Autumn Clarke, Campus Carrier Features Editor
Love it or hate it, D-Hall is a major part of most students’ lives. What many don’t realize is that among the hordes of students milling about the salad bar or the comfort food line is a carefully designed method to better serve students what they need.
The D-Hall staff receives menus from a corporate kitchen in Philadelphia to dictate what meals are served each day. Through this system, the staff is able to keep track of nutritional information more easily. Any adjustments that are made to recipes are taken into consideration and the nutritional information will be adjusted appropriately. Food Services Director, Fraser Pearson, oversees all of the operations at D-Hall.
“We’ll tweak some of the recipes to match more local favorites,” said Pearson. “We’ll get rid of whatever we think is the least popular for this area and the students that we have here. In the old days, you hired wives of big families and what they made, however they made it, that’s what you ate. In this day and age, that’s not really possible anymore because people want to know exactly what’s in there from the allergy stand-point and then to help those customers that are trying to achieve certain health-related goals.”
According to the Food Allergen Labeling and Consumer Protection Act (FALCPA), there are eight foods responsible for causing 90 percent of food allergic reactions: milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, soybeans, wheat, peanuts and tree nuts. While the staff can’t eliminate the allergens from D-Hall, they’re doing their part to protect students. A poster on the communication board has been placed in the hallway outside D-Hall’s entrance to alert diners to what the eight allergens are and notify them that the allergens exist in the D-Hall. Customers can also pick up a menu at the front desks of D-Hall and read over the nutritional information. While there still may be nutritional aspects that the staff isn’t aware of, the nutritional information highlights everything that they’re sure is true. Residential Dining Manager, Fred Gann, works with the rest of D-Hall staff to come up with the best plan for diners.
“One of the things that we’ve done too is the placement of actual food,” Gann said. “Although we can’t completely do away with cross-contamination once human hands are involved, if we think that there might be a chance of it, we can place the foods so that maybe the nuts aren’t on a high level where they could fall into something that’s lower.”
The D-Hall staff is also aware that some students may be working toward personal health goals.
“The biggest thing about nutrition and healthy eating is that it’s a lot more widespread than a lot of people realize,” Pearson said. “The term ‘healthy eating’ is a very personal term and it’s very different from individual to individual. Here we’ve got 2,000 or so students on campus that eat with us, so when somebody says, ‘I’m looking for healthy food,’ I’ve got to say, ‘Stop right there, come in here, let’s sit down, let’s talk about what that is to you.’”
One service D-Hall has tried to do for students is to make sure serving utensils are the proper size for one serving of each type of food. According to Gann, when D-Hall first implemented this program, some students complained of not getting enough food. If students would like to get more of a certain type of food, they’re welcome to get more than one helping, but the idea is to give students what the nutritional quantity calls for.
It’s not uncommon for students to walk through D-Hall and decide that there’s nothing available for them to eat simply because the choices they’re given aren’t appealing. However, oftentimes this is because students don’t think to break up the foods they see and build their own meal. Maybe the exhibition for the day is an Italian hoagie. Somebody looking to cut carbohydrates out of their diet may get shut down by this and completely cut that section of D-Hall out of their options, but they could easily ask for just the sandwich toppings and then create a salad out of it.
“A lot of the college-age students now have grown up in families where both parents work or their one parent works,” Pearson said. “The time that’s available to spend at home to learn those skills is just not a priority in the limited amount of time that the family has together, so a lot of times students are used to ordering a number one combo and taking it however it comes instead of fine-tuning it. I’m thinking about trying to maybe reignite this challenge; several years ago we had a group of students that got together and they had a contest to see who can create the best meal that’s not offered in D-Hall out of what’s there. Then they had it judged and a winner for it. It was really neat to see what people came up with.”
It’s possible that students seem to lack this creativity to build their own plate simply because of time restrictions. When running between classes at the height of the lunch rush, it can be tough to sit down and start trying new foods and combinations that aren’t already offered in D-Hall. However, students’ schedules often open up in the evenings, and they can be seen spending more time socializing at dinner. This could become an opportune time to experiment and take some more time breaking down certain options in order to build a meal that isn’t normally offered in D-Hall.
