Colorado College
OP-7: Low Impact Dining

Bon Appetite tracks all invoices for food products and documents purchases of animal products from these invoices. In April of 2013, students collaborated with dining service personnel to conduct a two-week long audit of Bon Appetit expenditures using Real Food Calculator criteria. Studying Bon Appetit invoices, the students systematically analyzed the quality of the various products being purchased and generated quantitative data based on local, ecological, fair trade, and humane expenditures to ensure that Bon Appetit's methodology for food tracking was accurate.

Colorado College provides a vast vegan dining program that is accessible to all members of the campus community. Rastall Café includes a designated vegan station with diverse and complete-protein items and at least one vegan desert option at every meal. Rastall provides labels for vegan and vegetarian items and participates in “Meatless Mondays” by serving only vegetarian items on Monday evenings. Vegan options are also included in the grab-and-go program, available at Colorado Coffee, the Preserve, and Local Goods.

Often, kitchen staff remove meat platters from the serve yourself style buffet and instead serve the meat themselves to customers using the portion sizes suggested by the FDA. This method helps to reduce meat consumption and food waste. Bon Appetit holds a Low Carbon Diet Day in which they use their menu to educate and feature alternative options to animal-derived foods. They also offer monthly Food For Your Well Being stations which provide information on topics such as Portion Control, Healthy Fats. In Balance menus, Lower Sodium and Embrace Plant-based Proteins. These stations often have a sampling table and/or is featured at a station within the cafes so that guests can put their new/renewed knowledge into action for that very meal.