Seven Northwestern student groups collaborated with nuCuisine to celebrate Food Day on Monday.
Food Day is a national effort to raise awareness about environmental and health issues associated with food through promotional events throughout the U.S. The NU initiative included several events, from a workshop at the Wild Roots garden Sunday to a film screening of the documentary “Grow” scheduled for Tuesday , in addition to a fresh food market and special meals across campus Monday.
Bringing Food Day to NU was a joint effort between Weinberg senior Pamela Hung and SESP senior Heather Polonsky, who also worked with student groups including Students for Ecological and Environmental Development, Northwestern Community Development Corps, NU Conference on Human Rights, Living Wage Campaign, Wild Roots, Green House and NOM.
“One of the main goals of Food Day was to bring organizations that are already working on sustainable agriculture and health or food related issues together and highlight the work they have been doing and help them collaborate,” Polonsky said. “There are a lot of student groups on campus that work on these issues, but they don’t always collaborate and even when they do, it’s always great to have a larger event that kind of showcases what they do.”
Monday afternoon, nuCuisine set up a display of fresh produce and goods grown by local and sustainable farms on the ground floor of Norris University Center. It also offered a lunch special featuring organic vegetables and free-range chicken. In the evening, nuCuisine provided sustainable dinner options in all residential dining halls.
“Our big focus is showing that we are serving local and sustainable items on the menu,” said Pam Yee, district marketing manager at nuCuisine.
Some of the food featured at the fresh market came from the nuCuisine farm in Wisconsin. As part of the larger effort to increase sustainability, nuCuisine purchased the farm last spring to supplement some of the produce used at NU.
NuCuisine recognizes that the food system is not optimal and hopes to increase sustainability by producing organic foods and asking vendors to buy from local farms, said Theresa Laurenz, district dietician at NU.
Representatives from the Center for Foodborne Illness Research & Prevention also held a food safety trivia wheel at the Rock on Monday afternoon to inform students of how to prevent foodborne illnesses.
Emphasizing the economic and health factors associated with food consumption demonstrates the interdependent relationship of larger issues related to food production, Hung said.
“I kind of wanted to bring together a community where people could talk about food issues and support real food on campus,” Hung said.
Food Day also incorporated a panel discussion on NU food production at McCormick Auditorium and a tour of the Norris kitchens, organized by the Living Wage Campaign.
“We wanted to make clear that it’s beyond contract negotiations,” said SESP sophomore Robyn Levinson, a member of the LWC. “We wanted to focus on what the workers here are proud to do. A lot of the chefs and workers in our dining halls are really talented and really invested in creating food.”
Hung said the student response has been positive, and she hopes to organize a student group to continue the effort next year.
