By Hannah Gordon
News Assignment Editor
You’ve had a long, stressful day of classes and meetings. You stop by Hickey to grab some dinner before heading to the library for a night of homework and studying. Right before you leave, you decide to grab a snack for the road, but you’re allergic to gluten, so you have to go to the gluten-free station. You reach the counter where the cookies normally are only to see a plate full of crumbs.
Disheartening, isn’t it?
There are many St. Bonaventure students who have a gluten allergy or follow a gluten-free lifestyle, and, of course, this restricts what they can eat in Hickey. Sometimes us gluten-free people just want a cookie or a snack bar to get us through our next class or to curb that sugar craving. As the day goes on, the gluten-free snack stash diminishes quickly. Does that mean ARMARK needs to supply an endless amount of gluten-free snacks? No. This one is all on the students.
Countless times a day, I watch my fellow students eat pizza, pasta, bread, and cereal and then chow down on gluten-free cookies instead of the regular cookies. Whenever I ask why they chose to do that, the usual response is “The gluten-free cookies are softer than the normal ones” or “They just taste better.”
Considering the plates of cookies, cakes, and various desserts that non-gluten free students can indulge in, this is like a banker stealing a poor kid’s only quarter because it’s shinier than the ones in his vault.
When I was in the pasta line, the girl in front of me asked for gluten-free pasta. When the chef replied that they were all out, but could cook some up if the girl wanted to wait, the girl said, “No, that’s fine. I’ll just take the wheat pasta.” If she followed a gluten-free lifestyle, the girl could have just gotten her vegetables cooked at the pasta station and added rice. I watched the same girl eat gluten-free cookies after she finished her whole-wheat pasta.
If you aren’t allergic to gluten, but follow a gluten-free lifestyle, more power to you. I’m not putting those people down by any means. But if you eat gluten, and then decide to eat gluten-free cookies, please stop. I’m not the only one who doesn’t appreciate it.
Sabine Wakim, a sophomore international studies of the Middle East and philosophy major, has a gluten allergy as well.
“I found out last year that I had developed a dangerous allergy to gluten and was super excited when they started offering items in the Hickey, mostly because the ones at the store are very expensive, and I can’t prepare a lot of things while I am in school,” Wakim said.
Wakim’s dorm is “gluten-free” because her roommate follows a gluten-free lifestyle as well. However, she finds herself disappointed in Hickey when she can’t even get a snack.
“It’s really disheartening to see tables of dessert I cannot eat and then look at the plate of dessert I can eat and find none available because someone decided they wanted ones that they thought looked nicer,” Sabine said. “It is frustrating and it makes life a lot more difficult, especially because it’s not as if we have an entire table full of options.”
If you don’t follow a gluten-free lifestyle, and you think eating gluten-free cookies is the healthier option, you’re still eating sugar and all the calories that go with a cookie. They’re just made with rice flour instead of wheat flour, so people with allergies don’t get sick.
If you really just want a softer cookie, why don’t you dunk your cookie in some milk? I learned to do that when I was 5 and eating rock-hard Chips Ahoy!
Hannah Gordon is the news assignment editor for The Bona Venture. Her email is gordonhr13@bonaventure.edu
