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August 10, 2012 10:00 AM
The No Pork Campus
It’s not for religious reasons. It’s really just because the college president thinks it’s a good idea. According to a statement issued Tuesday by Paul Quinn College, a historically black school in Dallas, Texas:
Eating pork can lead to high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cancer, sodium retention and heart problems, not to mention weight gain and obesity. Therefore, as a part of our continued effort to improve the lives and health of our students, Paul Quinn College and its food service partner Perkins Management have collaborated to create a pork-free cafeteria. From this semester forward PQC will no longer serve dishes containing pork. That applause you hear in the background is the blood pressure of our students, faculty and staff.
Michael Sorrell, Paul Quinn’s president, has been on a campaign to improve the health of students since he took office in 2007. He purchases new fitness equipment for the school gym and has turned the school decrepit football stadium into an organic garden.
He was apparently particularly irritated by the abundance of ranch dressing on campus food. As he explained,
It just was typical choices that you would see made by folks who weren’t creative enough to manage the economic constraints with the need to create healthy options. I mean, we were no different than many other small colleges that service students from underrepresented communities.
Still, why pork in particular? Why not trans-fat? Why that one thing? Soft drinks? Tobacco? Alcohol? Are these things still allowed on campus? [Image via]
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Sgt. Gym Bunny on August 10, 2012 1:45 PM:
Hmmm... No pork at historically black college in Texas (of all places)... That's so--hmmmm, let me think--so 1990s!!! Way back when the pro-black thing was to not eat pork.
Anywho, I guess it's a kinda-sorta commendable, albeit narrow, way to approach a health issue that plagues black people especially. If I don't know my Mama, southern black people are quick to throw a ham hock even in the vegetable pot (for flavor). But unless there's a Phase 2 to get rid of the deep fryers and all the salt shakers, I don't really understand his hostility towards the Other White Meat in particular.
(Being that I no longer live in the pork-abundant Dirty South in general and at my mother's house in particular, I actually enjoy pork every now and then, especially a nice grilled pork chop. YUMMY!!!!)