Out of all the things in this world that make me happy, good food is near the top of the list. Growing up, good food was a constant and I was never forced to eat a sloppy Joe or Hamburger Helper. In fact, I was socialized into eating healthy from a young age. With this habit and my enjoyment of good food, some of you might understand where I am coming from when I say that I am sick and tired of eating in this town.

Lafayette and West Lafayette are plagued with chain restaurants and I, for one, am disgusted with eating at them. So why is it that we don’t have more ethnic, diverse or healthy choices? Why must most of our choices for restaurants to dine in be those that serve low-grade meat and five pounds of grease per meal? It makes me wonder what will come first, the completion of my degree or clogged arteries?

My hopes for new and interesting places to be established in this community are dismal due to my belief that Purdue students and the general community would not give enough support for these restaurants to stay afloat.

Take It's a Wrap, for example. I don't believe that this particular restaurant was open for more than a semester before it closed down and moved out. The only reason that makes sense to me as to why someone would invest in remodeling a building into a restaurant, only to close it down in a matter of months, is because the owners were losing money.

Is this destined to be the fate of the newest ethnically diverse restaurant, Bombay's? Only time will tell. Of course there is The Parthenon in the Village and Café Mocha, which have been around for a significant amount of time and are both different from other chain-type places. But what percentage of students on campus has actually gone into these places?

What I have to conclude and am forced to accept is that Purdue is a school that attracts specific types of students, and this type of student body affects the success of non-mainstream businesses.

Known internationally for our engineering, science, aviation and technology, we are not a university that attracts a large number of liberal arts students. Equally, this campus is not heavily populated with students who have a propensity to explore themselves and remain philosophically open to the world around them.

Students are often here with set goals and purposes, and these are to get their science-related degrees and get out — not to experiment in the arts, theater or cuisine. Purdue is not a liberal arts school, though I myself am here for a liberal arts degree.

So, unfortunately, for myself and others like me, we have to deal with the mundane — in both food and society — for the duration of our education.

Then we can hopefully move on to bigger cities where wide arrays of cafés, sushi bars and healthy fast food joints line the streets. More importantly, society is guaranteed to be as diverse as the restaurants, which will certainly quell both of my lingering hungers.

Diversity never hurt anyone, and I wish that there could be more here. But with the circumstances as they are, the cultural mix and flavor of places such as Chicago, Philadelphia, D.C. or even Bloomington will not be found here.