Editor,
If you regularly eat at the La Posada cafeteria, you will have noticed the signs on the doors for "tray-less days," which entails making everyone go without a tray for at least one day of the week. No trays; you carry your own plate. According to the signs, it will save food and lower energy costs and water use given the fact that they will have less to wash.
That's all well and good, except I can't carry everything I eat. I usually eat two plates of food. And I'm not fat in the eyes of anyone; I just have a big appetite. I know many of my fellow eaters waste food by leaving food on the tray, but I don't. My mother brought me up to eat everything that was on my plate, and we composted what we didn't. Of course, there is no composting going on at La Posada, so I just take care to make sure I don't get more than I can eat. The first time I ate there, I did overestimate what I could eat. No big deal, I thought. I'll just get a take-out tray. They told me "No, if you ate in the dining hall, you don't get a take-out tray."
Does this strike anyone as a contradictory policy? Here we are, being told repeatedly not to waste food, but if we do get too much, well that's just too bad. Into the trash it goes. Now whose fault is that? I'm certainly not the one throwing food away. I was the one who wanted to take it back to my dorms so I could eat it some other time.
As for saving energy costs and water use, that's a reasonable argument, except we're talking about trays. Exactly how much food winds up on a tray? It's a tray. And yet, they obviously heavily wash them, because when you grab one from the stack as you enter, they're still wet. You know, you could just wipe those things down with a wet sponge and that would do the job, not to mention save all that water.
Before the cafeteria thinks about making people go without trays and feel less satisfied after their meals, perhaps La Posada should review its own policies and procedures.
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John Perry
UNM student
