Let Nothing Be Wasted

JMU food is good. Good enough to be ranked #5 in the Princeton Review. Staff and students eat a lot of it, too.

But what happens when there’s too much food to be consumed before it goes bad? Dining Services is one step ahead of those of us wondering this exact question- they have partnered with the Food Donation Connection to create an initiative to “let nothing be wasted.”

            This initiative is just over a year old, and already 8,500 pounds of prepared food have been donated to the Salvation Army’s Hope for Homeless shelter located here in Harrisonburg.

            This “Let Nothing Be Wasted” initiative came about after a pilot program in 2011 where JMU Dining Services partnered with the Food Donation Connection (FDC) with the common goal of donating prepared, unserved, wholesome food to those in need in the community.

            “This program has a direct, meaningful impact to those in the area who suffer from homelessness or food insecurity issues,” JMU Dining Services assistant food service director Dwight Campbell said.

            The program officially began at several dining locations at JMU in March 2011.

“Through June that year, we donated more than 3,000 pounds of food, which is the equivalent to feeding 635 people for a day or a family of 4 for 159 days,” JMU Dining Services marketing manager Angela Ritchie said. “According to a USDA study, the average amount of food consumed per person per day is 4.7 pounds.”

            “The community realizes a direct benefit from the donations,” Campbell said.

With the alternative to food donation programs being sending food waste to landfills, which would harm the community, there is more reason to be involved to better our community and its environmentally friendly practices when it comes to food.

“While we strive to be as efficient as possible, there is always room for improvement in any operation,” Campbell said. “The donation program actually helps us see where common types of food are overproduced allowing the kitchens to modify their production levels, directly minimizing excess food production.”

All dining locations on campus have been participating in this program as of fall 2011. The amount of food donated varies each week, with some locations sometimes having no food to donate while others have many foods to donate.

“I’ve always wondered what happened to the food we didn’t eat, and I’m so glad that this initiative exists and is working to do something good for JMU and for Harrisonburg too,” sophomore psychology student Kenleigh Prendergast said.

There is a set process in place for how to manage the food that is donated.

“The food is inventoried, bagged, labeled, and frozen on campus and then picked up by the Salvation Army, through an agreement with FDC,” Ritchie said.

While the Salvation Army is the main recipient of the surplus food from JMU, food that goes beyond what they can use is passed on to other area service agencies involved in the FDC program.

This program, and the Food Donation Connection organization that provides it, goes beyond the contributions of JMU.

The FDC works with food service companies across the country to provide a socially responsible alternative to discarding wholesome food. It was founded in 1992, a year that many of JMU’s students were born, and has coordinated the donation of more than 164 million pounds of quality prepared food since then.

So, rest assured, JMU community, that food that you can’t bear to eat at the dining locations will end up feeding those who need it in the community around us. Overproduction of food happens, but “Let Nothing Be Wasted” really is working hard to save whatever can be saved to eliminate waste and feed our community.

Seriously Smooth, Seriously Sweet

It's almost summer time. Us girls have spent all winter battling dry skin and chapped lips and now that we're showing more skin as the sun starts to shine more, we desperately need beauty products to enhance our natural beauty.

Drum roll please... eos is coming to the rescue!

eos (which stands for evolution of smooth) makes lip balms, lotions, and shave creams that boast natural and organic ingredients, silky smoothness, and smiles all around. Literally, every product says it will make you smile.

The smooth sphere lip balms are my personal favorite.

Photo by Rachel Dawson

They're shaped like little balls, which is just way more fun than any ordinary stick or tube. They slide on super easily and they really do make you smile. It's a little ridiculous, honestly. Here I am in the middle of class just trying to put on some lip balm, and all of a sudden I'm grinning like a fool.

But anyway. They're 95% organic and 100% natural. They're gluten-free. Paraben-free. Petrolatum-free. Phthalate-free. They're not money-from-your-wallet-free though...hate to break it to you. These little egg shaped spheres are seriously worth the few bucks though.

Photo by Rachel Dawson

So, where can you find these lovely little lip balms? That's where the real fun comes in. They are sold at various retailers across the US and Canada, but not every flavor or product can be found at every store. Their website gives you a handy dandy map with a list of what stores sell which products, so check that out.

My friends and I have made it a sort of scavenger hunt to try to find all the flavors of the smooth spheres...we're that addicted. And just so you know (it will give you a leg-up on the competition from your friends), in Harrisonburg, VA, Walmart sells the sweet mint and strawberry sorbet flavors (check the lotion aisle) ...and even the summer fruit if you know where to look. (hint hint...try the lip products section).

