeleteit is much more cost effective to truck in a box of chicken tenders, fire up the deep fryer and have a poorly paid and low-skill worker flog the resulting artery clogging, sodium saturated result. think the mayonnaise drenched salads are made in house? nope. trucked in by the 16 litre pail full.
it is the institutions that sign the contracts that bring in these purveyors of unhealthy crap. the schools and hospitals are always crunched for money. hey, let's sign an exclusive deal with Pepsi Co. to install machines in every building and get a 25% cut of all proceeds.
is the administration or the companies interested in your well-being? no.
I have a comment, that kind of goes againsthe first comment. I am a recent college student and actually know other students who moved off campus because by living on campus they had to buy a dorm "food plan" that didn't include anything healthy.
ReplyDeletePatrick - WHY should students who want to have healthier options available just have to "eat salads or something". Do you think salads are the ONLY thing people who enjoy eating healthfully want to eat? I am so tired of people's perception of healthy eating being salad. Just because I do not want something that is LOADED with calories, saturated fat, trans fat, sugar, white flour, etc. doesn't mean I want a salad ALL THE TIME. I am sorry, but your comment was pretty moronic.
ReplyDeletei don't know that patrick's comment was moronic - perhaps just uneducated. so many people don't know or haven't learned what healthy eating means or how easy it can be.
ReplyDeletehowever, i do agree that having salad as the only 'healthy choice' is boring and frustrating - not to mention - often the salads offered are as full of calories as the other options in cafeterias.
i agree that it ultimately comes down to profits - which is why we're not seeing any changes from food service providers and suppliers. it's hard to think outside the (frozen cardboard) box when profits may be affected by introducing appropriate choices. unfortunately, it's hard to speak with our wallets (especially in the case of the students) when you have only one option to choose from in the environment.
I was a student representative for a while at Simon Fraser University in BC. I held the only student seat on the food services committee with the University and was a student representative on a joint university-student society committee on building a student union building. I'm a huge advocate for healthy food options and nutritional choice for students on campus. It was absolutely frustrating to deal with University administrators and their priorities.
ReplyDeleteThe first issue was that Universities are large, bureaucratic organisations. They prefer to sell off their food services to large corporations that can cover all of their needs in one go. These organisations also guarantee shared profits for the University, something that smaller organisations often can't do. One thing that students don't know is that they also share losses, which can lead Universities to accumulate huge debt when students don't use campus food options.
The second major issue is government underfunding. Universities have only so much money to spend on capital expenditures, like building dorms and other recreational facilities not directly related to classroom space. When Chartwell's comes along and pays for part or all of a residence building in exchange for a mandatory food plan, there isn't a University in BC that could say no.
Food options on campus often mirror the interests of big food, because in the end it's all about money. They often forget that they're dealing with students, who are well read, well equipped and more than willing to go somewhere else. SFU is currently taking on huge losses because students have said no to Chartwells. You better believe we're going to bring that up in committee when they have to renegotiate.
It's a complex situation, and can't be solved easily. Many solutions are available and all of them take time, energy and advocacy.
Hi Yoni,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting this. Since you are in Ottawa, it would be great for you to do a spot at Carleton University. I lived in residence for 4 years in New Brunswick, and it was bad. Having said that, my one year at Carleton as a grad student was worse. In particular, Oasis (a late night eatery below Res Commons) and the main residence cafeterias while surely give you lots to write about. I'm also sure the Unicentre Food Court and Loeb Cafe will shock you too.
I still attend Carleton, but I've learned my lesson - I rent and I buy my own groceries. I've already lost 30 pounds since I've moved out of residence and my BMI dropped from 32 to 27.
When you are living in residence at a university, you are typically there to foster your mind. It's a sham that it's typically at the cost of your body.
My daughter will attend the U of Calgary in the fall. I can not even find a menu! When I saw that it was "Chartwells" We immediately found her a rental accomodation.
ReplyDeleteMy middle school experiences with Chartwells included finding out that the chili fries was a vat of chili and a bag of FROZEN french fries dumped into the vat. Still cold by the time the kids lunch was served. That's not fit for a dog. Shame on them.