“When you come to college, you’re coming for an education,” Pearson said. “When you have that ‘in the box’ thinking, it’s, ‘I’m coming for an academic education.’ But it’s also a great time to educate your palate. You might get in there and say, ‘Man, never knew what I was missing!’ or you might try something and think, ‘Never knew what I was missing, and I wish I didn’t,’ but at least you have that knowledge now. So you’ve got the chance to experiment here. Many times people look back to their college days and think, ‘I’m glad I figured out what I did and didn’t like because now I’m not wasting my money.’”
Students are also encouraged to communicate their questions to the D-Hall staff with the comment cards provided near D-Hall’s entrance.
“Aramark started the comment cards about 20 years ago,” Pearson said. “They’ve always been part of all Aramark accounts that I’ve ever been to. The thing that I love about it is that the question comes out while it’s still a question instead of somebody being so frustrated that they have a huge complaint. That allows us to see what the desire is out there and then see if it’s feasible and see if we can make that happen. If they’ll identify that need on those comment cards, and come in to see us, we can go through some of that and teach students to cook who don’t cook.”
When walking through D-Hall, one may also notice that the food served doesn’t look exactly like the foods pictured on various posters or handouts throughout the dining hall. In regard to this, students must remember that they’re eating in a location meant to serve several thousand people each day.
“Corporate marketing folks work on the photos,” Pearson noted. “It’s very possible to have that here and do it that way if we built every plate with a design in mind. The only way to get it to look like that photo is if a professional built it. One year I decided that at the comfort line we were going to start building plates, but I got so many comments from people asking, ‘Why did you do that?’ For example, we may have put the mashed potatoes in the center and before you’re done building it, they stop you and ask what you’re doing or request to move it to the side or something, so I quit that.”
Students should also be assured that the majority of the food options in D-Hall are fresh. All produce comes from three local suppliers: Fresh Point in Atlanta, Bean Produce in Rome and Dixie Produce in Chattanooga. Pearson estimates that about 75 percent of all vegetables on the comfort food line are fresh. For example, corn is often not bought fresh because the time necessary to husk each ear and cut all the corn off the cob is simply too large. However, any time students see sides such as spinach or carrots, it’s the same as the vegetables served in the salad line. All of D-Hall’s milk comes from Mayfield, located in Athens, Tenn. Most of the bread comes from Flowers Bakery in Rome, and Cisco Foods is the delivery service for all foods in D-Hall. This delivery service maintains an extensive tracking system of all their service areas so any time there’s a recall, Pearson will get an email explaining where the recall is, what food product it was, the dates of manufacturing and what distributing branch the affected foods came from. The hamburger patties come frozen, but all other meats are shipped fresh. However, keeping the fresh produce local can become a challenge in the off-seasons.
“In the middle of winter, they’re coming from wherever they can come from, but as the season gets more local, they’re going to get better,” Pearson said. “If you go anywhere where you’ve got climates, you’re going to have trouble with getting foods in season, but the produce is never frozen. We will sometimes get cases of fruits covered in mold, especially in the off-season, and they go right back. If there’s any mold at all, we ship it back. We try to check all those things before the truck ever leaves.”
There can be a good deal of pressure when trying to cater to the needs and wants of roughly 2,000 diners, but D-Hall is doing their best to go above and beyond for Berry’s students.
“I think we succeed at pleasing the masses,” Pearson said. “It’s harder to deal with the finicky eater unless they come and visit with us. If they’ll do that and give us a chance to walk them through, take them on a tour and help them start thinking outside the box, that’s what does it. I think a lot of people think, ‘If I don’t see what I want put together before me, then there’s nothing here for me to eat.’ But if you want to, take your creation and take it to the International station and they’ll sauté it for you. Or take a sandwich to the pizza station and ask them to run it through the toaster like they do at Subway.”
Students wanting more information on D-Hall are encouraged to get in touch with the staff.
“Email me and we can set something up,” Berry Nutritionist Lou Ann Purdie said. “We’re not mind readers so if we don’t know there’s a problem, need, want, or question, it’s not going to get answered. If we don’t know [the answer to a question], we’re not going to tell you [an answer], but we will figure it out and give you an answer. It’s a nice place to start some healthy habits because you’ve got such a variety out there and you’re not locked in this little box.”