Cooking lessons

I love my summer sublease. For less than I would be paying to live in a dorm, my spacious house comes with comfortable furnishings, a clean bathroom, the privacy of my own bedroom, a large front porch and best of all, a nicely furnished kitchen. Although it may not be large enough to comfortably accommodate more than a couple of chefs or have very glamorous appliances, the kitchen’s true virtue is being the gift that keeps on giving. Modest investments of my time and a little money for fresh produce are all I’ve needed to banish a year’s worth of dorm-food-induced gastric discomfort.\nThis pleasant contrast has led me to wonder: If I, a person who learned to do a little cooking at home and a little more through culinary experimentation, can whip up respectable cuisine on a tight budget, why do institutional meals approved by professional dieticians taste worse than the food at the bottom of my trash can? Note that I’m not just picking on Residential Programs and Services. Indiana’s public schools fed me 12 years of much poorer artificially flavored substances – I won’t call it food – long before I set foot on campus.\nIt seems especially shameful that we cannot guarantee students at all levels more nutritious meals, considering the fact that the Department of Defense’s own Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program has existed for some time and is aimed at doing just that. Still, for many schools, the task of training employees to deal with fresh ingredients, a general reliance on processed foods and problems in satisfying school regulations prove to be insurmountable barriers to providing their students with some of the best food, which is locally grown.\nIn spite of these inconveniences, schools and local farmers can and should become allies. Several states, including New Mexico and Michigan, have already helped link growers and schools. And although doubters are likely to say an idea so “hippie” as promoting local foods can’t succeed in conservative Indiana, there are many reasons to believe it can. To cut through the red tape, a politician only needs to market the effort as supporting family farms while ending the harmful marriage between the providers of unhealthful foods and children’s lunches. I’m surprised no one here has yet picked up on the idea. After all, Midwesterners are supposed to value supporting the small farm over the large corporation. Not to mention that the average Hoosier child would be carrying a few less extra pounds.\nThankfully, IU enjoys several advantages over public elementary and secondary schools. We have an array of academics with the know-how to address the logistics of implementing an organic-foods program. We also have a budget large enough to study how to realistically start serving local produce. And if that’s not enough, Monroe County has an existing network of followers of the local-foods movement and a successful weekly farmers’ market.\nAs a service to its students’ health and as an example to the rest of Indiana, IU should pioneer locally grown foods as the new institutional standard.