What’s on your plate, ASU?

At the northern end of the Valley of the Sun, nestled at the feet of the San Tan Mountains, lie fields of trees with dainty jade leaves and gnarled, ancient-looking trunks. These are olive trees, and the fields belong to Queen Creek Olive Mill. The farm grows nine types of olives, all of which make extra virgin olive oil. Some of this oil is bottled, packaged and trucked off to ASU.

Local food contracts (like ASU’s with Queen Creek Olive Mill) are handled by ARAMARK, ASU’s campus food provider.  The Philadelphia-based company is “committed to providing a wide variety of healthy menu options to meet the needs and preferences of the ASU campus community,” says Krystal Nelson, marketing manager for ARAMARK Higher Education.

As a result of recent trends in sustainability, health and “local” awareness, students and staff are increasingly interested not only in the provider of food on campus, but in the specific sources of the ingredients that end up on trays and in stomachs across ASU. So we ask, “What’s on your plate?”

Choices, Choices and More Choices

Campus dining services are present on every ASU campus. The Downtown, Polytechnic and West campuses all have a main dining hall and several restaurants. The Tempe campus has four dining halls: Hassayampa, Pitchforks at the Memorial Union, Manzanita and Barrett, the Honors College. Besides the dining halls, there are several convenience stores and restaurants, including the Hassayampa Market and Engrained.

The dining halls provide a variety of options. Each varies in the degree of selection, but most satisfy the typical college student diet: pizzas, burgers, salads, sandwiches and desserts.

Sitting in a campus dining hall finishing her lunch, business and communications freshman Caitlin Eberle talks about her typical diet. “I like salads, Mexican food and steak – pretty much anything. I try to eat healthily, but it doesn’t work most of the time,” she says. “My will power’s not so strong.”

Eberle does feel, however, that unhealthy foods should be served in the dining halls. “I think it should be up to the individual.”  Pike agrees, expressing that numerous choices make the dining halls more appealing. “We get to select what we want,” she says. “We can make sandwiches. Things aren’t pre-made.”

Gabriela Rosales, psychology junior is a student employee in ARAMARK’s Human Resources Department. She says, “ARAMARK is really trying to bring more sustainable and healthy services to the whole campus.” She says it can be difficult to please the masses because everyone’s tastes can’t be satisfied with one meal. If something is made at Pitchforks, not everyone will like it. ARAMARK tries to remedy this problem by providing students many options to choose from and the opportunity to customize their meals.

Be Healthy

Lasagna and orange juice... the typical college meal? Photo by Branden Eastwood

ARAMARK also tries to provide options to students with allergies, special health concerns and specific dietary lifestyles.

“A lot of dining halls have designated vegetarian stations that are separate from those serving meat,” says campus nutritionist Lexi MacMillen, “though ARAMARK can’t guarantee against contamination of vegetarian foods because dining services is such a gigantic operation.”

She says ARAMARK is in the process of labeling everything so consumers have complete control over the food items they eat. MacMillen says, “We have standardized recipes, and I review them to avoid all allergy and vegetarian concerns.”

She also adds that, as always, students with special needs and concerns should seek out the manager on duty with questions in order to ensure their health is addressed. “If there is any question about the ingredients of a food item, we encourage customers with food allergies not to consume that food item,” she says. “We will make every effort to point out alternative items to the customer.”

Andrew Lacyshyn, executive chef at the Barrett Dining Center, says quality is a top priority for dining services. “The chefs at ASU strive to bring the finest ingredients available to them in the market,” he says. “The recipes are rewritten every semester with an emphasis on innovation, quality, acceptability and ASU student, faculty and staff requests.”

MacMillen’s role on campus is generally focused on ensuring that all students are provided with an “adequate and healthy diet.” She has spoken with several student organizations concerned with varying diet concerns, such as vegetarian groups.

“I try to provide them with information and methods they can use to adhere to their diets.” She says that she tries to be a resource to anyone with a special diet, anyone with special health concerns or anyone who simply wants input on his or her diet. Her recommendations for healthy diets include “superfoods” — foods she says contain many health benefits. She lists soy, nuts, berries, vegetables and whole grains as such superfoods.

