Food

1. Food Brenda Niu Yaesul Park Chelsea Thaw Amelia Yeager

2. Data - Gathering Process • Survey sent out to Adviser groups • Some advisers had difficulties gathering data • Had to tally whole class on one sheet • Smaller sample size influenced results • Talked to head cook Kathy Wheeler • E-mailed Corvallis School Food Service representative

3. Data - Survey • Lunch habits: 52% bring food from home, 22% buy food from the cafeteria, 15% buy food from the cafeteria or go out to eat, 11% go out to eat • Feelings about local/organic food: 58% think it would be great, 26% wouldn’t care, 13% would start eating more food from the cafeteria, 3% would stop eating it • Food choices: 30% pizza, 26% salad bar, 21% sandwich, 12% soup, 8% other, 2% pasta • Utensil use: 31% fork, 22% napkin, 16% spoon, 16% paper plate, 6% plastic cup, 5% plastic dish, 4% knife

4. Data – Audit Q: How much food is made at the school? How much is bought and pre-prepared? A: Everything is prepared here except for the rolls and the muffins. Q: How much is local? What kinds? A: The salads are fresh. Some of the lettuce is from the school garden and we buy some local food like apples and peppers when it is in season. Q: What do you do with excess food? A: Leftovers like bagels go to local food shelters and soup kitchens. Salad bar waste goes to the horticulture class, where it is put in the worm beds and used for composting in the garden. Leftover meat is thrown away because it spoils. Excess rolls are made into croutons. Q: What kind of packaging do you use? A: Foil, plastic wrap, paper plates. The foil could be recycled, but the plastic wrap is necessary for sanitation. New cardboard have been ordered for pasta, rice, and salad. Q: How reasonable would it be to use washable utensils? A: More labor would be necessary. We used to have eight cooks, but now we only have six. Food costs are going up, and we’re having to consolidate. We combat this by buying our food together with schools in Springfield and Eugene, which reduces expenses. Q: What steps has the cafeteria taken to make its food more healthy? A: We use all whole grain breads, rice, and pasta. We don’t sell any fried foods, soda, candy, or other junk food.

5. Menu January Everyday options: salad bar, sandwich, pizza, soup, rolls, fruit, juice, milk

6. Current Practices • Unsustainable: Use disposable plastic utensils, napkins may be bleached, most food comes pre-prepared, not very much organic or local food, not many vegetarian or vegan options • Sustainable: purchase some local food, utilize school garden, use paper plates instead of styrofoam, serve healthy food, salad bar waste is composted, leftover food is given away

7. Next Steps • More data: audit food waste in cafeteria and kitchen, audit energy efficiency of kitchen appliances • Possible solutions: Buy more locally grown and organic food, bring in volunteers to help in the kitchen, study methods that have been successful for other schools with sustainable practices, look into buying more environmentally-friendly utensils/packaging, encourage labeling of different foods to inform students of positive effects