The Food

Your food service is on campus to provide you with a service. You're paying the bills, and your food service company/school is obliged to meet your needs‚ not just by providing affordable, appetizing and nutritious meals, but by living up to community standards of safe, ethical and sustainable food production.

The following ideas will allow you to get a better sense of how your food service operates, where they get their food, and any major problems with the food they are serving:

• Take a survey of dining hall offerings over the course of a given week: In addition to the basic quality, how's the variety? The range of healthy options? The alternatives for students observing a kosher, halal, vegetarian or otherwise restricted diet?

• Contact your local health department and ask how your dining hall performed in recent health inspections, then check out the facilities yourself: Are workers given proper time and equipment to meet health department guidelines? What protections are in place for students with severe food allergies?

• Ask to see invoices showing where the contractor purchased the food they serve: Who are its suppliers and what is their record on social and environmental sustainability? What percentage of the food your school buys is local? Organic? Fair trade?