A Free Food Veteran: Two Years Without a Meal Plan

I was amused in reading the article “My Week Eating Only Free Food at Princeton,” as I happen to be an expert on that topic — admittedly before COVID. Like any sedulous Princetonian should, I did my research before I started and even spent a semester with “training wheels”: a meal plan combined with free food. When I started for real, I went two years without needing to pay for food, rearrange my schedule, or stash leftovers in my room. And though I’m not a gourmand by any means, my average meal at Princeton was of higher quality than the average meal for any other year of my life.

I’ll admit I was also motivated by the food that gets thrown away. I’ve never been able to waste food, finishing my plate every time for as long as I can remember, and it makes me sad when perfectly good food goes to waste. When there was an extreme excess of food in a faraway location, I sometimes made a point of going there and bringing as much of it as I could back to Frist to redistribute there. My little way of trying to help the planet.