Until last year, the Healthy Eating Lab provided students with a wide array of healthy food choices, from pasta salads and noodle bowls to veggie mixes and sushi. The items were relatively inexpensive and, like purchases at the C-Store or Cafe Vivian, could be charged to paw points or student accounts. Though the Healthy Eating Lab may not have been as popular as an establishment providing Snickers bars and Red Bull, it provided an important service to health-conscious students and the wider campus community.
For many students managing busy schedules, a processed, packaged, fatty snack may be the easiest thing to grab between classes when dining halls or areas of the Frist Gallery are closed. Nonetheless, there are also students who would appreciate having access to more wholesome fare. Though the packaged salads, celery sticks, peanut butter and small fruit cups available at the C-Store are a welcome addition, they are a poor substitute for the wide array of options and meal-sized portions formerly offered by the Healthy Eating Lab.
As the University and Dining Services work to expand the retail dining options at Frist, they should ensure that inexpensive, healthy food options remain easily available. When Witherspoon Sweets opens, there will be some redundancy between it, the C-Store and Cafe Vivian, both of which already sell Bent Spoon ice cream. In addition, Cafe Viv and Witherspoon would also both sell Small World Coffee. If some of the space devoted to these items were consolidated, healthy eating items could be added to one of the venues, and Cafe Viv could also offer a "made-to-order" menu like the Healthy Eating Lab once did.
While the Healthy Eating Lab may not have been a viable stand-alone enterprise, the services the Lab provided should be incorporated into Princeton's existing retail dining facilities. College years are a time associated with weight gain, sugar-and-caffeine-fueled all-nighters and stress-induced eating. The University should take steps to help students buck this trend, especially as it makes ice cream and other sweets increasingly more convenient to buy. Students already have plenty of options for filling their stomachs with empty calories: What they need are venues that will support them in making health-conscious dietary choices.
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