Most Useful articles and Summaries:
Top 10 College Dining halls (Newsweek 2011 College Rankings)
1. Bowdoin College (Brunswick, Maine):
Their dining experience is more restaurant than cafeteria, and that’s why the campus’s food services boast so many awards. The school is small, but it manages to pack tons of meal options into only two dining halls; think sushi, mussels, and grilled organic tofu. “Bowdoin goes to the extreme to make sure students are not only well fed, but that they are eating good food and enjoying the meal experience,” says senior Emily Neilson. “I had some of their butternut squash soup recently, and it was like nirvana in my mouth.” Dining services get major sustainability points too—the salad bar features fruits and veggies from the campus’s own organic garden, and many other ingredients come from local providers.
2. Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, Va.)
They serve ribeye and whole lobster daily—and no, we’re not talking about the fancy restaurant downtown. In addition to the chop house options in Virginia Tech’s West End Market, VT students can find gourmet pizza cooked in wood-fired ovens at its Italian restaurant, or eat signature burgers
3. Cornell University (Ithaca, N.Y.)
Cornell has more than 30 on-campus dining locations, 10 of which are all-you-care-to-eat. There’s actually something for every student, from bubble tea to design-your-own omelet, stir-fry, and an award-winning vegetarian restaurant, Moosewood.
4. University of California, Los Angeles (Los Angeles)
And if you’re vegan, you’re in luck: UCLA won in peta2’s “large U.S. school” category for Most Vegan-Friendly College 2010.
5. St. Olaf College (Northfield, Minn.)
Locavores and organic lovers have a field day—literally—at St. Olaf. As with other schools on the list, St. Olaf’s student-run organic farm provides the herbs and vegetables. Whenever possible at St. Olaf, though, the meat and poultry is antibiotic- and growth hormone-free, apples are stocked from a nearby orchard, and dairy products are supplied by a collective of Midwestern, family-owned farms.
I learned that the colleges that made the top 5 all offered organic, sustainable and vegetarian friendly menus. Two of the colleges grew their own produce and most got their meats from local butchers and farms.
Yale Sustainable Food Project:
To address the world’s most pressing questions regarding the environment, health, education, labor, culture, and the global economy, we must consider the food we eat, how it is produced, and how its producers are treated. While many schools have taken strides to address the wide-ranging implications of food production and consumption, there is still much more work to be done. We, the undersigned, call on leaders in higher education to follow these guiding principles and to lead our nation towards a more just, sustainable, and healthy food system for all.
Points:
-Institutional dining should be based on seasonality, prioritizing food that is sourced locally from farmers who practice sustainable agriculture. When food must come from far away, it should be certified organic and fair trade. In addition, campus-wide recycling and composting programs must be developed and implemented to reduce waste on all college and university campuses.
- Education should reflect and elucidate the complex relationships between food, the environment, health, labor, art, culture and the global economy. More academic opportunities, college farms and gardens, and other food & agriculture-related extracurriculars will fulfill this goal.
- Colleges and universities should cultivate loyal and diverse relationships with local food producers, community members, and community organizations. These relationships will support local economies and land stewardship, preserve and cultivate diverse, productive landscapes, promote resource sharing, and increase access to Real Food across lines of race, class, and gender.
Schools Go Sustainable: Greening College Food Services ( Wiretap Magazine)
By Talia Berman, May 5, 2008
These days, college students around the country are demanding sustainable food practices from their dining services. From supporting local farm stands on campuses to teaching dining service staff how to cook with local and sustainable ingredients to participating in national campaigns to raise awareness about green eating, young learners have become integral to the larger process of change. The term "sustainable" in this case refers to agricultural practices that are environmentally friendly (i.e. organic or with minimal pesticides), support local small farmers and promote healthy, diversified diets.
"Students get it," said Anna Lappé, a sustainability food expert, author and the co-founder of the Small Planet Institute who often speaks at campuses around the country to promote sustainable eating. "The most common question I get from students is, 'We know we need to be promoting sustainable food -- what can we do?'" She usually responds to the question with examples of what other schools have done, which is no short list.
- Tracking Food Change
Julian Dautremont-Smith, sustainability expert and associate director at the Association for Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Learning, or AASHE, says that one thing his organization does is connect like-minded students at schools across the country so they can compare notes and learn from each other.
