The Bitter Sweet Fact

By Alyssa Bermudes

As I walked out of my Screenwriting class today my stomach growled and howled with hunger. It was 7:05 and I had not eaten a thing since 12:15ish this afternoon. It may only have been a six-hour hiatus but I could not take the hunger pains anymore. I was in St. Robs and the closest eatery near me was the Lair. As I walked inside and through the swing around door, I filled with dread. The Lair? Really? This was my only option? I rushed over to the salad bar but to my dismay the line was about a mile long and there was no way I was going to wait around 45 minutes for an overpriced salad. I looked around and being a vegetarian and being lactose there already weren’t many other options for me. I could not go to the grill; the market and the Baja station did not seem appetizing. I left in dismay and went down to The Den deciding I would just make myself a coffee and live of that for the night until I drove home at 11pm after my shift. While I walked behind the counter to make my drink I saw there gleaming in the pastry case a delicious cookie. I had to have it. I swiped my card and helped myself to the appetizing cookie. After the five minutes it took for me to scarf it down, I got up to wash my hands and get a glass of water. Soon, I found myself disgusted with what I had just done. This was not dinner; this wasn’t even remotely healthy. I looked back on the past week and discovered that this wasn’t my first time choosing unhealthy foods for my meals as opposed to healthy ones. In fact, my dinners had all consisted of cookies, chips, pizzas and other carb heavy foods. I could not fathom this; why was I letting myself do this?

After some intense pondering I realized that it was not only my poor decision making that caused me to eat all this garbage. The eateries on campus are terrible and notorious for having primarily unhealthy options. I mean, how is it that there is only one salad bar in the Lair and that the employees that work there work more slowly than all the others? Seriously why does it take so long to put together a salad? It’s lettuce, dressing and throwing in a few other ingredients. No cooking is involved after all! The line is always outrageously long because everyone feels the same way. There are very few. So conclusion, the Lair only has one healthy stop and it is either closed (it is only open certain hours) or it’s line is way too long to wait in. It is the same at every other eatery. Pizza Del Ray is nothing but unhealthy foods. Iggy’s dinner only has greasy, high in fat foods. Roski’s is the healthiest on campus but even it is not healthy. If it was not for Roski’s wraps and sandwiches I do not know what I would do! But again we have the issue that it is only open for a certain amount of hours each day! This then only leaves the C-Lion. Here, at the on campus grocery store (smallest market ever!) there are only pre-made salads and ingredients to make your own foods. However, there are very few vegetables or fruit in sight! LMU is helping promote an unhealthy eating lifestyle for its students and this must change. LMU should work on finding new ways to incorporate healthy dishes into its eateries. There should be more than one salad bar at every eatery. Also, there should be a lot more vegetarian options for those who do not eat meat and those who want to eat more vegetable enriched meals. Maybe LMU should open a veggie grill on campus that only serves healthy, low fat dishes!

There are so many different things LMU could do to solve this problem and make healthy dishes more accessible to its students. I hope one day I will not have to skip on a meal and eat a cookie just because the salad line is too long and there are no other options. It is a bittersweet world then an unhealthy cookie seems healthier than an actual meal at the Lair.