Farm Fresh Food Comes to CCNY

Students got access to healthy food that won’t go to "waist" by Alison Gregory

 On Thursday April 25th, students may have been surprised to see a different array of foods as they walked through the North Academic Center quad. It was only fitting that during a day that finally felt like spring, a farmer’s market would sprout up on campus.As a nice change from the not-so-healthy food students normally find in the NAC cafeteria, the market sold asparagus, squash, and cherry tomatoes in addition to other healthy options. Lance Gaiser, a senior at Johnson & Whales University, said he wanted to make buying fruits and vegetables easy for students. “The biggest challenge in promoting healthier eating has to do with what’s easy to get,” said Gaiser, who is studying culinary arts and food service management and will intern this summer with Metropolitan Food Service, CCNY's provider.  “What they do here is try to promote as many healthy options as possible.”Grad student Tarek Arafat agrees. "If you’re going up to the cafeteria and you’re looking at pizza and there’s a little bit of fruit salad in that one bowl, you’re not going to choose it,” he said.

Healthier food is usually more difficult to find with the endless amount of junk food on every corner of New York City, and organic options are usually scarce and more expensive when you can find them. That's why students like Arafat appreciated CCNY's Thursday farmer's market and others like them.

“These things are all over New York, like in Union Square," said Arafat, who is studying sustainability. "You need to see it sometimes to be reminded, and you need accessibility.”