CVS has the lemon drop (with spf 15, perfect for beach season) flavor, too. Rite Aid, Kroger, and Target also carry various products on the eos line as well.

If you can't get to these stores, there's always the online store!

Get hunting, get buying, and get happy.

Spring time, smooth legs, soft lips, silky skin, sunshine, smiles...seriously ladies, what more could we ask for? eos is just simply and naturally awesome, and I'm not the only one who thinks so.

Brand Buzz

What’s in a name? None of your beeswax!

Actually, the main ingredient in many Burt’s Bees products is just that, real beeswax.

Burt’s Bees started off as a small little business venture that came about from making natural beeswax candles and selling them at the local craft fair. Today, Burt’s Bees is a multi-million dollar corporation that is staying strong to its natural roots and producing hundreds of products free of additives and preservatives.

Yeah, there are the usual beauty brands one expects to find, like Maybelline and CoverGirl, but those brands don’t really offer much in terms of environmental friendliness. In fact, many of those products can get expensive and make zero effort to be all natural and minimize chemicals or harsh additives.

Maybe she’s born with it, maybe she’s got a face full of chemicals? Doesn’t have quite the ring I think they were going for...

Burt’ Bees on the other hand provides us with products over 99 percent natural, over half of them being completely 100 percent natural. Now I know you’re going to say something here about how I just told you how much the word “natural” does and doesn’t mean, but Burt’s Bees puts that in perspective for you. They offer a complete ingredient glossary as well as an ingredient Guide to help their customers better understand what all-natural means to them.

We all know about Burt’s Bees lip balm, we’ve heard the praises and maybe even given it a try, but did you know there are products out there for your face, body, and hair?  They offer anything from facial moisturizers to solid perfumes. AND there are a plethora of new items for baby care and even men.

Don’t even try and say men wouldn’t be interested in some fancy all natural product to make them smell nice. My dad is the biggest redneck you’ll meet and even he can get down with Burt’s Bees hand salve and body wash. He uses them daily. So there!

What’s even better is that most of the products barely hit ten dollars so going all natural won’t break the bank. Even better, check their twitter for special deals and new products.

Okay, so maybe I haven’t sold you on the Burt’s Bees revolution yet. But listen closely to what I’m about to tell you and you’ll never look past the Burt’s Bees website when looking for natural products again.

All the packaging used is recyclable and there is absolutely no animal testing for their products!

What could be better?!

Just in case you do happen to look for another brand that offers recyclable packaging and all natural beauty products with zero animal testing, you should hit up LUSH,

It’s another favorite of mine. Every location has the products available for you to try on the spot and several stores have deals where you can bring in 5 empty LUSH pots and receive free products.

Using Wind for Good

Alternative energy sources. We hear it discussed all the time, and most of the time, we tune it out. How could we, as college students, really do much about it anyway, right?

Alternative fuels, solar energy, hybrid cars... it all seems far from what we can really do to make a difference in our world today.

JMU, however, decided to rise up (literally) and build a wind turbine on East Campus earlier this month to incorporate alternative energy sources into the university.

Photo by Rachel Dawson

This wind turbine can be seen from basically anywhere on campus, and it honestly took me by surprise when I first saw it. My first thought was, "Wow, what the heck! When did that get there?!" but I was quickly impressed by it and glad that JMU is doing something to create alternative energy on our campus.

Photo by Rachel Dawson

The turbine is going to create power for our university using solar panels that were installed this week.  This means more natural energy straight from the environment and less energy from non-renewable resources.

I've always hated Harrisonburg's wild winds, but now I'm seriously glad we have them and even more glad we're using them for energy instead of just hating them for messing up our hair and blowing away our napkins and papers.

Photo by Rachel Dawson

The sky is literally the limit when it comes to saving our environment by using renewable resources, and as the student body of JMU, let's support what our awesome university is doing and encourage even more environmentally friendly progress.

And don't complain when the wind blows you away...it's creating energy and that's awesome. Embrace it.

The Natural Debate

Cheez-whiz, the ultimate offender of over processed and unnatural food. Or so we may think.

Here’s the thing, it’s not any more processed than anything else you’re going to eat and in reality there happen to be fewer ingredients in the bright orange American favorite than most restaurant dishes. This blog makes an amazing argument.

There’s always that person that blasts processed, cheap, manufactured food and toots their own horn about how “natural” the food they eat is and that is the way to go. Obviously outlined in my previous post, all-natural may not always be the best.

