On campus the choices of where to eat are endless, but are these privileges merely filling our bellies or are they making us spoiled as well?

Every time you throw food out because you are full or don’t like its taste, you’re wasting food.

Students at WSU are fortunate enough to have catering services, the Cougar Athletic Training Table (CATT), and three dining halls on campus: Northside, Hillside and Southside. These services all compost rather than throw away the excess food.

Executive Chef Mel Dacanay at the dining center Northside Cafe said hot foods, like the buffet lines, cannot be saved and reused. “We don’t want to call it food waste,” Dacanay said. “We call it compost.”

You could argue that turning leftover food into compost is a good solution, but it isn’t the only solution.

We should be reducing the amount of excess food, and not planning on what smart method to use to dispose of it.

In the dining centers foods like pizza and french fries are thrown in a compost bucket 20 minutes after they are first put out, and every morning WSU Operations picks up the compost, which is then bagged and sold, Dacanay said.

The WSU Waste Management website states that food is composted at the WSU compost facility.

In CATT, which is located adjacent to Northside Cafe, the situation is a little easier to handle.

Athletes are offered different budgets at CATT depending on which team they’re on. Tennis, for example, is allowed to eat dinner at CATT twice a week.

Some teams, however, no longer eat at CATT and instead keep the remaining money that would have gone toward the CATT meal plan.

Workers at CATT have a knowledge of how many athletes eat every night, therefore they can have a more accurate idea of how much food needs to be made.

Executive Chef Howard Campbell said expensive foods such as filet mignon are cooked as needed, which means very little is wasted. Campbell said the staff provides each athlete with the amount they require, no matter how much it may be. The catch: athletes are not allowed to take more than one compostable to-go container home with them.

Why are athletes allowed to eat as much as they want at CATT but not take as much as they want?

Reducing the prices of fresh foods at the end of each day is a possible solution for dining centers.

Let us try and do everything possible before our attitude toward wasting food becomes a permanent lifestyle.

– Sarah Steger is a sophomore communication major from Perth, Australia. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of Student Publications.