Cornell dining is moving toward sustainability. Rose House Chef, Daniel Czebiniak and Cornell’s Associate Director of Dining, Paul Muscente spent much of Wednesday night’s talk discussing the various ways in which Cornell dining is moving toward sustainable practices. Some of the initiatives include reducing pre-consumer waste by improving food preparation techniques, composting almost all of food waste, and encouraging students to make protein a smaller portion of their diet.
As an Environmental Sustainability Sciences major, I am very pleased to hear that the dining service is taking steps to improve their sustainability. However, as a student, I have trouble jumping on board with all of their methods, particularly the means by which they are attempting to reduce students’ protein intake. The primary way that the dining service is attempting to reduce the proportion of protein consumed is by cutting proteins into smaller portions, and serving them to the students rather than allowing them to serve themselves.
To be entirely transparent, I don’t have a problem with this practice in and of itself if it is truly being done for the sole purpose of being more sustainable. Unfortunately, I am far from convinced that this is the case. Reducing the amount of protein served is an easy way for the dining service to reduce its costs. I’ve spoken to several dining employees who have said that the dining service is struggling financially because its budget hasn’t been raised for several years; although I can’t say that this is definitively true, the way Muscente took care to avoid a discussion of economics on Wednesday seems to lend credence to it. The combination of these factors thus makes me wonder if the actual reason that the amount of protein is being reduced is simply for the purpose of cutting costs, but is being passed off as a sustainability initiative because it sounds better that way.
Sustainability is praiseworthy, but so is honesty. I’ll withhold my praise of the dining service’s sustainability initiatives until I am better convinced that they aren’t being used to disguise distasteful economics. In the meantime, the dining halls do serve good food, and the workers are friendly, so I’ll offer praise of these aspects instead.
In a way though, saving money allows them to be more sustainable too. Meat is one of the most expensive things to waste. Twenty tossed meatballs costs a lot more than twenty tossed leaves of lettuce. And by reducing the maximum amount we can waste by reducing the total amount, they can save money and spend a little more on locally sourced fruits and vegetables or on other foods we normally wouldn’t see in a dining hall. I’m not arguing for or against, I just can see that whether the purpose is for moving directly towards sustainability or indirectly through economic motivations, both ways improve the overall sustainability.
I agree. If they were worried about pushing sustainability rather than minimizing cost, the workers in dining wouldn’t be told to be as aggressive in denying students second servings. There definitely seems to be a separate agenda hidden behind the claims of sustainability. I do concede, though, that we should not take this distaste (no pun intended) out on the workers of cornell dining. Just some food for thought. It seems like Cornell dining is trying to save the leafy greens in their pocket.