Half Way Done!

Well, week 4 is officially over, in just under 4 weeks I will be heading home... I can't believe it. As slow as time's been going, missing everyone back home, it has really been flying by, too!

Here's what I've been up to lately:

I've started doing a project with one of the unit managers that used to be a Registered Dietitian. We're looking at the fall menu cycle & condensing it by recipes to see how often & frequent we are serving the different items. We're also looking at each recipe and going ingredient by ingredient to condense that as well. See how many items we are actually using and how often we are using them. We're also trying to order as many of the products we need as possible from our one main supplier, US Foodservice. The idea behind this is that not only will it make things a little easier for the Managers of each unit ordering, but it also contributes to how Yale is trying to reduce their ecological footprint. This is because by ordering from the same person we are reducing the amount of trucks that come onto campus and the frequency of which, which reduces carbon emissions and gas usage. Yale has done many things like this in the last 4 or 5 years which contribute to their attempts to become more sustainable. I think that's such a great idea. Anyways, once we get all the ingredients we need to make sure that they are correctly linked to each recipe so that we can go over all the nutritionals & menu item identifier cards (what's displayed in the dining halls) to make sure that information is correct. Some of the ingredients aren't linked properly (in the computer system they aren't attached to the correct food item), which means our menu item cards aren't giving the correct information.

I've also been doing a little project for the Executive Director. He wants me to go through our Bake Shop recipes and think up ways to reduce the amount of sugar we are using. The buzz appears to be less concerned with fat these days, because of all the types of healthy fat, and more concerned with sodium and processed sugar. It's an interesting & challenging project. The main challenge I find with this is that the field of nutrition is SO much more complicated than just eat what's healthy & avoid what isn't. One of the reasons I love nutrition is because there's just so much to it. Other key factors that have to be taken into consideration is disease and allergies, personal preference, cost, availability, popularity... There are so many things that one needs to take into consideration when feeding a large population like we are. I think that simply reducing processed sugars will be a bit of a challenge. Especially with University students. Not to mention baking is all chemistry, so by chaning one ingredient chances are others will have to be altered as well. Hense why this project is proving to be quite challenging.

Something else I've been working on is going through the complete fall menu cycle to calculate calories, fat, saturated fat and sodium in a serving of all the recipes. Once I have completed this I can go by the options day by day so that the nutritionals are spread out evenly throughout the days. I know one thing our Executive Chef has been working on the last couple weeks (as well as endless amounts of Dining Hall Managers & the Executive Director) is going through the fall menu cycle to try and balance out the foods. Make sure that certain types of food are spread out evenly & there are more popular items on a day with a few less popular so that they aren't all clumped together (that's been a past complaint with the students- some days they find lots they want to eat and others not much at all so Yale Dining's been working hard to change that). They also take into consideration personal preference, so if one of the main chefs really enjoys a certain dish, they may be more likely to put it on the menu than a chef that doesn't particularily like it. So by ensuring the nutritionals are spread out as well, the students can have healthier & less healthy options each day so there is a wider spread of satifcation in their meal choices.

Another project I have been given is to start a running list of all the things wrong (or that we'd just like to change to make it more user friendly) with the current computer system we are using. This will help them in their search for a better one (or upgrade the current one), which they are in the process of doing. Before I leave I will hand in a complete copy (at least, the most complete I can manage) of things they should consider when buying a new system & when starting it up, so that everything is entered correctly & uniformly right from day one. Which is where a lot of the problems we have been running into are coming from. Everyone enters things differently and so the system is kind of a mess. Then when one person leaves, and another takes their place, they will do it differently, too. So for 10 years of numerous people using it & certain positions switching hands, the system is basically impossible to clean. Starting from scratch really seems like their best bet.

Last week I discovered that the nutritionals for the service recipes weren't matching up with the nutritionals from the production recipes, which makes zero sense because the service recipes are created FROM the production recipes. Once I discovered this I had quite a few meetings with head people in the business office here. On Friday I went to try and fix it, and lukcily I was able to. Recipes were just entered into the system incorrectly. But that was a big part of my week last week.

It's been busy and seems to only get busier as the time goes by, I just hope I can make a bit of a difference (preferably for the better) while I'm here!