Students who enter dining halls hoping to get a fresh green
salad may end up getting a little more protein than they bargained
for.
Some dorm residents have found bugs among the green leaves on
their plates.
“I was really disgusted because I almost ate it, only my
roommate saw it and told me before I did,” said first-year
undeclared student Deborah Smith.
However, residential dining administrators say that this is not
a common occurrence in the 85,000 to 90,000 meals that are served
weekly, due to the care used when preparing salads and other foods
in the residential restaurants.
“It would be extremely rare. We certainly don’t want
it to happen,” said Connie Foster, associate director of
residential dining.
The lettuce is washed three separate times with water and
vinegar in the central commissary of the restaurant in De Neve, and
is spun the last time to avoid any occasion of insects entering the
salad during preparation.
“This is an extremely serious issue for us. If we were
handling food inadequately, there could be food-borne illnesses. We
take our business very seriously,” said Assistant Director of
Residential Dining Charles Wilcots.
Residential dining administrators attribute the few occurrences
not to the preparation of the salad, but to the fact that the doors
to the dining halls are constantly opened by students entering and
leaving.
“A bug could fly in and land in the salad through an open
door, but we’re very careful not to let it happen,”
Foster said.
Still, no matter how much care is used, sometimes an insect or
two manages to end up in the salads students pick up.
“I found a ladybug in my salad once. I took it to (the
dining hall workers), but they didn’t really do anything
about it. They just said they were sorry and took my bowl. I still
eat the salad in the dining halls, but I check it more carefully
now,” said second-year English student Janet Lee.
Other students feel uncomfortable eating the salads after
finding an insect in them.
“I never eat the salad anymore. Just seeing the bug in it
made me feel like they didn’t clean the lettuce
enough,” Smith said.
However, there are students who do not let it bother them,
saying this is not unique to UCLA.
“I don’t think it’s that big a deal, since
things like this could happen in almost any other food place you go
to anyway,” said Elliot Lee, a second-year comparative
literature student.
Regardless of either opinion, UCLA’s residential
restaurants are among the top 10 university dining services in the
nation, with visitors coming in from throughout the country to see
what UCLA residential restaurants do and take it back to their
institutions, Wilcots said.
“We’re only as good as the last meal we serve.
We’re only as good as the services we provide, and
that’s really important to us,” he said.