New HUDS Menu Not As Healthy As Promoted

To the editors:

I had to laugh when I saw the headline “HUDS Cooks Up Healthier Fare” (News, Sept. 24). I opened The Crimson right after learning from a Mather dining hall staff member that Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) has decreed that grapefruit will no longer be a breakfast staple. She suggested that instead I have a pastry, since there were several different kinds available, or a waffle, since, as part of HUDS’ new “healthy” fare, waffles are now available daily.

Perhaps, instead of publishing HUDS Executive Director Ted Mayer’s description of HUDS’ glorious improvements, The Crimson should actually investigate the changes in food quality. The Crimson would find that this year, it seems that HUDS is spending a lot more energy touting their new “Healthy and Delicious!” food rather than actually demonstrating that their food is healthy and delicious.

For example, the “Change is Good” posters in every dining hall proclaim that we are being treated to an increased variety of “hand fruit,” yet, every day, the fruit is the same—two varieties of inedible apples (in apple season!), oranges, banana, and the occasional rock-hard pear. A traditional HUDS healthy and delicious menu item, lox at Sunday brunch, has not made an appearance at Mather House, and I’ve been told by the staff that it’s been cut from the HUDS menu for good. And hot breakfast, the start to a healthy day, has become a thing of the past to hurried students in many of the Houses, who, if they don’t have time to wait for their scrambled eggs, which now must be ordered from the grill, must choose between waffles, muffins and scones. They can no longer even enjoy a morning grapefruit.

Shira R.A. Pinnas ’05

Sept. 24, 2003