Food Choices = Health Choices

In Guangzhou, where organizations such as MeiTuan and ELeMa make food delivery so efficient, it has become a habit for even students like us to order food. MeiTuan is a multipurpose company that started in 2010, that covers services such as hotel and flight booking,  but is most famous for its MeiTuan Delivery, which is a separate application, website and is even embedded in WeChat. Having a collaboration with WeChat simply proves the popularity of this organization. The reason behind this popularity is not simply because customers can order take-out for almost all restaurants, but is also because customers can pay through WeChat pay and Alipay, two of most famous digital payment methods.

Why are fast-food delivery companies mentioned in this article about food choices? As more of these organizations are created and developed, an increasing amount of people order restaurant food instead of choosing to cook for themselves. The problem with this decision is that most restaurants or fast-food places add chemicals such as sodium and different MSGs (Monosodium Glutamate) to make their food taste better. MSGs are scientifically proven to have more negative effects on one’s body than positive effects. Symptoms of MSG “overload” include: chest pain, runny nose and diarrhea (Healthy Holistic Living). According to TIME magazine, eating meals from smaller, independent restaurants may sometimes be even less healthy than eating fast food.

Additionally, since AISG students are now not allowed to order delivery (such as bubble tea and KFC), we are asked to eat food provided by Sodexo. My question is: is food from the cafeteria and café our healthiest option? To answer this question and find out students’ opinion on delivery food, I interviewed various students. Sodexo has never publicly announced or advertised their nutrition labels or the origin of their ingredients. Although there is not a law about having nutrition labels in restaurants or on menus, I believe that having them for our cafeteria and café would give relief to parents, teachers and students alike when eating the food.

Michelle Z., a senior and a citizen of Guangzhou for over 10 years, pointed out that the food delivery industry is developing at such a fast rate is useful to her. She commented: “I order delivery a lot through MeiTuan simply because I am too lazy to go out and get food by myself. Additionally, there is a variety of types of food you can get through these organizations ranging from Thai food to Korean food, which encourages  me to order delivery as well.”

When I asked Michelle C., a senior at AISG who eats school lunch most of the time, about whether she thought school food is healthy or not, she replied, “In my opinion, Sodexo’s lunch isn’t exactly healthy… the food is often deep fried with oil and is often salty.” She has a point—although Sodexo does a good job offering a variety of foods,  many are fried in oil, such as french fries, deep fried fish, and fried vegetables. The amount of oil you can see in the fried vegetables is surprising. I realized that the plates are usually covered with yellow oil after a meal is finished.

I interviewed one of the Sodexo executive staff members for more information about food provided in our cafeteria. When a question about nutrient charts came out, she explained that although there is no nutrient chart provided, the color of the stickers on foods’ name tags signals the “health” levels. Green, yellow and red are the three colors/levels of healthiness, with green being “most healthy” to red being “not-so healthy.” These levels are determined through the amount of vegetables and oil, and whether the food comes with sauce or not. For example, fried pork cutlet would have a yellow or red sticker on the name tag, whereas healthier custom sandwiches with vegetables would have green stickers. Additionally, I asked about one of the most popular complaints of our school food: the price. In reply to this question, she noted that the price was set after having meetings with our school representatives, and also with the consideration of the ingredients of the specific cuisine. 

The purpose of this article is not to complain about Sodexo, but to comment on  the health choices of students of our community. Sodexo, like the world at large, offers a range of options to students. It is up to us to think deliberately about what we put into our bodies.