Column: Food lacks variety

NSA food lacks variety

By: Emily Laurenzi

In the small town of Lake Placid, New York around eighty highly skilled student athletes including myself, attend a small boarding school known as National Sports Academy. 

At this sports academy we are engaged in a busy schedule and are limited on down time. Just like every other boarding school NSA has three meals a day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Unlike many other boarding schools, NSA’s food lacks variety.

Numerous times this year I have eaten peanut butter and jelly in my room due to the lack of variety of food that is being served. For example, if you don’t like tacos and you’re tired of having salad, because you have it everyday, then you are left with very few options.

If NSA were to broaden their variety, I think it would be beneficial for both the students and faculty who choose to eat the school lunches. Simply because if you didn’t like what was being cooked that day, you could eat a sandwich or maybe a slice of pizza. This means that everyday, there would be a place set up in the kitchen for students to make sandwiches.

NSA girls hockey coach, Kelli Vossler, has tried multiple times to survey the students in order to create a better food selection, however, it never seemed to be taken anywhere.  Her survey consisted of questions about what student’s favorite lunch and dinner meals were and asked general questions regarding the student’s perspectives on the quality of the food.  After all the hard work Vossler had put in, the only changes that had been made was the choice to use chicken as a topping on salad and NSA now has choices between whole milk and skim milk.

Undercooked french fries

In addition to the lack of variety, another problem is the quality of the food. For example, on October 13, 2011 the lunch being served was grilled cheese and what some may call French fries. However, when I took my first bite into the grilled cheese I realized the cheese had not been melted. I asked myself, “How hard is it to make grilled cheese?” I was too hungry to throw it away, and too lazy to find something else, so I decided to put the grilled cheese in the microwave. After being so upset that my grilled cheese wasn’t fully cooked, I decided to try the fries. You know when you eat potatoes and they are hard because they aren’t cooked all the way? That’s exactly how the fries were, not crunchy and delicious, but soggy and disgusting.

I believe that sometime in the near future NSA will have no choice but to have a greater selection for the students. In order for student athletes to perform at their pinnacle it becomes necessary for them to be fed properly.