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SUNY Cortland Celebrates National Kale Day

SUNY Cortland’s Dining Services celebrated its first National Kale Day on October
5, 2016. Kale menu items were featured at its residential dining units, Neubig and
The Bistro, and at its retail unit The Hilltop.

Dining Services offered a versatile selection of flavorful menu items, such as cau-
liflower colcannon, vegetarian kale soup, kale smoothies, gnocchi with squash and
kale, curried tofu and kale, kale salad with apricot, avocado and Parmesan, and kale
and quinoa Tabbouleh. The campus enjoyed trying the menu items, and they enjoyed
posting kale-themed messages on the dining service’s social media accounts. Dining
Services also displayed a kale informational table with health information and fun facts.

National Kale Day was established by co-founders Drew Ramsey, M.D., professor
of Psychiatry at Columbia University, and Jennifer Iserloh, certified health coach and
renowned healthy cooking expert. According to Ramsey and Iserloh, “National Kale Day
exists to celebrate the nutritional benefits of and different ways to cook and prepare kale.”

“Dining Services is excited to introduce kale into our dining program,” said Terry
Baker, the director of Dining Services. “It’s a superfood for those looking for a healthier
lifestyle, and it tastes great. Kale is so versatile that it’s used in appetizers, entrées,
desserts and beverages.”

UConn Holds Tasty Waste Lunch
UConn Dining Services and the Col-
lege of Agriculture, Health and outpaces their market value. Lunch after hearing about the University
Natural Resources (CAHNR) at the Uni- To combat this, Dining of North Carolina’s “Feeding the 5,000”
versity of Connecticut in Storrs, teamed lunch in collaboration with Tristam Stu-
up to present a “Tasty Waste” lunch in Services recruited a group art, author of the book “Waste.”
September. A warm sunny day helped to of students to pick excess
entice 1,256 UConn students and other blueberries for the meal “If the amount of food thrown away
community members to partake of the and, on a larger scale, or- worldwide every year was a country,
complimentary meal prepared from foods ganizations like Food Share its carbon footprint would be third only
destined for the landfill. work with businesses to to China and the United States,” Faust-
gather donations for food man said.
The menu, including several vegan insecure communities.
and gluten-free items, consisted of: The lunch was designed to show stu-
Apple Pear Cucumber Aqua Fresca One out of six Ameri- dents how much of the food they waste
(flavored sparkling water), made with cans is food insecure, but every day can still be put to use. A series
apples gleaned from a local orchard reducing waste by 15 percent could feed of lectures were shown in tandem with the
and leftover cucumbers; Southwestern 25 million people for a year, according to Tasty Waste lunch on Connecticut-based
Beef Chili and Brunswick Stew made the Natural Resource Defense Council. efforts to reduce food waste, sustainable
with frozen meat; Provencal Vegetable urbanization and the British perspective
Soup made with excess onions, celery “What people have to understand is of food waste.
and zucchini; Cornbread, made from that when we say ‘food waste’ we’re not
locally gleaned corn; Blueberry Bread talking about food that has gone rancid, “We’re trying to bring attention to
Pudding made from gleaned blueberries we’re not talking about spoiled food, the breadth of the issue, from how it
and leftover bread from Panera Bread, we’re talking about overproduction,” affects things globally to what you can
served with a variety of UConn Dairy Landolphi said. “If we can take this food, do in your own fridge,” Faustman said,
Bar ice cream flavors. that again, is safe food, and we use it “All you have to do is change your own
to feed the hungry and things like that, behaviors in a small way and it has a
“Food donations were received from we could really change the way people big impact.”
supermarkets, restaurants and local think in this country.”
farms,” said Rob Landolphi, culinary “Individual behavior is key because
operations manager and menu planner Dining Services does not exist just the majority of food waste occurs on the
for the Tasty Waste lunch. “Most of the to feed people, he said, it is also part
food would normally end up in a landfill, of the academic experience at UConn. —Continued
but even UConn’s sanitarian agrees it is
perfectly safe to eat.” “We have to look at Dining Services NOVEMBER 2016 | 5
as an educational component of the uni-
Ice cream with too many chocolate versity,” said Landolphi. “We need to
chips, for example, may be thrown out educate students on knowing where their
due to quality control measures, while food came from, how to make smart
farmers are often forced to leave perfectly choices when it comes to putting food
good fruit and vegetables to rot in the on your plate and making sure you un-
fields when the cost of harvesting them derstand food waste.”

Cameron Faustman, associate dean
for Academic Programs at CAHNR, said
he was inspired to host the Tasty Waste

ON-CAMPUS HOSPITALITY