Diverse and Delicious

Dining hall. Exonians love it and hate it, but we all depend on it to keep us sustained throughout the long Exeter days and even longer nights. Nevertheless, even with the array of options for every meal, some call into question the healthiness of what D-Hall has to offer on a daily basis.

First, many D-Hall entrées are very greasy, whether it is the sausage at breakfast, steak and cheese sandwiches for lunch or even the french onion soup. Obviously, foods like sausage or cheese-covered steak are going to be oily, but in D-Hall the dishes are sometimes so greasy you cannot even begin to eat it. Usually it would be easy to tell when a certain food is greasy, so some students can stay away from that particular dish, but D-Hall supposedly adds sugar to various meals. Consequently, a seemingly healthy and nutritious looking piece of chicken might be coated in sugar to add some taste to the entrée. This not only impacts the health of students and faculty, but it also gets us “addicted to the food” as we get used to and crave the more sugar-fused dishes.

It is not right for D-Hall to essentially deceive Exonians with supposedly beneficial entrées and not make it clear that they are doing so. However, this does not wholly compromise the health and good condition of many alternatives to these entrées that are available in D-Hall.

When the hot-line options do not look appetizing, we have a myriad of other choices, even more than a normal meal at home would offer. There are always the salad, pasta and sandwich bars for lunch and dinner, and during every meal various fruits are available for the taking. With these selections, the possibilities are endless: one can make a delectable quesadilla in the panini maker, steam some fresh veggies and meat in the microwave or create an innumerable amount of replacements that are tasty, not to mention healthy.

In addition, D-Hall staff have made continuous efforts to improve the dining hall experience while also making it more healthy for the Exeter community. This past year, sugary desserts have increasingly been offered on only Tuesdays and Thursdays, while more fresh fruit is available on the others days. This not only benefits the well being of Exonians, since we have less sweets, but also makes the rare desserts taste better, since the staff has more time to prepare intricate desserts. As a result, we can be both happy and healthy.

Furthermore, D-Hall has introduced more organic and natural foods to the menu, which is good for our bodies in many ways. Every Wednesday, an entrée features Red’s Best Fish, which provides incredibly fresh fish (sometimes almost two days earlier than other vendors) at the same market price. D-Hall also offers their own organic coffee blend, one of many examples in which they are trying to present more wholesome and healthy foods for students and faculty.

The dining hall occasionally over-greases its food and inserts sugar into different entrées, but this should not take away from D-Hall’s diverse, delicious and nutritious offerings that keep this school and its students running.