Free Food – a phrase that motivates almost every college student to attend whatever event offers it. Free food has been given at various events at The Knight Club as well as spaghetti dinners at a local church.
Although free food convinces many college students to attend an event, there is always one group of people that this trick never works on: people with food allergies.
Free food has never enticed me because I cannot eat gluten, which is a protein found in various grains including wheat, barley and rye.
In other words, it is what makes bread puffy. Typically the free food served has gluten in it. Spaghetti, pizza, cookies, brownies and pretty much every other free food I have been offered is something I cannot eat.
I suppose I have been offered vegetables before, but free veggies are not much of an incentive – unless you are a rabbit or really love vegetables.
Whenever free food that a rabbit would not eat is offered, I have no way of knowing if it is safe.
For example, I can never tell if chips – which are typically served at events – have gluten because gluten is placed in lots of food nobody would ever suspect they are in. There has been gluten in tomato salsa before, for example.
The sad thing is that many of the events they have on campus seem really fun like the karaoke nights. I’ve gone before and had a blast.
However, potentially delicious or harmful foods can be the deciding factor on whether to go to an event on campus.
Is there a solution to the problem of Gannon not enticing people with food allergies to go to events on campus?
I believe there is. Gannon should have gluten-free desserts at these events too.
Because I cannot eat baked goods on a regular basis, as soon as I hear “Gluten-free cookies!” or something of that sort, I immediately want to go, no matter what the event is.
If Gannon events have allergen-free food, many people with allergies would show up.
Besides, it is not like gluten-free desserts are not made at Gannon. We have a gluten-free dessert corner in the cafeteria. People who can eat gluten have eaten the gluten-free chocolate chip cookies.
I know because I let my friend eat one and she said it tastes better than the regular cookies in the cafeteria.
If all the chocolate chip cookies at events were gluten-free and tasted like the ones at the cafeteria, maybe more people would show up for better cookies.
Think about it, most of the food that was made for people who could literally eat anything probably does not taste as good as food that was carefully prepared not to kill somebody.
Putting together food with care usually means the food will taste better.
Allergy-free, better tasting food is the one solution to get more people to show up to more events at Gannon.
MIKE FUJITO