But did you know there is absolutely no FDA guidelines for the term “natural?” a prime example being the poultry industry which labels its chicken as “all natural” even though the chicken has been injected with a saline solution of around 25 percent of its weight.

Maybe it’s just me but if I’m eating a seemingly natural chicken dinner I don’t want a saline solution to be a part of it.

Long story short, natural is anything that the producer, grower or manufacturer of food wants it to be. For our purposes though, we’re going to assume natural food doesn’t contain any additives. We’ll say similar to organic but not quite as strict with its guidelines.

Organic foods have extremely stringent requirements to bear the label of all organic. The food in question must not include any additives or chemicals, and it can’t be produced using pesticides or processed in any way that is synthetic. Unfortunately, the term natural can be used without such ANY restrictions whatsoever.

To put in perspective, Hostess could smack an “all natural” sticker on every box of Twinkies and probably be all the richer for it.

So now you know what organic is and what natural isn’t but what exactly is processed food? Well, it’s defined as “any raw agricultural commodity that has been subject to processing, such as canning, cooking, freezing, dehydration, or milling.” So, to get sassy with the hardcore all natural eaters out there, you eat processed food everyday of your life and you probably really like it.

Obviously there’s more to the debate of natural versus processed food than the simple process of cooking, and it namely concerns the fact that many of the processes take away much of the original nutritional value. Here you can find an entire list of ways food lose nutrition when processed.

For example, the well loved loaf of white bread. During the grain’s refining process it is stripped of its fiber husk, rending basically anything made with it nutritionally defunct. The stripped starch is almost immediately converted to sugar without the bran to slow down its conversion within the body.

But there are always two sides to a story, and many processes actually help bring out valuable nutritional elements like antioxidants or help the body to absorb the nutrition more effectively. Namely, tomatoes, corn and other vegetables benefit from canning or cooking. Additionally, cooking food can kill off bacteria and help in breaking down proteins for digestion.

Now you’ve got all the facts. You know that natural foods can contain some out there ingredients and that there is no sound way of determining just how natural any food is with that label. You know that processed/manufactured food is merely the way in which it is prepared and can both help and hurt in terms of nutritional value. And you know organic is a class all its own.

I guess it comes down to what is better for you. Is eating naturally more beneficial when it comes to health? According to experts, no. There is absolutely no scientific evidence today that says eating natural or organic or processed food is better over the other.

Yes, someone who eats all processed food all day for their entire life may be overweight. But it’s all about moderation, as with anything. And moderation in what you eat is a subject all its own. Hardcore natural and organic believers would stop me here and scream while tearing out their hair thinking I forgot all about additives and pesticides in processed food.

I haven’t forgotten, but again, the presence of those in manufactured and processed products is still nutritionally comparable to those that are organic or natural.

So, go out and take an organic cracker and spread some cheez-whiz on it while drinking all-natural milk. Why not? It’s all the same anyway, right?

At the Peak of Perfection

We've been told since we were little to eat our fruits and vegetables. We got dessert if we did (and if you had super awesome parents), and everyone was happy, especially your stomach.

Now that we're older and wiser, we not only need to eat our fruits and vegetables, but we really need to take it to the next level. Eating produce is awesome. It's delicious. (At least this veggie loving girl thinks so...) But really, we can do our planet a huge favor by eating in-season and local produce.

By eating what's already naturally growing around us, we save the earth and keep sustainable processes working efficiently and in an eco-friendly way.

Okay, so "sustainable processes" isn't inspiring you to run to the local farmer's market?

Here are even more reasons why you should (REALLY) make the change.

1. Your food will taste a heck of a lot better. Crops that aren't in their natural environments at the natural time of year won't ripen the same, have the same flavor, or just be the same fruit or veggie you really want to eat. Save your tastebuds. They'll thank you later.

2. You'll feel like a million bucks. Eating food that tastes ripe and delicious and naturally grown? Trust me, you'll just feel... better.


3. You'll save some major bucks. It's supply and demand, people. For those of you not economically talented, that basically means that when crops are growing the organic way, there's plenty of them to go around, so they're cheaper. You get better food, and you save money. Serious win-win.

4. You'll help the environment in an easy but powerful way. That's all there is to it.

What more reasons could you need?!

So check out this map, find your state, and find the best produce for whatever month of the year it is. It's really that easy.

(p.s. If you live in Virginia and you're reading this now, in the month of April, asparagus and spinach are at their peak. Enjoy those greens!)