Tray Chic: From Fro-Yo to Frisée
Upgrading college nutrition, one dining hall at a time.
over shiitake quiche and fresh carrot juice, Tim Galarneau describes how he has set his sights on that all-American bastion of bad food: the college cafeteria. The ponytailed, slightly potbellied 29-year-old is a cofounder of the Real Food Challenge, a national campaign to convince 1,000 universities and colleges to buy 20 percent of their food from sustainable sources by 2020. He envisions a day when mystery meat and other institutional staples will be replaced by "real food," like "a grab-and-go organic regional salad or an organic cookie."
As the Alice Waters of a burgeoning movement of campus foodies, Galarneau talks earnestly about "food systems" and "avenues of privilege" and casually name-drops Wendell Berry and Vandana Shiva. At a brunch with other dining-hall activists, Galarneau recounts his earlier life as a soda-chugging fast-food junkie growing up in upstate New York. When he was 10, he tried tri-tip beef at his uncle's ranch on California's Central Coast. "I just remember all those flavors exploding in my mouth that evening and wondering, What is this? Is this meat, even?" he recalls. "I realized there was something more to food than what I grew up with." When he was 19, he worked on the ranch and lost 60 pounds. ("It's the total opposite of the freshman 15!" observes a brunchmate.)
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In 2002, Galarneau enrolled at the University of California-Santa Cruz and joined Students for Organic Solutions. After the food-service contractor balked at the idea of going organic, students marched on the chancellor's office, and the school decided to bring its dining services in-house and gradually go all organic. Last year, about one-quarter of its produce was organic. The school has offset its higher food costs in part by ditching cafeteria trays; Galarneau calculates that making diners take a few extra trips for plates and silverware means annually saving up to $500,000 that once went to washing and replacing trays.
Other schools are also changing their meal plans: Some 150 buy locally grown food, including big schools like the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Stanford gets at least a tenth of its produce through a local program that trains farmworkers as organic farmers. The 10-campus University of California system is considering going 20 percent local and organic by 2020.
Galarneau's also looking beyond the quad, trying to infuse some new blood into food-advocacy groups that have traditionally catered to older, more affluent eaters. Josh Viertel, the 31-year-old president of Slow Food usa and a former campus food activist, says young people are now his movement's fastest-growing demographic. "It's just this incredible outpouring of energy to do the right thing," he says.
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I think it's good that institutions are 'going local', but beyond that, if you're an adult, which presumably you are about the time you hit college, well, if you can't peel a potato or run the can opener by then, well, sucks to be you, I guess. I think cafeterias at schools/colleges should focus on being low-cost, and having things like soups, chili, spaghetti, something like that, along with a salad bar, and fresh fruit, and maybe some oatmeal cookies or something, but keep it 'bare bones', because the whole purpose of your spending that 8 hours in the place is to promote educationers, not cater to some politically correct epicurean standard.
If you want to improve your diet, 'get your greens'. Collard greens, green beans, peas, spinach, and salad. Lots n lots of green. Be Tiger Woods at the dinner table, there.(Romaine's pretty level, breaks to the right just before the chopped radishes).
Better yet, get the students EMPLOYED helping to feed everyone else. Kind of like the Army with KP's, but no uniforms and no marching up and down the square with the ser-geant MA-jor! Even grow vegetables on-campus. They just put down a garden in back of the White House, and the more people that learn how to do that/get started doing that cross-country, the sooner we'll have less Whiny Trade Agreement stuff to contend with etc. Just a thought.
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Submitted by shannon on Sun Mar. 29, 2009 6:41 PM PDT.
While I respect what Galarneau is trying to do. His timing could be better.
Right now Americans just want cheap and easy.
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http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/business/2009/march/Is-the-Recession...
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I think that college students need to be allowed to make their own food. Many universities carry a mandatory meal plan that gives students no choice but to eat the food they're served, no matter where it came from. There's plenty of students out there who could make better food than the cafeteria - and for cheaper.
we need...
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QUOTE: ""It's just this incredible outpouring of energy to do the right thing..." Not a bad idea for an active man. His being so resourceful will surely pay-off. We need people like this who finds time to correct the error and somehow make corrections for the betterment of everybody.
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