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Students who enter dining halls hoping to get a fresh green salad may end up getting a little more protein than they bargained for.

Some dorm residents have found bugs among the green leaves on their plates.

“I was really disgusted because I almost ate it, only my roommate saw it and told me before I did,” said first-year undeclared student Deborah Smith.

However, residential dining administrators say that this is not a common occurrence in the 85,000 to 90,000 meals that are served weekly, due to the care used when preparing salads and other foods in the residential restaurants.

“It would be extremely rare. We certainly don’t want it to happen,” said Connie Foster, associate director of residential dining.

The lettuce is washed three separate times with water and vinegar in the central commissary of the restaurant in De Neve, and is spun the last time to avoid any occasion of insects entering the salad during preparation.

“This is an extremely serious issue for us. If we were handling food inadequately, there could be food-borne illnesses. We take our business very seriously,” said Assistant Director of Residential Dining Charles Wilcots.

Residential dining administrators attribute the few occurrences not to the preparation of the salad, but to the fact that the doors to the dining halls are constantly opened by students entering and leaving.

“A bug could fly in and land in the salad through an open door, but we’re very careful not to let it happen,” Foster said.

Still, no matter how much care is used, sometimes an insect or two manages to end up in the salads students pick up.

“I found a ladybug in my salad once. I took it to (the dining hall workers), but they didn’t really do anything about it. They just said they were sorry and took my bowl. I still eat the salad in the dining halls, but I check it more carefully now,” said second-year English student Janet Lee.

Other students feel uncomfortable eating the salads after finding an insect in them.

“I never eat the salad anymore. Just seeing the bug in it made me feel like they didn’t clean the lettuce enough,” Smith said.

However, there are students who do not let it bother them, saying this is not unique to UCLA.

“I don’t think it’s that big a deal, since things like this could happen in almost any other food place you go to anyway,” said Elliot Lee, a second-year comparative literature student.

Regardless of either opinion, UCLA’s residential restaurants are among the top 10 university dining services in the nation, with visitors coming in from throughout the country to see what UCLA residential restaurants do and take it back to their institutions, Wilcots said.

“We’re only as good as the last meal we serve. We’re only as good as the services we provide, and that’s really important to us,” he said.