Letters to the Editor: Hey, UCLA, why not feed your food-insecure students like your football players?

To the editor: According to your article, UCLA football players are enjoying flat-iron steak, sweet potato hash, pork chops and red snapper at a cost of $5.4 million a year. Sam Kavarsky, the football program’s former director of performance nutrition, said that “players had not been eating the right foods to maximize their potential.”

I feel a need to remind UCLA that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of students who are food insecure. Reports in the L.A. Times and elsewhere have stated that students survive on $1 tacos from Taco Bell or microwave soup set aside for food-insecure students.

These students, mostly from low-income families, have few food resources as they struggle to attend classes on one of the most stellar university campuses in the United States. If you want to see what inequality looks like, just walk across the campus from the new $65-million Wasserman Football Center to the classrooms where these “regular” students struggle.

When the pandemic restrictions ease and students return to campus, I sincerely hope the school’s administration finds a way to pour more resources into accessible, affordable food for all the students on campus. Perhaps, with enough food, all students can “maximize their potential.”

Wrennie Landau, Culver City

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To the editor: Tuition at all University of California campuses is more than burdensome. As much money as possible should be allocated to providing financial assistance to those in need.

However, UCLA is spending (more like squandering) millions of dollars per year on gourmet meals for its football team. I say let them eat cake.

Mel Frohman, Los Angeles

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To the editor: Among the menu items for UCLA football players are guajillo chili chicken, coffee-braised brisket and pork chops smothered in candied apples and onions. Can the Los Angeles Times Food section get me the recipes?

Carol Neideffer, Fullerton