Student Dining Advisory Committee

Our Student Dining Advisory Committee met on February 5. Following are their questions and comments, with our follow-up information.

Brain Break – how does it work?

• Brain Break was established several years ago as an un-staffed late-night snack. The menu is in the hands of your local HoCo, who decides how the House budget is spent (and may decide to add to it, as well). While HUDS orders and puts out the food, what is actually offered is at the discretion of your HoCo.

Nutrition Information in the dining hall – what’s the status?

• The Nutrition Labeling Committee (of which we are a part and that includes representatives from University Heath Services, Residential Life, the Bureau of Study Counsel, and ECHO, as well as two newly selected student representatives from the UC), is reviewing several proposed changes to the information we present. We have also solicited feedback from the Committee on House Life as well as the Community Health Initiative.

• As soon as the committee completes its review, we will enact the approved changes.

Continue to expand and improve vegetarian options that are not side-dishes

• I hope you are enjoying the expanded hearty, entrée-style dishes, such as Vegan Meatballs, Portabella Lentil Patties, and Chilaquile Casserole, all coming up this week. You’ve asked for more bean-based dishes and other protein alternatives, as well as tofu. Keep up the feedback.

Fruit – enjoying hand-fruit variety but not always seeing the promised fruit, or finding that it’s not yet ripe

• Our quality standard is that hand fruit be ripe for immediate consumption, and we’re working with our produce vendor on delivering enough and appropriately ripe fruit. Some of the variety we’ve added recently is not locally available, so this can be a delicate balance, but we’re working through it.

Bag meal – like the variety of options this year, but want to be able to specify flavors, etc.

• The bag meal system was revised in the fall to allow for more customization and healthy side options. We will consider modifications to the program over the summer.

Request for grapefruit every day

• Now available every day

Labels for special meals should show V or Vgn icons

• We will make this change for all future events.

Recycle bins and trash cans placed closer together at brain break in Annenberg.

• Done.

Special K cereal, please!

• We always have the 12 most popular cereals out, but if there’s something you would like, just ask the staff. They’re happy to help get it from the back.

Low-fat Silk Soy Milk, please!

• We’re looking into low-fat options (Silk-brand or otherwise).

Compliments – Thanks very much:

• Winter menu changes have been very positive
• Thursday tastings are good and fun
• Vegetables preparation and variety has improved
• Reading and exam period brain breaks well-received

Vegetables are not always cooked the same house to house (and the quality of cooking can impact perception)

• We will re-iterate proper cooking methods for every item, especially those new vegetables now on the menu.

The line for Thursday chef tastings at Annenberg can be long – but not unreasonable

• We want you to have an opportunity to get to know the chefs and managers, and have a taste of something new or different. But if you’re in a hurry, we agree this is not the place to get your main entrée. We hope you can check it out when you have a few extra minutes to spare.

Green thoughts that we will pursue:

• Continue to emphasize mug trees and the re-usable mug program
• For those dining halls that have the new napkin dispensers, that should become “green space” for sharing sustainable activities and results
• In Mather, having a catch-all bin for silverware makes it easier to try trayless (done!)

A suggestion to increase the amount of BoardPlus for use at campus retail locations to cover missed meals, or to roll over meals not used in the dining hall to a BoardPlus equivalency

• This actually equates to a very different meal plan, which is at the discretion of the College, and has been reviewed by the Committee on House Life and decided against (see http://www.fas.harvard.edu/home/search.shtml?q=cohl&Go=Go).
• We have the bag meal program and FlyBy, to ensure that you never have to miss a meal from the board program, and encourage you to take advantage of those. The meal plan is not priced at the expectation that you will take every meal with us (it is based on an average of 14 meals per week), but it does factor in those extra services, such as bag meals.
• BoardPlus was added to the meal plan to give you options for variety when you have a craving for something else on campus. It was increased from $50 to $65 per semester in 2007, in part as a reflection of the increased campus opportunities for retail spending, such as at the Cambridge Queen’s Head.

HUDS Satisfaction Survey

• HUDS will launch the next survey on March 3, 2009. The survey draft was shared with the committee, and they added several questions as well.