This week, Paresky Commons officially started to save the leftover food for the final week of school.
Towards the end of each term, Paresky staff plans three weeks in advance for their attempt to empty all of their extra stock. Each uneaten burger simply gets ground up and used again in a couple days.
“If you think about it, it’s really a great idea. I mean we are green, reduce waste, and don’t have to deal with all this at the end of the year,” said Commons Manager Bob Bill.
While he is correct in the thought that Paresky’s efforts are conserving energy, many students seem to avoid the leftover food, reducing nutrition at PA.
The school nutritionist said, “It really is a paradox, you know I’m all for going green but our students need their daily serving of really rare, obscure veggies, and they simply can’t get that with the leftovers provided.”
While the administration strongly supports Paresky reducing costs by using leftovers, the students have a different idea. In a recent survey, only 6% of the student body likes the food provided for the last week of school, while 91% dislike it, and 3% say that they haven’t eaten anything but Golden Chopsticks during the time period.
Timothy Smith said, “This is such crap, I mean now I am trying to eat so many burgers they can’t make Shepard’s Pie. Last weekend, I ate 6 doubles, 2 trips, and 4 singles. I could eat about double that if I want to really make an impact though.”
Timothy has started a group called “Our Stomachs vs. Commons’ Leftovers: the Battle of the Year.” This group is a purely eating-based group, who, when a meal lends itself to leftovers, they eat as much as they can, trying to halt the preparations.
Last term, this group prevented three leftover meals, “a fantastic display,” as Smith called it. This term, the group hopes to prevent a week of lunches, a tough challenge, but the group’s numbers are higher than ever.
While most students are completely against Paresky’s leftover policy, 98% of the school’s vegetarians support it. Sam Johnson said, “I don’t understand it, the school goes the whole year with barely any vegetarian meals, but for some reason there is a great vegetarian option at each meal in leftover week. I honestly, for the life of me, don’t understand how that happens.”
It is estimated that out of the 6% of people who said that they liked leftover week, 98% are vegetarian, and the other 2% were students mis-clicking in the survey.
A faculty member said, regarding leftover week, “I completely agree with the Paresky staff, and our school is saving money and going green at the same time. Also, contrary to popular belief, I don’t avoid the dining hall that last week because the food is bad, it’s because I consistently have dinner plans the last week of each term.”