The Charger, February 2017
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Sustainable Food Culture Fliks Into Providence Day
By Amina Mughnee
Find out about the sustainable efforts that Providence Day Dining is trying to achieve.
Sustainability is a popular discussion topic due to the troubling events involving our Earth. So, this conversation of sustainability conversation needs to be more prominent. Thankfully, this important dialogue is taking place at Providence Day.
Sustainability is about combatting the physical destruction of our Earth, but people tend to forget that growing, preparing, and eating sustainable food plays a large role as well. A company known as Flik does just that. Many independent schools have Flik as their main food provider, so Providence Day is no stranger to the organization.
Drinks that are sold in the Providence Day cafeteria.
Photo by Amina Mughnee
David Aycoth, head of the Providence Day dining hall, is very familiar with Flik because their services are implemented at the school. When discussing the goals for the dining program, Aycoth stressed the importance of sustainability: “Providence Day is a green certified school meaning that a very large percent of things we do here are sustainable”.
One example of a sustainable practice are the cups and to-go boxes. Both items are made to be biodegradable, which means that they are made of materials that are able to decompose.
“Providence Day is a green certified school meaning that a very large percent of things we do here are sustainable”.
- David Aycoth
Plastic utensils increases waste and are added to land fill because they cannot be recycled. However, metal eating utensils can be reused by just washing them with soap and water. Plastic eating utensils are now a thing of the past and utensils that can be washed and re-used are being used.
Forks on a table.
Photo by Pixabay
Using sustainable items is just one part of Providence Day’s dining hall sustainable efforts. The complementary part to the utensils is the food that is being eaten. Fllik's main priority is to provide wholesome and nutritious meals to enhance the minds of the people on campus. So because of this priority, fresh, natural, and local foods are something very important to Flik and Providence Day’s dining hall.
Two foods, along with many more, that come from a local supplier are the apples and fresh coffee served in the dining hall. The coffee comes from a supplier in Concord, which is a mere forty minute drive from Providence Day’s campus and the apples-- that are either packaged or served-- come from a farm in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Apples in a barrel
Photo by Pixabay
Buying from local farms for goods, such as raw fruits and vegetables, will benefit the eater with nutrients inside and out.
Supporting local farms also assists the salary of farmers who are competing against companies that have a larger presence in today’s economy. In more ways than one, buying local benefits many people in the long run.
Along with buying local, Aycoth plans to use the produce grown in the school’s garden into the meals served, so the fresh factor will skyrocket. Also, the cost of transportation would go down drastically since the garden is directly on campus. Supporting local farms will reduce the dining hall’s carbon footprint.
For those who are wondering, a carbon footprint is the amount of carbon dioxide and others gases emitted because of the transportation of fossil fuels. To keep this footprint down, Aycoth will definitely buy local and use foods from the garden.
Meals may come and go in Providence Day’s dining hall, but that's only because of the changing food culture that contributes to sustainability.
Sustainable food is food that holds high nutritional value and will benefit your health. With every meal on the menu that is made, a dietician reviews it to make sure that it correlates with sustainable food
guidelines.
The dietician also limits the number of times a certain food is served. For example, french fries and hamburgers--which are a student favorites-- are starting to be served less. “We are taking small steps to change from the more unhealthy foods to a better alternative”, Aycoth states.
One alternative to the popular hamburgers are Asian lettuce wraps. Students should expect more alternatives to their dining hall favorites in the future, so the current switch this year is only the beginning.
A few years ago, the dining hall did not have the gluten free cookies or the fruit infused water. So one might ask, why has the dining hall changed so much? “The dining hall changes with the population of the school”, Aycoth explains. This statement means that with the growing number of students who have specific or different dietary needs, the dining hall needs to be able to provide for those students.
Some popular snacks such as Oreos, Doritos, and Pop Tarts have had a limited appearance and will be departing from the selection of grab-and-go snacks simply because they serve zero nutritional value. As some may see, these snacks are being replaced by healthier ones like fig bars and lightly salted popcorn. The unhealthy snacks contradict the philosophy of Flik which is to provide food that fuels, not de-energizes.
Along with the alterations to food in the dining hall, the school as a whole also wants to educate students on what a healthy meal is and what it looks like.
Education will not only come from infographics in the dining hall, but it is also starting to be executed in classrooms by merging healthy eating into the curriculum.
Spreading knowledge is already taking place in the ninth grade health classes, but Aycoth hopes to start something new with even younger students.
The combination of the school’s objective and the Flik’s objective creates this sense of social responsibility that supplies students with information that they can apply after their time at Providence Day.
Food culture and Providence Day dining seem to correlate with each other. With the rise of sustainable food practices, the school's dining hall has taken this rise into account by slightly changing their menu in order to provide meals packed with nutrition.
Flik’s beliefs are taking a larger role in terms of what is being prepared, compared to previous years when the dining hall was not filled with as many healthy options. In conclusion, Providence Day’s dining hall will continue to assimilate to the sustainable ideologies pertaining to food consumption and preparation.
Coffee being scooped.
Photo by Pexels
A carbon footprint advertisment.
Photo by Didier Vidal
Burger and fries.
Photo by Pixabay
A variety of snacks sold in Providence Day's
cafeteria..
Photo by Amina Mughnee
Cut up fruit served in Providence Day's cafeteria.
Photo by Amina Mughnee
“The dining hall changes with the population of the school”
- David Aycoth
A silhouette of someone buying lunch.
Photo by Pixabay