Modest Proposal: Feed Students Monkey Food

At colleges across the nation, an oft heard complaint is the depraved nutritional status of dining hall food. The “healthy” options are so often prepared as to be nearly inedible, uncooked and too dry, leaving the relatively unhealthier options to be what can be swallowed without triggering gag reflex. Food is often left out for concerning durations. Sometimes the stars align for acceptable quality, but costs prohibit this from happening every day.

While students can cook food in their own dorms, dining fees are sometimes a required part of the tuition, and students are often busy or lazy. Barring these factors from changing (and they won’t), I have a modest proposal: Replace college dining hall food with the “nutritionally complete” monkey chow used in zoos.

An example is the famous Mazuri Primate Growth & Repro Biscuit, used by frugal weightlifters and as an inexpensive fuel for employees at early stage startups.

Benefits include:

• High protein content (20% by weight)
• Easy to eat (can be blended)
• Intersects with few common allergies or dietary intolerances
• Fits religious restrictions like kosher, hallal, or vegetarian and vegan diets
• Additionally, extraordinarily cheap protein, on par with cat food

I will take a moment to discuss the moral imperative of feeding college students monkey food.

The “Freshman Fifteen” is a slang term used to refer to students losing fifteen pounds due to the low quality of dining hall food, or alternatively gaining weight due to alchohol consumption, but because alchohol is illegal on college campuses and most freshman are around 18 years of age and can't drink, this is probably an exagerrated factor. Due to my college's low quality food, I personally suffered low energy and a depleted mood due to alarming blood sugar levels during my first term at college, losing close to twenty pounds from an initially healthy weight, though I didn’t identify this nutrition issue until I started weighing everything I ate with a kitchen scale and covered up my calorie deficit with peanut butter. However, had my college supported us with monkey food, I may have experienced the benefits of fine dining, and I believe I could have had a better experience. Instead, I decided to transfer out of the college to eat in peace with my cat at home.