Sounds pretty glorious, right? Especially when you are a busy college student with little access to the 30-minute away Walmart that would otherwise provide your sustenance. Plus, they celebrate diversity with some great international foods whenever they can!
However, when you’re living with Crohn’s at college, or any digestive-tract disease, having meals made for you can mean queasiness among other discomforts. Although our Hiram Dining Hall makes enormous amounts of effort to fulfill dietary needs, there is still only one choice on campus. This means that we have about three options for lunch and supper (plus make-your-own options like the salad bar or lunch meat station) and then typical breakfast foods for breakfast. However, living with Crohn’s can mean that dairy, certain sugars, and sausage skins all can make you sick if taken in too much. Spicy foods also often don’t agree with me. Here is a guide to common diet issues and suggestions for those with Crohn’s: http://www.ebnutrition.com/?pID=35 .
After those foods are subtracted, there is typically one or two options around the hall and then the salad and sandwich bars. This doesn’t seem to bad, but if I am being picky, like any college student, I probably won’t like one or two of the options accroding to my own pallet. This leaves me with one or no options. Breakfast often leaves me with fruit or bread with jam. Yay.
This is not the fault of the Dining Hall. They would make me food, should I ask. However, this just provides some larger hurdles that I have to jump over, especially if I am late to class or another meeting.
I know I have mentioned before that Crohn’s makes one malnourished. If one does not eat every few hours, one will become increasingly hungry, and painfully hungry after a few more hours. Most of the time, one will even grow faint quickly. Now, with a Dining Hall, there are typically certain hours that the hall is open. Therefore, stocking up on food for your dorm room is a MUST.
My point here is: If you want to live on Campus with any kind of digestive disease, it is wise to have a wonderful relationship with your cooking staff and, if you can, make your own food. If you can find a school with multiple options, that is also helpful. Here at Hiram, we have a Bistro that we get some money towards out of our meal plan. That place has helped me on multiple occasions.
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