Alabama State University’s food provider, Aramark, believes it is appealing to continue to serve repetitive dishes.
Each week, students are fed tacos on Tuesday, fried chicken on Wednesday and fish on Fridays. The menu is so set in stone that students know that if they desire anything else on those days, “it is not happening,” and even though they have paid for a meal plan that should offer a variety of options, students are forced to either stand in line at Chick-Fil-A, Subway or Prime Grill if they decide not to eat the scheduled meals. And while these choices are an alternative, they are not the healthiest choices to eat.
The other four days, students are confronted with choices of turkey burgers, corn dogs, hot dogs or grilled cheese sandwiches. The only side choices that students are served are fries, dirty rice, vegetables, and dinner rolls.
When it comes to breakfast, students expect a limited menu. Students are offered grits, scrambled eggs, boiled eggs and oatmeal. There are other breakfast options that are occasionally served that students would like see such as rice, hashbrowns with onions, meat, cheese, bacon, pan sausages, pancakes and omelets.
I believe students should have a wider variety of food choices that they actually like and want to eat.
There is no real justification for food servings to be repetitive when there are so many different options available. What if the cafeteria served pork chops on Tuesday instead of tacos every Tuesday? What if the cafeteria served ham or turkey on some Wednesdays instead of fried chicken? What if the cafeteria served meatloaf on Fridays instead of fish every Friday? In other words, instead of serving the same dishes every week, why not offer students something different?
There are a number of cafeterias at historically Black colleges and universities that have a wide variety of selections for their students to eat. While students at this university pay enough to have a better variety of selections, we do realize that the average board price is $2,100.
Even with that average price, there is no way that students should be able to predict by the day what meals are going to be served. However, as long as students continue to put up with these repetitive meals and never demand something different, then Aramark will continue to serve repetitive meals.
Looking at other universities such as Albany State University and Troy University, I see a variety of options for every day of the week. I also noticed that they do not have the same menu each week. They offer options like vegetarian broccoli mushroom stirfry, Mediterranean chicken pea salad, fettuccine alfredo with chicken, fettuccine alfredo with shrimp, beef flank steak, tilapia w/lemon basil vinegarette, red potatoes with parsley butter, and kale salad w/raisins and almonds.
Since we are on the topic of repetitive meals, I have no choice but to mention the beverage stations. Upon entering, the station at the right is the one that most students utilize, but they must go to the station at the left if they want ice – very inconvenient.
Some students are not into drinking sodas and prefer juices, but that station is on the right, but it is located a hundred steps from the other beverage stations, not to mention the cup sizes that are provided. They are getting smaller and smaller by the day.
We all are aware that the cost of board differs according to the university and some students are paying more than we are paying for board. However, is there any real reason for a university to serve the same meals every week on the same day?
I believe that the solution is easy.
The Aramark staff should present various options of food to students and let them choose which ones they believe would best serve the population as a whole. While most students enjoy “Fried Chicken Wednesday,” they would be happy to be surprised once in a while with chicken and dressing or fried chicken and waffles on Wednesday.
I know that the Aramark staff cannot accommodate everyone and that everyone cannot have things the way that they would prefer, but some things have to be changed and repetitive meals are one of those things.