GW Dining announced its partnership with a dining research collaborative this month, which aims to study and encourage healthier and more sustainable eating habits at University dining halls globally.
The Menus of Change University Research Collaborative is a global network of colleges and universities that use campus dining halls as “living laboratories” for research into what dining halls can do to encourage students to choose healthier and more sustainable meals, according to the MCURC website. This partnership, which GW Dining announced in its February newsletter, is a part of the University’s efforts to improve GW Dining and build it toward a “top-tier” collegiate dining program, according to University Spokesperson Julia Garbitt.
“Utilizing MCURC’s framework and resources will aid with continuous improvement around plant-forward menus, environmental impact, sourcing, and evidence-based culinary strategy,” Garbitt said in an email.
Five of GW’s peer schools are also a part of the collaborative, founded by the Culinary Institute of America and Stanford University, which conducts research to accelerate progress toward healthy, sustainable and “delicious foods” in University dining halls. Participating universities collectively reduced their greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food by 23 percent between 2019 and 2023, with the goal of 30 percent reduction across institutions by 2030, according to the collaborative’s website.
Universities within the collaborative use all-you-care-to-eat dining halls to conduct research on topics like how wording in food labels can influence what students choose to eat and how dining hall management can better emphasize sustainability behind the scenes.
GW Dining has struggled with numerous food quality complaints over the past three years. Students previously expressed concerns in April 2023 regarding labels in University dining halls, with more that 20 students saying that improper ingredient labeling exposed them to food they are allergic to or that they avoid for religious reasons.
Garbitt said the new partnership, in collaboration with the Global Food Institute, the Institute for Food Safety and Nutrition Security, and the Office of Sustainability, will create new “pathways for improvement” when it comes to food quality.
“As we continue to strive towards building a top-tier collegiate dining program and improving the student dining experience, this partnership reflects a University-wide commitment to research, public health, environmental stewardship, and food systems leadership,” Garbitt said in an email.
The partnership comes as the University aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, with officials announcing they had reached an interim target of 40 percent reduction in December.
In a recent MCURC study, researchers found students choose meals that have labels emphasizing the taste of the dish rather than health benefits. Sophie Egan, MCURC’s co-director, said the study, dubbed Edgy Veggies, is an example of the type of research they could conduct in GW dining halls.
“We’ll often pilot a research study at one university, figure out the plug and play template for conducting that living lab research, and then open it up to replicate at many universities to see if something is more generalizable, so you get much better statistical power,” Egan said.
Egan said a lot of the research done within the collaborative ends up in peer-reviewed academic publications, and the collaborative gives students at its partner universities the opportunity to assist with research and get their names on peer-reviewed research articles.
“We’ve had many students have that experience, which is really terrific for their careers, and often again, they get the chance to co-author or work on data analysis with not only students and faculty from their university, but from other universities that are all working on it together,” Egan said.
Now that GW is a part of the collaborative, students may see active research happening within the dining hall, which could look like researchers setting up tasting tables or changing signage and food labeling as a part of their research, Egan said. She said universities join the collaborative because they already have existing sustainability goals and want to be a part of a global community that is also working toward similar sustainability and healthy eating goals.
“Most of the universities, and this would apply to GW, are part of the collaborative because they’re already bought in to healthy, sustainable, delicious food choices,” Egan said. “We are not an advocacy organization. We’re not trying to convince any university to start implementing these things.”
