Health

Green message
by Barbora Misakova

he century which looked like a perfect period for humans, a rich period full of good food and no thinking about any kind of reduction, looks now like a period of food wasting. American universities came with an idea how to fight against food wasting in their cafeterias. Who would ever expect the first step they take will be abolishment of trays? When I look back to my primary and high school cafeterias, the tray was something what just helped you to carry your plate and cutlery. There was nothing more you would need. So it was a bit unconceivable for me to exist in the school cafeteria without it, and after all I couldn’t imagine, how the abolishment of trays could help with this problem. Of course I forgot one (quite important) thing – you cannot compare our dinning halls with those in the U.S.
Is the ecologic way of thinking coming into fashion or is it really necessity? Universities from California, Santa Cruz to Virginia Tech and also food service companies are trying together to reduces food waste and so make college campuses more environmentally sustainable. So what is their idea about? When students were allowed to use trays, they were taking more food they were not able to eat anyway. As soon as they don’t have a tray, they have to rely on their own hands – so they will make better selections which meal they really want to eat and which not. Also the fact there are no trays to be cleaned, saves on water and energy as well. Even though this plan is really nice, and numbers show big percentage of savings on water and food, it still seems to me a bit illogical. Let’s look at it – George Mason University in Fairfax built dining hall for $10 million! This hall is (as they think) perfect, because it’s 95% sustainable, it is equipped with biodegradable to-go containers, bulk sugar and ketchup dispensers and it is using eco-friendly chemical cleaners. This all is really perfect, but when we are talking about food wasting – what are all these food stations such as “Spaghettaboutit”, pizza, pasta and “After All” desert stations for? Is this all really needed? Sure, we are living in a period of time when we can afford to choose from long list of meals. So why should we limit our appetite, when we can abolish trays in our cafeterias?


related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20080825/us_time/thewaroncollegecafeteriatrays;_ylt=ApyHGUZRzkuxXvnUYOOnfeWs0NUE

by Barbora Misakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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posted by Blog TechSource @ 1:51 AM