lewpoints EDITOR JARED GNAM THE VOICE, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2011 6 Dig deeper and find cheap eats v’s amazing how many students siaceny think eating ona budget means making mundane choices like cheap, greasy pizza slices, ichiban noodles and junk from a fast food or chain restaurant. For many students, it is almost expected that they eat nothing but garbage. Cheap food, however, does not necessarily have to equal bad food. It is astonishing just how unimagi- native many people’s food choices can be. This is not exclusive to students, but seems to be more common with people on tight budgets. It’s time to take a look around at what the grocery store or the city has to offer. It is possible to make good choices at your local market while sticking to a budget. Just Googling “cheap good recipes” brings up countless websites, such as cheapcooking.com, which has recipes such as cheese soufflé and maple Dijon chicken, using simple, inexpensive ingredi- ents. Grocery shopping shouldn’t involve loading a basket with the pre-packaged food and frozen dinners week after week. But sometimes you’re in a rush and it’s necessary to eat out. It is mind-boggling how so many stu- dents fall into the Earls or Cactus Club trap, thinking that’s all they can afford. These places are not only unoriginal, they are also not cheap. Why don’t more students go to surprisingly affordable places like Sanafir, a well-reviewed restaurant on Granville Street downtown? What would be better: tasteless Earls fettuccini for $17.95, or tuna confit crostini with olive tapenade at Sanafir for $6.95 ($3.48 on half-price Tuesdays)? And yet, students will often end up at one of the humdrum chains just because they think that’s all they can afford. Yawn. So put down the Big Mac and look around the grocery store. It’s time for something new and possibly cheaper than what you’ve been paying for hamburgers or frozen dinners. Life’s too short to eat uninteresting junk just because money is tight. iS. OPINION Emma Crawford We want to hear from you Did we get a fact wrong? Tell us. Cot a different point of view? Write to us. Problems with something we've said? Let us know. Journalism instructor Nicholas Read oversees The Voice. Email him at nread@langara.be.ca Energy drink restrictions won't give you W ne of many new federal regulations on energy drinks will require manufacturers to label their products with nutritional information and regulate the caffeine content to 180 milli- grams, something the Ministry of Health hopes will encourage people to consume less caffeine. But will this absurd plan work in encouraging people to cut back, especially people like students who rely on caffeinated beverages for their scholarly success? Absolutely not. For the last year, an expert panel put together by Health Canada assessed energy drinks being stocked on supermarket and convenience store shelves across Canada. The panel lead by pediatrician Noni MacDonald from Dalhousie University came up with recommen- dations to the Federal Health Minister, Leona Aglukkaq. Among the recommendations by the panel, the most ridiculous that MacDonald hoped to see put in place was that energy drinks would become only available in pharmacies as “stimulant drug containing drinks.” To put this in perspective, Vancouver Sun reporter Sarah Schmidt com- pared caffeine content in three beverages with coffee in a recent article. “A tall cup of brewed coffee at Starbucks contains more caffeine (260 mg) than the caffeine in a standard can of Red Bull (80 mg) or the AMP Alert energy drink (158 mg). A can of cola contains 44.94 mg of caffeine,” Schmidt wrote. So what’s next, then? OPINION Devon MacKenzie iitiings! ENERGY DRINKS} If energy drinks contain the same amount of caffeine or less as coffee, is the Health Canada expert panel going to recommend that every coffee shop across Canada is regulated on how they sell coffee or who they sell it to? Doubtful. Many people, especially students rely on caffeine to help them through the day. To justify one type of caffeine be put under separate legislation than another is complete- ly ridiculous. Things like requiring manufactur- ers to label drinks with nutritional information makes sense to an extent, but selling energy drinks in a pharmacy as an over the counter “stimulant drug containing drink” is stupidity. Tuition costs keep climbing, but college grads earning less ast week, Statistics Canada [ses an employment report ith promising numbers. Even with more than a year of stagnation, it found that employment in B.C. rose by a whopping 32,000 between August and September. How big are those numbers? Enough for economists to tell us they’re inconsistent with recent trends and are more than likely a sampling error. While there was likely some job growth, the numbers just aren’t realistic. The recession is not miraculously over. Tuition is climbing and students are competing for a limited job market like never before. Can we ensure that young adults will continue to value post-secondary education? According to Statistics Canada, 39 per cent of Canadians aged 25-64 had a college diploma or university degree in 1999. Ten years later that number was 50 per cent. As we all try to keep up with one another in filling up the education section of our resumes, our degrees become collectively less valuable, but no less expensive. In 2010-2011, Langara students averaged $2,498 in tuition, a number rising by two per cent yearly. For most, it’s a worthwhile investment, but not for the one in five graduates who earn less than $20,000 yearly, almost half the country’s median income. At some point, students are going to start looking at this problem pragmatically, and decide that an education may not be worth their time and money. OPINION Matt Hyndman Maybe it’s better to just start a career four years earlier. So the question is, are things going to get better anytime soon? Or should we all just drop our lofty goals and race out and set out on a career that pays well but doesn’t require a university educa- tion? It is a truly upsetting thought to imagine someone choosing to forgo an education simply because they don’t see it as financially worth- while. There are two ways of approach- ing this issue. Either we need to invest more in the creation of these kinds of jobs, or we need to shoulder more of the tuition costs for stu- dents. If nothing is done, we’ll have more and more people who are left struggling to pay off student-loan debts with their minuscule salary, or who simply give up on post-second- ary education. the \aias The Voice is published by Langara College's journalism department. Editorial opinions are those of the staff and are independent of views of the student government and administration. We welcome letters to the editor. All letters must be signed. They may be edited for brevity. Names may be withheld in special cases, but your letter must include your name and phone number. HOW TO REACH US PHONE 604-323-5396 FAX 604-323-5398 E-MAIL thevoice@langara.be.ca DROP-IN Room A226 Langara College There is a mailbox at the entrance to the journalism rooms. SNAIL MAIL The Voice 100 West 49th Ave. Vancouver, B.C. VSY 226 WEBSITE wwwlangara.bc.ca/voice EDITORIAL STAFF THIS ISSUE: MANAGING EDITOR/ PAGE 6 Jared Gnam PAGE EDITORS PAGE 1 Derek Bedry PAGE 2 Brittany Lee PAGE 3 Khethiwe Rudd PAGE 4/5 Leah Goebel PAGE 7 Anne Watson PAGE 8 Celina Albany MANAGING WEB EDITOR Natalie Cameron WEB EDITORS Kyla Jonas Jesse Winter REPORTERS Moma Cassidy Lynda Chapple Emma Crawford Jennnifer Fong Shawn Gill Alexandra Grant Alanna Hardinge-Rooney Matt Hyndman Patrick Johnston Ruman Kang Devon MacKenzie Daniel Palmer Jen St. Denis Carly Wignes Martin Wissmath Contact us: Our blog at www.langaravoice. posterous.com Twitter at @LangaraVoice Youtube at VoiceLangara flickr at Langara Voice