Food: Nourishing My Mind and Body

The beginning of college, among other things, is a festival of snap judgments. It’s not out of cattiness so much as a natural desire to put things into categories: all of a sudden, surrounded by hundreds of strangers your own age, you assign labels in order to make sense of the madness. There is Vegan Girl, Great Hair Girl, New-Outfit-Every-Day-Girl, Oregon Girl. You know what I’m talking about. Maybe one of these girls is you, even, and you spent your first week at Scripps making similar judgments to weed out potential friends from the pack.

By this standard, my first-month-of-school-label would have been a no brainer. I was the Girl Who Cries. More specifically, I was the emaciated girl who cried every night on the phone with her boyfriend, and avoided orientation activities like the plague. Sounds fun, no? When I think back to that time in my life, and the ocean of experiences that stands between Girl Who Cries and my current self, one change stands out most. I no longer eat in the dining hall.

Before I proceed, I want to issue a disclaimer: I have nothing against the Scripps dining hall. In comparison to other schools across the country, it presents a cornucopia of options suited to even the most persnickety of diets, and I doubt many students have had reactions as dramatic as mine was. All I know is that two weeks into eating college food, my digestive system was not a happy camper, and neither was I. While most freshmen were getting to know the nooks and crannies of campus, I became familiar with one building: the Student Health Center. For months, the doctors patiently listened to my slew of stomach complaints and issued a test—for irritable bowel syndrome, mono, sexually transmitted disease, you name it—and found me to be perfectly healthy in every case. By the time they ran the test for Celiacs Disease, or gluten intolerance, I actually crossed my fingers for a positive response. I wanted an answer. Anything.

As it turns out, the Celiacs test came out negative. However, during the weeks before the results came back, I tried a gluten-free diet—at that point, I would have eaten acorns if someone said it would help—and my dining hall experience took a turn for the challenging. Each trip to Malott was an exercise in patience as I attempted to sift out the non-contraband items from the abundance of wheat products. I know that efforts have recently been made to provide more gluten-free options; but when I was trying out the diet, I resigned myself to eating the same thing almost every day…salad, chicken, nuts, fruit. Salad, chicken, nuts, fruit. I swear if I had continued this way much longer, I would have turned into one of those Scripps chicken breasts; grill marks and all.

Then, in one serendipitous night, everything changed. On a whim, my friends and I journeyed down to a little house called the Claremont Co-op; and within two minutes of being there, I knew I had found my new home. Today, when I mention the Co-op to Scripps students, I usually get one of two reactions: either their eyes get big and I can tell they are picturing a bunch of naked hippies dancing around a fire, or they are dumbstruck. Claremont has a Co-op? The answer is yes; and though it does not function as rigidly as traditional cooperative living spaces, the Co-op represents a group of students who have come together over a common interest in sustainable living. The property is home to a fruit, vegetable, and herb garden, grey water system, compost pile, chicken coop, and yoga studio, and is maintained by mishmash of vegans, vegetarians, gluten-phobes, and everything in between. Best of all, everyone cooks together as much as possible, often with ingredients grown right outside. At a time in my life when it seemed I had no control over what I was putting into my body, discovering this place was a gulp of fresh air.

Fast-forward a few months—one doctor’s note, and quite a bit of finagling later—and I was moving into the Co-op. I was nervous to begin cooking for myself, and even more nervous that my digestive issues would persist; however, my worries took a backseat to the adjustment of living in new place. After all, I was fresh out of Scripps—land of über-cleanliness—and was accustomed to living with other women. I had no idea just how different it would be to live with a group of guys (read: many nights of falling into the toilet because the seat has been left up…again), or just how much work it takes to maintain the integrity of a home and garden. I had no idea how to budget a meal or how to shop for the best deals at the farmer’s market.

However, for every hour of that first month that I spent elbow-deep in compost—or frantically cleaning my room so it didn’t turn into a National Geographic special on insect habitats—I spent another hour sitting at the dining room table surrounded by fresh food and good company. Mealtime had turned into a ritual of community, local flavor, and consciousness: we picked out the food, prepared the food, and cleaned up afterward. No longer detached from my eating process or the ingredients involved in it, I felt better about my body than I had in years. And by the time I even thought to check in with the state my stomach problems, there was no longer any point. They were gone.

In the time since my freshman year, I have learned about growing fruits and vegetables, the magic of “local” and “seasonal,” and how to nourish my mind and body through the food I eat. For me, moving off-campus was a crucial step in getting there; however, I think anyone can achieve the same connectedness, dining hall or no dining hall.

It takes a conscious effort. First of all, ask yourself: do I know what I’m eating? Ask the person preparing your food where it came from, and under what circumstances it got to you. If that person doesn’t know the answer, and can’t find someone who does…there’s a good chance you shouldn’t be eating it. Read labels, even if they scare you. And if they really scare you, because half of the ingredients look like they are written in some alien language, choose something else. What you buy reflects what you care about. Second of all, reconnect with the community aspect of food. Eat with other people, take your time doing it, and appreciate it. Support local farmers by going to the farmer’s market—or in the dining hall, by eating food that is seasonal—and bridge the gap between you and your meal. After all, woman cannot survive on Scripps chocolate chip cookies alone…she must also have fresh, sun-ripened tomatoes in summer, crisp grapes in fall, and sweet persimmons in winter.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I still get lost when navigating a grocery store and believe there is a fine line between food awareness and food obsession; after all, without indulgence foods, the world would be a pretty cranky place. However, if I’ve learned anything, it’s that food is meant to be enjoyed—and the more you are acquainted with it, the more people you share it with, the better it feels.

There are some cases in life when you don’t need to know the truth, I, for one, am better off for not having heard my first-month-of-school label out of the mouth of anyone projecting it. But when it comes to food, ignorance is not bliss. When it comes to what is going into your body, knowledge is power, and it always will be.