By: Steven Payne
Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado always looks for ways to improve its food and dining experiences. Whether that is implementing composting in its dining halls, hosting themed dinners in the dining halls to get people into the holiday spirit, or throwing tailgates and picnics during welcome weeks and home football games to bring people together and foster more Ram pride. Colorado State is no stranger to making changes that will benefit its community. I believe that changes to the meal plan program and more community involvement will benefit the student body and the Fort Collins area greatly.
What is Meaningful Food?
Meaningful food is food that serves more purposes than just nutrition. Meaningful food can be food that makes you feel good, makes you happy. Meaningful food can also be something that relates to your food identity, something that is individually important to you. Meaningful food can be displayed in many ways, but I believe meaningful food should do three things. Meaningful food should satisfy you in more ways than just nutritionally. It should bring people together and promote community. And lastly, meaningful food should not be difficult to obtain.
Satisfaction in Eating
Illustrative Photo: Source Colorado State University News
Colorado State’s dining halls do an amazing job of providing a variety of meal options for students regardless of dietary restrictions or eating preferences. As someone who regularly eats at CSU dining halls and has been to other dining halls at other campuses, I can proudly say we are one of the best. However, this does not mean that I never get tired of eating at the dining hall, after all, it is a dining hall. There is limited variety when it comes to what they can serve and sometimes certain foods start to get old and we become burnt out of our favorite options. To combat this, I believe we can partner with the city of Fort Collins to expand our palates and our dollars.
Breaking the Boundaries of Campus
Illustrative Photo: Source Coopersmith’s Pub and Brewing
CSU meal plans include two options for students to pay for their meals: Meal Swipes and RamCash. At this current moment, Meal Swipes and RamCash can only be used in the dining halls and at the food court in the Lory Student Center. What if we could partner with local businesses to include off-campus locations on the list of places where we could use our meal plans? This would positively impact the local businesses and the downtown Fort Collins area since they would be gaining an entirely new demographic of customers. And for the students, the benefits would be tremendous. They can go out to eat at whatever local restaurant of their choosing without feeling like they are throwing money away by not eating with their meal plan. They can choose restaurants that offer healthier, more sustainable foods that will make them satiated and satisfied. Adding off-campus restaurants to the meal plans would effectively negate food burnout and would allow students to experience a greater variety of foods or even try new dishes that they normally would not have. Now you may ask, why would local restaurants go through all the work to implement this idea, or would it even work? I have strong evidence to support its success. I got the idea to add off-campus restaurants to the list of places you can spend your meal plan dollars from my sister who goes to the University of Pittsburg. In 2020, the University of Pittsburg partnered with several off-campus restaurants to accept students’ Dining Dollars during the pandemic to try to combat the closing of local restaurants, naming the program Pitt Eats Local. This program was super successful and in 2021, the University reported that $772,000 worth of Dining Dollars had been transferred to local businesses through this program. Because of this success, more restaurants wanted to join the program and expanded the accepted locations to fifty-four. Now the question is, would this work in Fort Collins? I believe so. Fort Collins has shown massive growth since the pandemic, with many restaurants rebounding, and new restaurants opening, and Old Town continues to grow daily. Even with all this promise, the only way to know for sure if this program would work at CSU is to implement it ourselves. However, there is one thing that I know for sure, this plan would significantly improve the amount of meaningful food here at CSU.
Changing Up the Pace
CSU’s dining halls often serve one purpose for many students, a quick bite to eat between classes or assignments. In this way, the housing and dining services here at CSU excel. However, there comes a point where food can and needs to be more than just subsistence. CSU dining knows this and has put on holiday or event-themed dinners at certain dining halls to promote more communal and social aspects of eating. I greatly enjoyed what felt like a breath of fresh air on these days and found myself hoping for more themed dinners in the future. Bringing more than just a need for sustenance to our meals gave a new light to what I thought was possible in a buffet-style establishment. At these dinners, the dining halls seemed much more alive and time seemed to pass faster than expected. My friends and I found ourselves spending much more time eating than usual just because we were simply enjoying our food and company. I would love to see more of these themed dinners that foster a connection between students and staff and can bring people together in a fun and relatively simple way. The other way to foster these kinds of connections is with the Off-Campus dining dollars plan that I mentioned earlier. Partnering with restaurants where students can go to have a long, sit-down dinner with their friends would certainly impact the feelings of community on this campus. These kinds of benefits are preached by the Slow Food Movement, which believes that food is meant to be the sharing of cultures and traditions. Having a focus on keeping things local and supporting the community that you live in will foster a greater fondness for the place you live in and the people you know. Choosing to nurture a community-favoring environment when it comes to food at CSU will benefit the students greatly while being a sustainable positive influence on the community.
Fighting Food Insecurity
Food insecurity is known to impact 30% of the student body here at CSU. A program called Rams Against Hunger here at CSU offers many resources to combat this prominent issue. One is called the Rams Against Hunger: Day of Giving, through which students who have meal plans on campus can donate 2 of their 15 bonus meals every semester to those in need. I find this to be a step in the right direction when it comes to preventing food waste and supporting those in need. But, I want to take it a step further. The meal swipes that come with meal plans at CSU reset weekly and do not roll over. I find this to be a complete and utter waste. I think that students should be able to donate not only their bonus meals during one week each semester but should also be able to donate their leftover meals that expire at the end of the week to those in need as well. Meaningful food is food that not only helps us but can also help others and I believe that we have many more ways to do just that than what we have currently implemented. Food should not be a privilege and good food should not be hard to obtain. Those of us who are fortunate enough to not struggle with food insecurity should be helping those who are struggling, not lining our pockets with the money that seemingly disappears every week.
About the Author
Hi! My name is Steven Payne and I am a first-year student at Colorado State University. I am an Honors Student majoring in Health and Exercise Science with a concentration in Sports Medicine. I am from College Station, TX and I love to cook for my friends and family. Our Honors Seminar You Are What You Eat, focuses on how food affects our identities, culture, and the world. This class has taught me about the importance of food and social interactions and how they interconnect.
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