McDaniel College signs Real Food Challenge

On October 22, McDaniel College president, Roger N. Casey, and Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students Beth R. Gerl signed a pledge with the Real Food Challenge to move the college toward “real food,” meaning local, sustainable, humane and fair trade.

McDaniel College, along with its dining service partner Sodexo, is committed to purchasing 20 percent “real food” by 2020.

The Real Food Challenge, a student-led national movement, plans to shift $1 billion of the $5 billion colleges spend annually on processed and junk food to fair-trade and sustainably produced foods, said Real Food Challenge National Campaign Director David Schwartz.

At McDaniel, Gerl said students have been pioneering the effort to move toward sustainability in the food services and other aspects of campus life.

“It’s important we are utilizing farmers and businesses within our own regional area to help sustain their businesses are farms,” Gerl said. “This pledge helps us to put a framework on how we do it.”

According to Schwartz, real food comes from farms and food operations within 250 miles of independent or co-operated organizations. It is fair-trade, which ensures international products such as coffee or bananas are produced on small farms or co-ops, not plantations, he said.

The food is also ecologically sound, which means it is organic: grown with less synthetic fertilizers, and it is humane, which means the animals are not subject to animal cruelty or pumped with hormones or steroids.

“Students have always taken an interest in the food served through dining services, said Rita Webster, general manager of dining services. “Last year, McDaniel started “Dinner on Us,” a monthly catered event for students to discuss the food services at the college.”

“Students say they want their veggies to be local and talk about the foods they want to see more often,” said Webster.

The Real Food campaign encourages colleges to spend dining dollars in the community. Sodexo started a farmers market on campus in 2012 for students to receive local produce.

The college also started implementing “Less Meat Monday,” and serves vegan and vegetarian options as well as foods that comply with religious restrictions.

The campus also provides other, more sustainable options to students through farmers markets and co-ops, Gerl said.

Sodexo started a farmers market on campus in 2012 for students to receive local produce.

This school year was also the first time students signed up for the schoolwide co-op, which delivers boxes of produce to campus. About 40 students, mostly living in on-campus apartments, have signed up for the co-op this year.

Agustina “Gu” Ruis, McDaniel’s Student Government Association president, said being green and practicing sustainability is important to the students.

“Buying locally offsets emissions, which is changing the Earth through climate change,” Ruis said. “It’s an imperative change to think about where we buy food, where it is coming from and even buying online.”