Hydroponic grow towers (soil-free water). Aeroponic grow towers (soil-free mist).
Yes, two public universities are among many that are using taxpayer money to satisfy their finicky and pampered students’ politically correct palates.
Colleges around the country are bowing at the feet of students who demand gluten-free, GMO-free, ethically sourced, locally grown, ethnically accurate food options, some of them grown on the schools’ own property, The Wall Street Journal reports:
“If you’re not eating good things, how do they expect your brain to grow?” said Hannah Logan, a senior at the University of Massachusetts Amherst majoring in sustainable food and farming.
UMass Amherst and other schools say passing that test is increasingly important as the college-age population plateaus and competition for the best students intensifies. “A strong dining program can attract top students,” said Garett Distefano, UMass Amherst’s director of residential dining and sustainability.
He pointed to a survey from 2016 that showed 70% of more than 1,200 UMass Amherst students said the quality of the school’s food was an important factor in their decision to attend. The school increased spending on local and sustainably grown foods to $4.9 million in the year through June, from $2.7 million three years ago.
The University of Texas-Austin had to hire a second dietitian to keep up with demands from students. Virginia Tech, which already has a “churrascaria, a gelateria and a sushi bar,” tested different pancake syrups on student leaders after one of them publicly complained it was “bland.”
At least the College of William & Mary and Yale University are making students grow it if they want it – and Yale is incorporating academics in the agriculture:
Today the 1-acre [campus] garden is a hybrid farm and living-history laboratory, where students thresh wheat to lend context to readings of Anna Karenina and grind grain into a flatbread dough made from a recipe in Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.
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