White Dog or Whole Foods? Local or organic?
As students begin to rack their brains to find alternative food options, Penn Dining has responded, making a slow but concerted effort toward sustainable dining.
Dining Services general manager John Cipollini attributed the recent student and staff interest in food quality to the diatribe against our eating culture found in The Omnivore's Dilemma, the Penn Reading Project book for the class of 2011.
The argument made against organic food in the book helped shift Penn Dining's emphasis to locally produced food, even over organic food, Cipollini said.
Michael Pollan, the author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, argues that organic food can still be industrial grade, which is why locally grown food is often a safe alternative.
At this point Penn has a little bit of both.
For instance, the beef hamburgers in Houston Market are all organic, Cipollini said.
Last semester, Dining Services brought in an outside farmer's market which accepted Dining Dollars. It will return next fall.
Various greens in the dining halls were also locally produced and during the winter, local mushrooms and potatoes are available.
"Our goal is to promote education about the importance of supporting local, sustainable agriculture and to make products from locally [owned] farms more readily available," Business Services spokeswoman Barbara Lea-Kruger wrote in an e-mail.
She added that next year Penn Dining will try to double the amount of locally grown food available in the dining halls, and Penn chefs will attend all-day workshops to learn about the benefits of locally grown food.
Some consider these changes to be baby steps.
College freshman Katherine Rea, a California native, said she feels a little stifled by the lack of locally grown options, which are widely available in her home state.
"To some extent, I've been hampered since coming to Penn," she says, "I think [Penn Dining] tries its best, but I know that it can be inconvenient, and I do the best I can while I am here."
And at peer institutions like Yale University, changes are occurring on a larger scale - Yale houses a dining hall featuring entirely locally-grown food.
For Penn, the process of localizing has been slower.
At the moment, the number of suppliers providing affordable local food is limited, Cipollini said.
As such, compared to food found at the grocery store, locally grown food can cost almost four times as much.
Still, Cipollini added that he expects the market to change.
Until all the food in the dining halls is locally grown, it seems that everyone has to do some of their own work to find it.
