Views On Vassar | Lack of variety in Campus Dining a cause for concern

Tendai Musakwa

Catherine E. Beecher, a noted educator and culinary expert in the 19th century, once said, “The art of keeping a good table consists not in loading on a variety at each meal, but rather in securing a successive variety.” Diversity is imperative in producing a balanced and wholesome diet, but unfortunately this element is lacking in the College’s dining services. The two main dining facilities on campus, the All-Campus Dining Center (ACDC) and The Retreat, serve a myriad dishes and sides but still lack “successive variety,” as Beecher calls it, in the food they serve. In short, students at Vassar are fed the same food repeatedly, and this has raised concern regarding their health.

ACDC has five stations, each serving a particular kind of food. Though each station does differ from the others, the food served at each rarely changes, a fact that has caused discontent among the student body. Kyle Kenton ’09 said, “The food [at Vassar] has a good amount of variety, but the options do not change.” The salad bar, which always has the same vegetables and fruits, as well as the quesadilla station, where one can always get the same kinds of quesadillas, exemplify this. For this reason, students often resort to stir-frying their own food, or, more often, eating the next most appealing foods, namely pizza and desserts, which are the unhealthiest options.

The lack of breadth in the College’s nutritional offerings has also caused concern among those with dietary restrictions. Katherine Browning ’07, who is gluten intolerant, said, “I can’t eat much of the food [in ACDC]. I mostly eat from the vegan station, but there is a very limited selection of vegetables, so I end up doing most of my cooking on my own.” Most students, however, are not as fortunate as Browning, who has the expertise and the time to cook on her own. The lack of variety in Campus Dining has forced students to eat food they do not want, a situation which should not occur, given the amount of money Vassar students pay for their meal plans.

In an effort to understand why there is this lack of variety in the meals on campus, The Miscellany News talked to Aramark, the company that provides Vassar with dining services . When Aramark’s production manager Diane Dalton was asked whether Campus Dining was doing anything to improve the variety of meals served on campus, she replied, “[Director of Campus Dining] Maureen King meets regularly with the Food Committee, and the dining service changes to reflect the wishes of students. To that end we have introduced more variety with our desserts and Farm to Home stations.” I would, however, question the health benefits of introducing more variety in the desserts section.

Campus Dining has improved over the past few years with the introduction of EatingWell Wednesdays, whole-wheat pizzas, lower fat mozzarella cheese in pizzas and quesadillas and more vegetables, among others. However, these changes have mostly made the food served slightly healthier without actually varying the meals offered. While I applaud the efforts of the Food Committee and Campus Dining to improve the quality of food offered, it is important to realize that on-campus meals still lack an acceptable amount of variety and can continue to improve.

It is somewhat customary for students to complain about the food provided in any college, and habitual for the college administrators to take no action to redress the qualms of students. However, since Vassar is not the archetypal college and the College does strive to take into account the wishes of its students, perhaps more should be done to address the problem of lack of variety in college-provided meals. Menus should change on a daily basis, with introduction of more organic and healthier foods. A way to do this would be to expand the Farm to Home station, incorporating a wider variety of produce from local farmers. In addition to the obvious health benefits, the College would be contributing more to the development of the local community. Healthier alternatives should be introduced, possibly with the help of Aramark’s own nutritionists and the Food Committee. It is imperative that the College address the problems with on-campus dining to provide students with access to the healthy lifestyle they deserve.