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When my grandfather was a student at the university in the 1950s, all of the students ate their meals together in South Dining Hall at the same time: Three meals a day alongside the staff, who ate at the elevated “Jesus Table” at the end of the hall. I like to imagine they prayed over their food altogether, and I can almost hear the sound of hundreds of voices in unison saying “Bless us, oh Lord...”

Today, in 2024, that way of eating seems archaic and rigid. Here, the student dining experience is each person's own invention. Both dining halls cater to countless diets and are open most hours of the day during the week, as are the many restaurants on campus that offer take-out meal options. For the most part, we get to eat when and what we want. Increasingly, it seems, students are opting for take-out meals from the on-campus restaurants so that they can hole up and get something done on their computer while chomping their Chick-fil-A sandwich. Taking a break is an option, not a necessity. I walk through Duncan Student Center, and many people are on their phones or computers while eating their meals, even if they have company. When it comes to food, efficiency and time-saving have become increasingly popular. People have the choice to focus on school work, Instagram reels or responding to emails instead of a conversation with the person sitting across from them. But I want us to ask: What are the costs? I believe that take-out culture is a detriment to our Notre Dame community and the individuals in it.

Let me ask you this — if there existed a pill that had all the nutrients you would need to live, and all you had to do was take one per day, would we opt to trade our meals for this time-saving, efficient, inexpensive way of consuming? Some of us might say yes, but I argue that eating communally is one of the few things that continue to ground us in our communities, and henceforth, our humanity.

According to scientists at Oxford University, eating in community is correlated with community satisfaction and overall life satisfaction. Our generation should be holding onto communal eating as a lifesaver. A repeated ritual reinforces values whenever the ritual is performed. Eating together vitalizes the social values of relationships, conversation and identity, and also the life-giving entity that is food. I fear that as a university, we are ignoring the reality to which take-out culture is taking us: a space where alienation and isolation are normal. Not only does take-out culture undermine the cultural significance of food as a shared community experience, but it is also dependent upon another equally, if not more, threatening beast: throw-away culture.

I asked Brittany Clark, the retail administrative assistant for the Duncan Student Center food services, about the number of customers that Chick-fil-A and Modern Market receive daily. Clark explained that on campus, Chick-fil-A puts out about 1,300-1,500 meals per day. If we assume that each “meal” equates to a person getting a drink and one sandwich in a takeaway bag, I estimate that over 109,000 pieces of single-use waste are thrown away every month — and Chick-fil-A isn’t even open on Sundays! Modern Market adds 700 more thrown-out plastic containers per day. That means that customers from these two food producers within 50 feet of each other in the same building are grabbing and tossing over 130,000 single-use items every month.

Do I need to explain why this is a problem? Our trash doesn’t just disappear. Our trash goes into the landfill. While take-out meals are being pumped out, the plastic from your meal from last week sits in the ground, turning into microplastics that break down into smaller and smaller pieces that infest our soil, water and land with carcinogenic chemicals. The ghosts of your milkshakes past haunt biodiversity and Earth life, sickening the soil. Throw-away culture irreversibly pollutes life. Destroys life. Destroys us.

Next time you move to open the Grubhub app, instead take a step towards the dining hall and call a friend to eat — find yourself moved by the ritual and towards more joy.