US colleges moving to retire cafeteria trays (might help keep off those unhealthy pounds...)

[The Straight Story]

US colleges moving to retire cafeteria trays

By JOHN RABY – Aug 25, 2008

GLENVILLE, W.Va. (AP) — Crammed on middle linebacker Derek Walker's plate are beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, spinach and a roll.

In the other hand, he balances a salad and a bottle of hot sauce. He lumbers through the small, tabled-filled cafeteria and plunks down without spilling a drop.

All without a tray.

"You've just got to do with what you have," Walker said.

...

Advocates of the trayless cafeterias say if students can't pile on the food as Bluto did, they might consume fewer calories and keep off those unhealthy pounds often gained in college.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5ilbPBdZ6DmQzsBL8Rbqr-5DJHk7AD92P939O0

[valerief]

1. they just don't want to wash the trays.

[rzemanfl]

2. Trust me, they will spend more time washing the floors than they

did washing the trays.

[MorningGlow]

3. NNNnnoooooOOOoo

What will they use to go sledding?!

[Berry Cool]

8. That was my first thought!

They're going to end the time-honored tradition of college students sledding on trays they boosted from the cafeteria? Perish the thought!

(I did acquire a college cafeteria tray to sled on, but in a semi-honest way: I got permission to bring dinner up to a sick friend on my dorm floor one night and sorta kinda forgot to return the tray they gave us.)

[MorningGlow]

10. Did you have dish, utensil, and tray amnesty at the end of the year?

Our cafeteria had something like three days in May where you could return any trays et al. that had--ahem--sprouted legs and wandered to your dorm room. The amnesty box was usually quite full on those days, but many of the trays were blasted to splinters from some impressive wipeouts.
:rofl:

[Berry Cool]

11. No, but in high school after we went to Senior Breakfast at the local Perkins,

the Perkins employees boarded the bus after we got back on and asked everyone who had taken something from the restaurant to please turn it over.

They collected enough silverware to outfit several newlyweds setting up their first home with place settings for twelve.

I was horrified to learn that my best friend had a cream pitcher. I believe there were also sugar containers and salt and pepper shakers.

Me? I was too good to take anything. O8)

[MorningGlow]

12. LOL!

We always went to Perkins after proms but it never occurred to me to take anything! Zoinks!

Although...Mr. MG has a metal cream pitcher he stole from a restaurant many years ago, before we met. It's still around here somewhere, a trophy to the stupidity of youth!

[SmokingJacket]

4. How do you take out your meal card when you have a plate in one hand

and a glass of water in the other?

[DS1]

5. If you're phsyically able otherwise, you shouldn't be in college if you can't do that

[KG]

6. dear god! is nothing sacred?

[Raine]

7. So everyone

is supposed to balance a hot plate, silverware and a drink plus books, purses etc. in their two hands :wtf: that makes lots of sense....NOT! :silly:

[dysfunctional press]

9. b.y.o.t.- bring your own tray.

problem solved.

[Rhythm]

13. WVU started doing this in the dorm caf's, and also in the 'cafeteria style' restaurant

in the student union, but in that location, it's only during 'breakfast' hours. Lunch and dinner hours they still use the trays.

They claim it's to save energy costs from washing all those trays, but there's a secondary, more subtle 'savings' that they're taking advantage of: breakfast hours are an a.y.c.e. (but one trip only) buffet, and there is simply only so much you can carry if you don't have a tray to stack dishes upon.

If all they cared about was saving energy, they'd discontinue the trays during meals where you get charged separately for everything.

If they did that, i might believe them.
Now... not so much.

[yodoobo]

14. Good to see our institutions of higher learning are solving the most pressing problems of mankind

Now I can take pride that my children will never have to face the evils of cafeteria trays.

[marmar]

15. I had the reverse freshman 15 effect when I started college.....

..... all that gross bland starchy crap caused me to lose 15 pounds.