Students are finding insects in their food from the dining halls
There’s moldy pizza, too
Freshman Alexis Brannan was eating in the Burge dining hall yesterday when she found a beetle-like insect in her lunch.
She said: “It was still alive. I reported it to the University and alerted the salad staff but they weren’t able to do very much because apparently the lettuce arrives already bagged.
“It’s been really hard to eat there anymore.”
She subsequently posted a photo on the University Class of 2019 Facebook page a few days ago with the caption ‘Yay burge #stayclassy. Yes, that’s a bug’.
In response to her post, a number of students commented saying they’d also found insects in their food.
As I continued scrolling down the Class of 2019 Facebook page I came across another gem from Dirty Burge.
Another freshman, Nick Westcott, purchased this personal pizza from the C store located in Burge. He posted this photo in the group on February 26th.
Seriously, how old does a pizza have to be to look like this? Ridiculous
Nick said: “I went to Burge, grabbed a personal pizza and when I got back to my room I opened it and it was all moldy.
“I went to the counter and swapped the mouldy pizza for a new one.”
It has always been said that Hillcrest’s food is better than Burge’s but it appears that this is not true. As a student body we could maybe overlook one bug, mistakes do happen, but two bugs within a week of each other? That needs to be addressed.
You’re not really a freshman at Iowa until you experience the struggles of the campus dining halls – shitty hours, oddly hard food, and a repetitive menu but it is bearable, or at least I thought so.
I am sure that preparing food for thousands of hungry college students is not an easy task, and I admire all of the hard work that the food staff puts in, but I think that for the thousands of dollars we pay to use the dining halls we should at least be able to trust the quality of the food.
A spokesperson from the University of Housing and Dining said: “Staff and management in University of Iowa Housing and Dining strive at all times to meet and exceed local and state health code standards in serving healthy and nutritious meals.
“Anyone who has a concern about food served by UI Housing and Dining is encouraged to report any issues to staff members on-the-spot so the matter can be addressed immediately and corrective action can be taken.
“For example, UI Housing and Dining staff are prepared to meet with the concerned individual, offer an apology, and immediately remove the food item from the serving line. Reporting the matter also enables the UI to follow up with its vendors so steps can be taken to prevent a recurrence.
“In general, salad items are obtained pre-packaged from a vendor, so it would be important to inform the vendor about any potential quality control issues. As always, the top priority of the UI is to protect the health and safety of its students, faculty, staff and visitors.”