Photo by Branden Eastwood.

Sustainable Food

ASU prides itself on being a global leader in sustainability, so it follows that the food served on campus should promote sustainability. Ideally, the food would be grown without harmful pesticides, hormones or carbon-spewing machinery, within a 100 mile radius from campus.

According to ARAMARK sustainability manager for ASU, Katrina Shum, one of ARAMARK’s goals is to provide as much locally-grown food as possible to the University.

“We have worked closely with our food distributors to better identify where produce is actually grown,” she says. “Our chefs aim to design menus that reflect the seasonal availability of items grown in farms around Tolleson, Wilcox and Yuma, Arizona.”

Seasonal availability is reflected in the menu at Engrained, the campus poster child for sustainable food. According to an Engrained flyer, ARAMARK has “six intentions” in operating a sustainable restaurant. These intentions include buying food originating within 150 miles of campus, using food that promotes positive ethical and environmental practices, reducing fuel emissions, reducing the use of finite resources such as paper, supporting meaningful local causes and minimizing waste products through conservation and recycling. Engrained strives to provide as many organic items as possible.

The coffee served is Fair Trade, the beef is free range, the eggs and chickens are cage free and the seafood is sustainable. A list of farms that provide ingredients used at Engrained and other campus dining locations, such as Queen Creek Olive Mill and Seacat Gardens, can be found on the Engrained Web site.

Jerome Fressinier, chef at Engrained, says Engrained serves fish from the Pacific Coast, originated anywhere from Alaska to Monterey Bay. Currently, the salmon is coming from the Aleutian Islands, an archipelago stretching between Alaska and Russia. He says the restaurant is careful to find the freshest fish and to only purchase fish caught through ethical methods.

He specifically mentions avoiding fish caught by gigantic drift nets. “We use a very grass-roots approach,” he says. “With this information, you can go to a grocery store, campus restaurant or other restaurant and ask about the food served. By asking, you’re letting restaurants know what their customers want.”

Dining services on campus try to utilize the various fruit producing trees growing on campus by harvesting Seville oranges, Medjool dates and olives as they come into season and incorporating them into dining hall recipes through the Campus Harvest Program. Engrained’s Web site and flyers say “roughly 12 tons of Seville oranges” are harvested between December and March, allowing ARAMARK to provide students with fresh orange vinaigrette and “Devil-ade,” a uniquely tart and orange-version of lemonade.

However, even with ARAMARK’s efforts to provide fresh and organic produce for students, Eberle says there have been several times she has been unimpressed with the freshness of the apples she has gotten in the dining halls and convenience stores. “Sometimes they look a little iffy and bruised,” she says. “I would like fresher fruit.”

Old McDonald Had a Farm

It can be much safer to get meat that is raised locally or organically because one can speak directly with farmers about how their animals were raised and processed. Through serving free-range beef and cage-free chickens and eggs, ARAMARK strives to connect customers with the farms on which their food was raised, providing consumers with knowledge of what they are eating.

Nelson says meat served on campus is safe and healthy. “We use USDA Choice and Select Beef products sourced from our approved suppliers who meet our high quality standards,” she says. “ARAMARK conducts a rigorous evaluation process before partnering with a supplier to evaluate whether they meet our standards for food safety and quality.” She says vendors are required to have an excellent reputation with food safety and must have a documented, “track-able” product safety and recall program.

Orange You Glad You Paid Attention?

Back in Queen Creek the olives are still growing, as are some vegetables on South Mountain. Moos can be heard at various dairy farms across the Valley, proving “happy cows” don’t only come from California.

Learning about food doesn’t have to be difficult. It can even be fun. The olive mill gives tours, sells bottles of olive oil and even has a Tuscan-style eatery. Take a ride, enjoy the desert scenery and end the day walking through olive groves and enjoying fresh Tuscan cuisine. Or take a walk around campus and look at the signs on some of the trees. It might be a surprise to notice that there are orange trees, grapefruit trees, date palms, and yes, olives.

Contact the reporter at klepain@asu.edu.

Tagged as: ARAMARK, food, Sustainability, Well