During my first few days here, I was excited about the unlimited availability of the fro-yo machine, the sizeable salad bar and the creative pizza. But "consumption monotony" sinks in, and the appeal of these items fades by the end of the first week. Have you ever noticed how people have "their salad?" By "their salad," I mean everyone has his own personal salad with the exact same things in it and in exactly the same order. When I noticed this, I realized how unbearably conducive Valentine is to this consumption monotony, and I don't think I can survive four years of eating ennui. I started to try new food like the pasta, the bland, plain white chicken with hints of parsley and the thick chicken stew. Monotony was no longer the issue because I, in most cases, didn't like the food enough to try it a second time. When this happened I discovered how to survive on some of the little, everyday touches like the oatmeal raisin cookies, Lucky Charms and grilled cheeses.
During orientation week, my mom told me that I would get used to the food; she thought I just needed some time to adjust. One of my classmates even remarked on the strange ways his body trying to "adjust" to the new food by saying "Do you think they put laxatives in the rice?" The most surprising part of my introduction to Valentine cooking was the number of people who actually enjoy the food. I heard comments such as "It's better than my mom's cooking," and "Oh no, I can just feel the freshman 15 coming."
Exactly how many vegans do we have at Amherst? The ratio of "normal" food to vegan food is disproportionate to the number of vegans and vegetarians that we actually have. Don't get me wrong, the cafeteria should be sensitive to the eating needs of others, but I do not think it should take away from the variety and quality of food for the non-vegetarians and non-vegans. When the menu is divided into 50 percent vegan, 25 percent low fat and the remaining 25 percent normal, the options for many people are slim.
I do have a few proposals on how to improve the quality of eating at Amherst. Basically, we need more variety. Our college is the only one that I visited without a smoothie station and some other alternatives to the cafeteria that are a part of our meal plans. Schwemm's is excellent, but it is not covered in our standard meal plan. And sure, we can choose to give up our breakfasts for a measly $100 worth of bonus bucks every semester, but what kind of a deal is that? In addition to more places to eat, we need better meal plan options. We should have a number of different meal plans to choose from instead of just two. For example, we should be able to choose the specific number of meals we want to have each day at Valentine, and get the rest back as bonus bucks. The fewer meals you want at Valentine, the more you get to spend at other places, like Schwemm's. This plan is basically just an improvement on the already available bonus bucks program and shouldn't be that much harder to implement.
The food could be much worse, and I sometimes enjoy my meals at Valentine. Eating at Valentine isn't too unbearable because you can always find something whether it's a bagel, peanut butter and jelly or cereal. However, where are my freshman 15? The main problem is the lack of variety and alternative places to dine. By designing more flexible meal plans and and adding more places to eat, the routine lives of Amherst students would be greatly improved.