By Eco Ambassador Anna Arriaga
Sometimes, eating at a college dining hall can be weird: not watching your food be cooked, not knowing where the ingredients are sourced from, and not even being able to serve yourself can make it feel like you’re constantly eating at a restaurant.
Fortunately, as an Emerson student, you can rest assured that the ingredients for every meal in the dining hall are responsibly sourced with sustainability in mind. Eating a meal at the DH is probably more environmentally friendly than eating at most Boston area restaurants, or even if you cooked yourself! Click here to read more about what the dining hall is doing for sustainability and more!
Bon Appetit, the company that Emerson contracts to serve food in the dining hall, has an innovative Farm to Fork program that guarantees the prioritization of seasonal ingredients from small, owner-operated farms and ranches within a 150-mile radius of the cafeteria. By putting local food at the forefront of their mission, the dining hall not only supports the local economy, but reduces greenhouse gas emissions from transporting ingredients and feeds students the highest quality of local food.
Eating at the dining hall means that you are eating locally! Other than the reasons above, this is important because:
- Local food often tastes better because it was picked or harvested recently, as opposed to wholesale or supermarket products that can sit on shelves for weeks.
- Local food is more nutritious because the ingredients are consumed so soon after they are harvested. Crops can be picked at their peak ripeness (and therefore peak nutritional value) when they don’t need to be transported as far. Some crops also lose some nutritional value over time after being harvested.
- Eating local food is a way of supporting local farm families, many of whom are supporting a generational operation and are dwindling in number current day.
- And so much more! Read here for more information.
This post is the beginning of a column that will highlight some of the local vendors and contributors that work with Emerson College to make delicious meals for students!