The D-Spot

Author: Dina Magaril

When I was a sophomore, Middlebury spent $6,000 to host a screening of Jaws at the natatorium, raising the pool temperature for the duration of the movie and providing a plethora of colorful inflatable tubes to choose from. I attended the event, and was glad to jump into a warm pool filled with intoxicated peers after spending a cold January night outside. Yet, looking back at this luxurious event, it seems incredulous that a school as green as Middlebury could have supported an event that was not only intrinsically unsafe (drinking and driving, what about drinking and diving?), but more importantly reeked of excess and energy inefficiency.

Of course, this is just one event that stands out in a pretty consistent timeline of energy efficiency at Middlebury (hello, windmill). Ours is one of the leading "green" colleges, and has helped build this reputation by supporting the local economy through agriculture. For all the money the school spends on lavish parties, dinner parties and, most recently, full-on raves, they put a lot of that money back into the local community.

On a smaller scale, one can consider that almost all the salad bar ingredients at our dining halls are local, many coming from Middlebury's own Organic Garden. We get our milk from Monument Farms Dairy, a local establishment, and while I can't speak for the Friday burgers, I know that most of our pork products come from Vermont pigs.

As part of Professor John Elder's Fast Food/Slow Food seminar, I've started to really think about what I put into my mouth, how far the food I buy travels, who made it and packaged it and whether those who produced my food have been treated fairly. I've become highly conscious of eating locally, which luckily is easier to do in Middlebury, VT than in any other city I've lived in. Our local farmers' market allows us to interact with and support local farmers while getting the freshest produce available at a reasonable price.

However, eating locally has also forced me to think about eating seasonally which, given my cravings for tropical fruit and tomatoes in every dish, has been a harder transition to make. Tomatoes simply don't grow in the winter and bananas don't grow in Vermont, yet both of these foods are served year round in the dining halls. Have you ever stopped to wonder how much energy is used to transport the bananas and oranges we have in our dining halls from whatever warm climate and borders they cross to get here?

When I go out to restaurants, I've become that annoying customer that asks where the meat comes from. And while it might create a momentary awkwardness with others at the table who don't want to trouble our waiter, it's become important to me whether the steak I order is grass-fed or has eaten a hodgepodge of chemicals and manure for its last meal. I've started to notice the difference in cage-free eggs and those from chickens that have been injected with hormones. My palette may not be refined enough to taste the difference, but knowing where my food comes from has allowed me to either enjoy it more, or reject it entirely. Along with taste, knowledge of our food needs to be considered an essential ingredient in evaluating it.

Recently, I've started shopping almost entirely at the Co-op, and while some items are more expensive than they are at Shaw's across the street, I prefer to spend the extra 50 cents on a bag of spinach that came from a farm a few miles away rather than as far as California.

I feel fortunate to attend a school that not only offers classes on the importance of the food movement in this country, but one that practices what they preach as well. Now if only they would bring back Ben and Jerry's ice cream.