- Campus Progression
On an individual level, many schools have come especially far in their quest for sustainable dining on campuses. According to Galarneau, pioneer schools like Yale University and UC Santa Cruz are exporting their sustainability models to help other schools get closer to their green goals.
- Big Food, Big Challenges
The big challenge is finding your supply," Lappé said. Choosing a food supplier that you support -- like a local farmer -- is one easy way to avoid having to hunt for the source of the food in the bowels of a national warehouse, according to Lappé. Brown University, for example, teamed up with Farm Fresh Rhode Island, a local farmers' organization, to open a market on campus hawking fresh seasonal foods.
Real, Sustainable Food at Colleges…. (Blog started by student at Colgate University)
By michelle victoriaPublished: September 6, 2010
Started by a student at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, and now has been taken over by another student, to encourage bringing sustainably raised food to colleges across the country. Many schools are working on this drastic change to what usually had been found on campus, and the blog was a desire to share information on how this was being accomplished.
Food service budgets at Colleges and Universities are substantial and changing the buying habits brings better food to the students, business to local growers and others who are growing sustainably, and ultimately helps to shift away from an industrial agricultural model that uses pesticide & herbicides, GMO seed and is causing so much destruction in so many ways.
There also is a guide on how to go organic on campus. You will find lots of great information, and inspiration, that is relevant to all of us. It could also be a great source of information for any institution that is making the transition to better quality food.
The most recent post is about the best documentaries on eating green. Take a peek, the list is a good one. It includes some films that have been mentioned here before, but there were a few on the list that were new titles to me.
Many of us either know someone in college, or maybe are in college, let’s see what we can do to help in this food revolution. It will create a healthier future for those in school, help support sustainable and local farmers, help the environment and maybe most important create future generations that will demand clean, green, sustainably raised food-and business will respond to demand.
Mission statement:
Sustainable Table celebrates local sustainable food, educates consumers on food-related issues and works to build community through food.
Sustainable Table was created in 2003 by the nonprofit organization GRACE to help consumers understand the problems with our food supply and offer viable solutions and alternatives. Rather than be overwhelmed by the problems created by our industrial agricultural system, Sustainable Table celebrates the joy of food and eating.
Today’s dominant form of agriculture relies on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, large amounts of water, major transportation systems and factory-style practices for raising livestock. Industrial farming creates over-processed, over-traveled, and under-nourishing food that may contribute to health problems like obesity, diabetes and heart disease. This type of food production causes pollution and creates environmental and public health problems that cost taxpayers both money and quality of life. Sustainable Table was launched to offer consumers a choice and to show that fresh food from small, independent family farmers is still available.
Site includes and “Eat Well” Guide which is a local sustainable food search engine.
15 Ways to Change the World and Your Health: What organic can do for you (Men’s Health Magazine)
Organic brands are taking up more and more shelf space, especially in produce sections. Initially, the classier (i.e., pricier) the store, the more organic labels were sprouting among the arugula. But Walmart has now cleared space for them, too. And unless the average guy treats money like so many cabbage leaves, he also notices some unaverage prices on those organic items. He's likely to wonder: Could these foods possibly be worth it? And if I have a cartful, will women like me more?
The answer to the first question is yes, which means the second one probably merits an affirmative as well. In my experience, smart women are sensitive to health issues, and the organic movement is all about health.
Girl Grow Power: Women In Sustainable Agriculture (JustMeans.com)
Women have long been deeply involved in agriculture, even if they haven't always gotten much credit for it. But today women are even more involved in sustainable agriculture, and are up to three times more likely to operate a sustainable/organic model farm than a more standard farming model. Quite simply, women are everywhere in the wide realm of sustainable food, and it goes beyond running and working on farms. They are chefs, educators, concerned mothers, and in jobs at all levels of various food-focused non-profits and businesses. They are food policy-makers and community garden builders, farm-to-school initiators and food safety advocates. All in all, women are really shaking up the food scene.
In truth, women have shaking things up for quite some time, as organizations like the Women and Food Agriculture Network, which has been active since 1997, can attest to. Such organizations help support women farmers, offering workshops and trainings and linking female farmers to a variety of resources, and now that one in ten farmers is a woman, that support network is very important. The sustainable and organic farming and food movements have long acknowledged and encouraged a space for women. But the release of Farmer Jane is really one of the first acknowledgments in a popular forum of the significant part that women are playing in shaping a new food system, which I suspect is one of the reasons why the book is getting so much positive attention.
