Monday, March 3, 2008

Eating ‘Fresh’ on campus

TUCSON, Ariz. – Although healthy eating has certainly become easier since I arrived on campus in the fall of 2004, that trend actually started when I first came to school.

That’s when IQ Fresh replaced Louie’s, a Philly cheese steak restaurant, in the corner of the main Student Union.

That change seemed to symbolize the start of a philosophical shift for the Union, replacing cheese steaks and greasy fries with healthy wraps.

IQ Fresh has become a bastion of healthiness amongst the Chick-fil-A’s, Burger King’s, Papa John’s and Panda Express’ that surround the restaurant specializing in wraps, salads and signature smoothies. And IQ hasn’t even forgotten its roots, with a Philly cheese steak wrap on its menu.

The switch from IQ Fresh to Louie’s serves as another example of students being able to seek healthier alternatives while eating on campus.

David Galbraith, the Assistant Director of Arizona Student Unions, said Louie’s was “almost an institution” it was so popular in the old Union, which made way for the Student Union Memorial Center in 2003.

“It was massively successful at the old building, but we shut it down and the students changed,” he said. “It only lasted one year. We shut it down and said we got the message. They’d had enough.”

So Union officials developed a menu and logistics for IQ and sent it over to Prof. Jackson Boelts’ class, the same class from which Acacia Betancourt designed Core.

Galbraith said the reaction has been very positive, with IQ making about three times as many smoothies now, around 1,000 per day, as it did when it first opened.

He added the menu could use a little tweaking, but overall the reaction has been positive.

Four years later, IQ has become as much a staple of the Union as places like Panda and Chick-fil-A, with lines snaking around of students hoping to grab a healthy wrap or a refreshing smoothie.

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