Kitchen Cabinet
December 12, 2011
Present: Lisa Hedlke, Adam Lugsch-Tehle, Dillion Hall, Judy Douglas, Bob Douglas, Steve Kjellgren, Jeff Stocco, Josh Sande, Steve Bennett, Christine Tenhoff, Jim Dontje, George Elliott
Briefly discussed International students being here over break and what their options are for obtaining food. Dining Service is available to assist our International students with obtaining food prior to Dining Service being shut down for the holiday. In prior years students have coordinated meals and have been able to purchase some foods from Dining Service.
Christine announced that her Independent study was approved for J-term. She will be following a raw food diet for two weeks and blogging about it.
Reviewed purchasing survey grid from last month’s meeting. We are not really summarizing our results – and there is more conversation to be had regarding how we purchase. Steve would like to put a survey together for campus on how they make their purchasing decisions.
Further discussed how we make purchasing decisions as a whole. We questioned how cost, tradition and habit play into our purchasing decisions. In regards to fair trade products or animal friendly products – if our campus was informed, would they choose that more often?
If we can educate our consumers about why and how we make our choices – will our campus understand why choices have been taken away? The discussion became if those choices are mindful and intentional; will the campus understand why they don’t have a choice. Do we want to have very intentional criteria as to what we offer and why we offer it on this campus?
College may be the last time as a community that you can examine all these different kinds of issues – health, environment, etc. How can we educate students so once they leave we can help them make choices? Whether that is in the classroom or outside the classroom how do we get the message out there.
We discussed behavioral economics; bottled water is an example of that. More and more people are drinking bottled water; do they feel they need that to be healthy? Can it be more of a marketing ploy?
The discussion then centered on what food does for us in general as a campus. It does bring us together for conversation at meal times. That led us into the conversation of how we socialize in the Dining hall. Does more intimate space make for better conversation? With having such an open space we all tend to stick to our same groups. Could we somehow gather small groups together in banquet rooms for conversation? Who would be willing to facilitate such conversations?
The Well-being model was discussed and how it fits in with this current conversation. Choice is central to the way we have been thinking of well-being. That ties in with having choice in our purchasing decisions and are we choosing items that fit within making us healthier on all levels.
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