Yale University: Week Five

How the time flies!

It's crazy to think that we just finished week five of our NACUFS internship and that we finally completed our data entry into Eatec!!!!!!!.......Well, sort of. If you have been keeping up with our blog, you already know that Nicole and I's big project for Yale Dining has been entering nutritional facts, product ingredients, allergen information, and brand name and owner into their software system, Eatec, for the food products they purchase for their operation. This week we completed the tedious process of entering this information as accurately as possible for the 1800+ products that are currently available in the system. Although new items are being added and the product information we entered will need updated regularly to keep the nutrition facts as up to date and reliable  as possible, we are spending the rest of our time at Yale working on a different aspect of Eatec, inputing the sustainability characteristics of each food product. In order to help keep the nutrition data entry uniformed in the future when others update the information, Nicole and I wrote up a policy and procedure document that people will be able to reference. On top of working in Eatec, Nicole and I have also been working on some side projects, including revising allergen information that will be present in the residential dining halls and designing a bulletin board that presents food portion information and how students can practice portion control when eating in the buffet style dining options. This week also presented the opportunity to attend a cook's testing and meet with Yale's Student Wellness Director, Haley McCarthy. We concluded our week by assisting at the Uncommon (farmer's) Market, that takes place every Friday.

Ingredient Identifiers

To further our progress on the allergen information revision process, Nicole, Veronica (our internship director), and myself, met with the Director of Marketing & Branding, Bill Wilson. Bill has created the icons that will be representing the allergens and other ingredient identifiers, which are going to be displayed on recipe cards in the residential dining halls. What we have been working on is providing explanations for all the ingredient identifiers (wheat, dairy, soy, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, vegetarian, vegan, pork, and alcohol) that people commonly avoid due to an allergy or lifestyle choice. We offered our suggestions to Bill about how the icons can be displayed on the recipe cards when printed and brought up our concern about how "may contains and/or processed in a facility" ingredients should be represented. The topic of ingredient identifiers and how to accurately display them in the dining halls has been a very concerning issue for us that we hope to find a solution to soon. We will keep you updated on the results of this project as we progress further. 

Bulletin Board

Nicole and I wanted to create a bulletin board that was visually pleasing, fun, and relative to the student population. Keeping these factors in mind, we chose to create a bulletin board based on the topic of portion sizes. We feel that this is a subject many people have a distorted view about and we have noticed that the plates and bowls offered in the dining halls are very large in size, which is very misleading when you are portioning out the food yourself. On our bulletin board, we are creating a "Yale Plate" in which we are discussing the recommended serving sizes for each of the five food groups, and informing people what the appropriate portion size of popular dining hall options are. We are also highlighting the nutrition facts of the beverages that are served in the dining halls as well as the popular dessert of ice cream. A serving size of ice cream is 1/2 cup, however the bowls that are provided to dish the ice cream into have the capcity to hold 24 fluid ounces. To give students a fun, visual representation of an appropriate portion of ice cream, we are designing ice cream cones with 1, 2, and 3 scoops of ice cream on them. Along side of the cones we are providing the nutrition facts and providing suggestions as to how to avoid over serving themselves. This is just a few of the items we are going to be covering on the bulletin board, but we will make sure to post pictures of the final product when we are complete. 

Student Wellness

Haley McCarthy, the Director of Student Wellness, was kind enough to meet with us this week and provide us with a tour of the Yale Health building. This building was constructed about 2 years ago and houses the Yale Campus Medical Center for students and employees to use. This "mini" hospital provides professional care in Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology or Pediatrics. It also has a full service pharmacy and a cafe for visitors. Haley has a Masters Degree in Public Health and her primary role as the wellness director is to coordinate and support health and wellness programs for undergraduate and graduate students on Yale's campus. To assist her in the development of these programs, each year she has a group of Peer Health Educators that help her facilitate undergrad programs and graduate Wellness Fellows that help her coordinate grad programs. Since coming into her position a little less than 2 years ago, Haley's primary focus in her programs has been sexual education and stress relief. In the upcoming year she is hoping to have a few programs centered around nutrition topics and sought are advice on topics she could cover and fun activities that could compliment the topics. Nicole and I discussed with her the bulletin board we are putting together on portion control and Haley is hoping to use it to display for student wellness. We have the opportunity to speak with Haley again this upcoming week and are in the process of brainstorming more program ideas for her to use. 

Cooks Testing

In order to move up in a cook's position, the applicant must undergo and pass a cook's test. The applicant is given the recipes they must prepare, a prep period the night before, and two hours to prepare the meal the day of. The cook has to prepare the designated food items for 20 people and plate the food for six. The judges of the meal have high culinary knowledge and currently work for Yale Dining. The food was rated by each judge on a 10pt. scale according to appearance, temperature, taste, etc. If the applicant passes the test, they are eligible to move up to a higher cook position, if they fail, a development plan is designed for them and if completed within a certain time period, they are eligible to test again when a cook's position becomes available. 

This is the list of menu items the cook had to prepare. The testing consisted of the preparation of two meals, with service being two hours apart.

Cream of mushroom soup.

The judges evaluating the soup.

The herb and honey roasted salmon.