Eating at Hedrick Dining Hall

What goes into an average dinner here?

The Mission!The goal of my project is to understand the process the ingredients in my dinner had to undergo before they were cooked in the dining hall. In this presentation, I will try to follow the ingredients from their birth (the farm) all the way until their death (the compost site). So let’s begin!

My Meal

Salad from the Organic Salad Bar

Rotisserie Chicken with Peach Sauce and Rice Pilaf

What’s In the Chicken Dish?Components:

-Rotisserie Chicken-Rice Pilaf-Peach Sauce

• Celery• Onion• Bell Pepper

The Chicken and the Rice

It’s hard to say where the chicken or the rice came from. The chicken could have come from an industrialized farm and the rice could have been grown anywhere. However, we do know that these items were probably not organically grown. The peach sauce is probably processed as well.

What’s in the Organic Salad?

The Ingredients:-Spring Mix [lettuce & other leafy vegetables]-Ginger and Sesame dressing-Tomatoes-Broccoli

From the Farm• Everything in the salad bar is organically

grown• That means there was little to no synthetic

pesticides or fertilizers used on it. • “Some of our items are organically-grown and

pesticide free” Dining Hall Website

“We make an effort to purchase California-grown produce. This supports the local economy and reduces energy use and pollution resulting from the transportation of goods” Dining Hall Website

Similar to the FarmtoCollege Program Results

To the VendorsFrom the organic farms, the produce is then transferred to small distributers. The small distributers then work with larger distributors. UCLA work with these large distributers to make their daily purchases.

To UCLA Hedrick Dining HallAccording to Robert Gilbert, the Sustainability Coordinator for Housing and Hospitality Services, some of the vendors UCLA deals with are SYSCO and World Produce.

Juvenal Solis, one of the Hedrick dining hall managers, informed me that most of the ingredients come packaged and already prepped.

The AftermathAfter the food is eaten, all the food waste goes through the dining hall’s composting system. Although Hedrick does not have one yet, the other dining halls do. Athens Service, which is part of the LA food waste program, then picks up the compostable waste and brings it to a composting facility.

The Carbon Emitted• Transportation creates a lot of CO2. It takes

energy to transport the produce from the farm to the small distributor to the large distributor to UCLA to the composting site. Keep in mind this occurs everyday– the produce is ordered daily.

• Most of the food comes processed or packaged and prepped. Energy is spent processing all the food.

• Cooking the food burns more fossil fuels as well.

The Bright SideThe organic salad bar is doing its part to help the environment and local businesses. It’s sustainable and most of it is grown in California. Improvements can be made by buying more locally grown produce directly from the local farmers.

Similar to the FarmtoCollege Program Results

Increasing Sustainable Efforts• Tray-less Hedrick Dining Hall – Reduce the water needed to wash the trays,

saving hundreds of gallons of water• Beef-less Thursdays – Cattle emit large amounts of greenhouse gases

and enormous amounts of water – Healthier for people in general to eat less red

meat because they’re high in saturated fat

So In Summary…

FARM

Large Vendor Hedrick Dining Hall

Compost SiteSmall Vendor

Happy Eating!