UNC food policies need to change

At a recent student talk, Chancellor Holden Thorp responded to a question about UNC’s food policies by telling the audience he wished he could “issue a school-wide ban on french fries.”

Thorp may have been onto something. Though we can probably all agree that a ban on french fries would be overkill, UNC’s food policies are in need of some serious changes.

A group of UNC students called Fair, Local, Organic (FLO) Food is leading the way. The students, one of whom asked the french fry ban question, say they hope to make UNC a healthier, fairer and — you guessed it — more environmentally friendly campus.

If you talk to anyone from FLO Food, you might be perplexed by the phrase “real food,” which they throw around a lot. Last time I checked, Styrofoam apples were not on the menu at Lenoir. Equally confusing are the exact definitions of FLO Food’s other buzzwords, like “healthy” and “fair.”

But unlike many environmental organizations, FLO Food has signed on to a specific campaign, called the Real Food Challenge, to ensure their lofty aims are achieved.

FLO Food hopes get UNC to sign on to the Real Food Campus Commitment, the goal of which is to ensure that at least 20 percent of college dining hall food meets their “real” criteria by 2020. To date, 363 universities are in the network.

So just what exactly is real food? Real food has to fit into at least one of four categories: ecologically sound, community-based, humane or fair.

These changes can be as easy as switching to cage-free eggs, which happened this year after students in FLO worked with our school’s food provider to ensure our dining hall was serving humanely produced eggs.

This may seem like a small start, given the scope of the national issues the Real Food Campus Challenge has taken on. But seeds of national change are often sown on college campuses, and UNC has an opportunity to be a leader.

In fact, we’re already halfway there. A baseline survey FLO Food conducted found that about 10 percent of our current food qualifies as real.

The potential for change is as big as the numbers are daunting. About $5 billion is spent annually on university food budgets. If 20 percent of this food were real, $1 billion could be shifted each year toward supporting a better food system.

This is an example of the kind of innovation Thorp has been championing since he was appointed chancellor. It hinges on coordination between students, administration and private food providers. In the long run, it will benefit all three.

If Thorp can get on board with FLO Food — which he can do by signing its petition — it will give them crucial momentum and legitimacy. Tar Heel or not, everyone stands to gain from a food reality check.