Remember when you were a kid, and, when you were hungry, you ate, either food that you liked or food that your mom forced you to eat, and, when you weren’t hungry, you didn’t eat? It seemed to work out pretty well, right? You grew strong and tall and suffered no noticeable micronutrient deficiencies. Apparently, though, this time-tested system of eating available food when hungry, despite having sustained all of humanity for the ages and despite having contributed to the rise in human height and life span over recent time, is no longer sufficient for Princeton students. The conversion of the Frist Beverage Laboratory to the “Healthy Eating Lab” (and here you thought all eating was healthy, in that it allows you to survive), last spring’s addition of calorie counts to the menus on the Dining Services website, the annual Cirque du Santé fair in Frist (what?) and the much-ballyhooed Task Force on Health & Well-Being all testify to the institutional mania with making sure that Princetonians are eating “right”. As the Task Force’s May 2004 progress report stated, “Students should leave Princeton knowing what good nutrition is, having developed good nutrition habits, and taking responsibility for their own good nutrition.”
Perhaps inspired by this admirable institutional obsession, the Daily Princetonian ran a cover article this week examining the dread Freshman 15. We admit that we were not quite sure what the Prince was talking about when it described Princeton life as “full of junk food, late night Wawa runs, and an abundance of high calorie beverages at the Street.” When was the last time you ever saw anyone buying junk food on this campus when they weren’t totally wasted? And “high calorie beverages at the Street”? I wish – but watery beer does not a high calorie beverage make, hence the need to BYO in a F. We also admit that we suspect it would be very difficult to locate one of the 609-calorie cheeseburgers pictured in the accompanying photo spread in a Princeton dining hall, given that the centimeter-thick cheeseburgers served there would be listed generously at 200. We finally admit that given the seeming preponderance of girls, supported by anecdotal evidence, who seem actually to lose 15 pounds (or more) in their freshman year, we wonder if running an article about how important it is not to eat too much was the most responsible journalistic decision that could have been made on this campus. Still, we at the Nass do share the belief that it’s important to educate our peers about healthy eating, and so we have prepared this handy chart which we hope will be of aid to freshmen and upperclassmen alike who are no longer sure how to make the appropriate nutritional choices.
JUST REMEMBER THESE KEY FACTS:
NUMBER OF MEALS NEEDED FOR SURVIVAL: SOME
NUMBER OF CALORIES AND NUTRIENTS A MEAL MUST INCLUDE: SOME
USE THIS HANDY VISUAL GUIDE!
DIET COKE:
not a meal.
BLACK COFFEE:
not a meal
SMOKING A CIGARETTE:
not a meal
SMOKING A FLAVORED CIGARETTE:
unfortunately, also not a meal
SMOKING A FLAVORED CIGARETTE WHILE DRINKING BLACK COFFEE:
sadly, still not a meal
LETTUCE AND CUCUMBER SALAD:
not a meal
LETTUCE AND CUCUMBER SALAD WITH DIET COKE:
come on. this is not even a meal for a rabbit.
GOING FOR A RUN WHILE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE AT DINNER:
not a meal
KETCHUP:
not a meal
ANY CONDIMENT:
not a meal
CHEESEBURGER WITH FRENCH FRIES AND KETCHUP:?contrary to popular belief, this is a meal
FROZEN YOGURT:?sorry, not a meal. it’s probably not causing the Freshman 15 either, creamy defenseless scapegoat that it is. it is not even real.
ICE CREAM:?not a meal according to your mother, perhaps, but I say, it’s more of a meal than lettuce
APPLE:
a snack. maybe. not a meal.
GUMMY BEARS:
it pains me to say it, but sugar is not a meal.
COUGH DROPS:?not a meal.
DOING WHISKEY SHOTS:
not a meal.
DOING WHISKEY SHOTS INSTEAD OF EATING DINNER:
still not a meal. doing something that is not a meal instead of a meal does not make it a meal.
“HIGH CALORIE BEVERAGES AT THE STREET”:
not a meal.
PLAYING ROBO AND/OR BEIRUT:?not a meal, no matter how bad you are and how much you end up drinking.
SMIRNOFF ICE:
not a meal. not even a drink, really.
BRUSHING YOUR TEETH:
not a meal.