BEANS, CANNED, OR COOKED
BEANS, CANNED, OR COOKED
REFRIGERATE IT:
REFRIGERATE IT:
Yes, after opened or cooked
Yes, after opened or cooked
COLLEGE STUDENT INTERVIEWS
SCROLL TO READ PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS & HOVER FOR QUOTES
CONNIE WON
FOURTH YEAR STUDENT AT UC IRVINE
LIVES IN OFF-CAMPUS APARTMENT
HAS A PART-TIME JOB AND INTERNSHIP
"So much food is wasted at UCI because the food court is like a buffet. They have so many different types of food for free as long as you have a meal swipe to enter."
"I feel like food waste is the biggest concern in the freshmen dorm because they have the food court that serves unlimited food in one entry. Since there is too much variety, and they don't charge for specific plate/food, students take however much they want just to be able to try everything and throw away the rest. I have seen students throwing away multiple bowls of food whenever I was returning my bowl. However, it becomes less of a problem as students turn to 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year because they buy food or cook at home.
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During freshmen year, there were volunteers that tracked how much food waste was being accumulated every day. Before you return the bowls, you had to check with the volunteers there to see if you could eat more food before throwing away the rest. They also told students to get just the right amount of food. However, although volunteers were trying their best to educate the students, there wasn't much improvement... which was kinda sad.
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Whenever they have extra food, they donate to the poorer regions of Irvine or a community center, etc (from my understanding). Also, they have a to-go box system where you can take the rest of your food back to your dorm to eat when you get hungry at night.
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I actually waste a lot of food...especially when I first came to college, I wanted to try a lot of things so I ended up getting more than I could eat. Also, a lot of the food did not taste the way I expected so I ended up throwing them away as well. However, after seeing how much food was going to waste (there are buckets of food waste every time I go to return my bowls), I began to minimize the food I get for myself and tried my best to finish them to minimize this waste.
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So much food is being wasted in UCI because the food court is like a buffet, they have so many different types of food for free as long as you have a swipe to enter. Therefore, people find more things they want to get and end up not finishing any of their bowls. If the food court required individual swipes for each bowl or dish, people would be more careful about what they eat or how much they bring to the table."
ANONYMOUS STUDENT
FOURTH YEAR STUDENT AT UC SANTA BARBARA
LIVES IN OFF-CAMPUS APARTMENT
LOW-INCOME STUDENT
ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR INTERNSHIPS
"I ate a lot of frozen food and ramen because it was cost-effective and efficient when I didn’t have the time to cook an actual meal. This helped me save money and reduce food waste since these pre-made meals last forever."
Since the person I interviewed wished to remain anonymous, I will not reveal his name. He has, however, agreed to provide some insight into his personal experience with food waste at UC Santa Barbara.
Due to his parents’ background as restaurant owners and chefs, a difficult and strenuous way of making a living, he has been taught from an early age the importance of not wasting food. Many of the food preparation and preservation methods he knows now is largely due to his parents’ influence. In addition, because he comes from a low-income background, he is even more adamant about not wasting food.
During his first two years at UCSB, he had a meal plan. While many students overestimated the amount of food they could consume and would eventually waste a lot of what was uneaten, he tried his best to get only what he could finish, which helped minimize the amount of food he wasted.
In his third year, he moved into a university apartment that provided a kitchen, so he decided not to get a meal plan. Thus, instead of relying on dining hall meals to sustain himself, he ate home-cooked meals which required him to go on weekly grocery shopping trips via bus. His main motto was: “simple, cheap, and filling.” As long as the food was within a reasonable price range, he would consider making the purchase. He also bought frozen food and quick meals such as instant ramen, a cost-effective and efficient meal when he didn’t have the time or felt too tired to prepare a home-cooked meal. These quick meals, despite being quite unhealthy, allowed him to reduce food waste since they have a long shelf life.
The university apartment he lived in was also close to a food pantry, so he had access to some free food and groceries there. This allowed him to reduce the amount of food he needed to buy during his grocery shopping trips, reducing the amount of food he stored in the fridge, thereby, reducing the amount of eventual food waste after things become spoiled.
He also occasionally went to Panda Express in the UCEN because they provided affordable and filling meals to college students on a budget. Every time he bought a meal from Panda Express, he received a physical receipt that offered him a free entree for his next order, which helped him save a lot of money. These Panda Express meals were very filling, so he often split one order into two meals: lunch and dinner. He would save the leftovers from lunch, reheat them with some other groceries, and eat the food for dinner, which he thought was a smart way of saving money while reducing food waste.
FOURTH YEAR STUDENT
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY
LIVES IN OFF-CAMPUS APARTMENT
WORKS FULL-TIME JOB AS EMT
“Northeastern has a great system where students can either donate their leftover meal swipes to other students who need food or use them to get to-go food from nearby supermarkets and small restaurants, which helps reduce the amount of food and meal swipes that would otherwise be wasted.”
AMANDA DU
Amanda, a senior who goes to Northeastern University, has a unique experience with college food waste that I think the other two students I interviewed don’t have because she goes to a private university in the East Coast.
When she was a freshman, there was quite a bit of food waste in the dining halls because students could take as much food as they wanted. She wanted to avoid being wasteful, so she always tried to only get what she could finish, but at the same time, she liked to try new things as well and if she didn’t like it, she wasn’t going to force herself to finish it just to avoid wasting food. Personally, I feel like this is very reasonable since she avoids wasting food by getting only what she can finish, but occasionally will waste certain things she doesn’t like, which is quite normal.
She also mentioned that Northeastern has a free meal swipe donation system where students can donate their meal swipes to other students who need food. This system helps students not waste their meal swipes, while helping more hungry students struggling with food insecurity with free meals.
Leftover meal swipes could also be used to get food from nearby supermarkets and some small restaurants/to-go places. There were two common options for students to use up their leftover meal swipes: (1) Outtakes and (2) Rebecca’s.
Outtakes is a tin hallway with multiple refrigerators that provide frozen food, ice cream, a variety of drink options, and snacks including Rice Krispies, chips, and instant cup noodles. Leftover meal swipes could be converted into points to “purchase” food from these fridges, each of which was worth a certain number of points.
Rebecca’s was a small restaurant that offered college students certain meals that they could buy with a meal swipe. This service involved a to-go system as opposed to the sit-down nature of the dining halls.
College students with meal plans tend to use all their leftover swipes at once to give meals to their upperclassmen friends who no longer have a meal plan and to anyone who needs food because it’s a good way of getting rid of leftover swipes and reducing food waste.
When Amanda moved into an off-campus apartment for her second, third, and fourth years, she no longer had a meal plan, so she had to rely on buying groceries to make home-cooked meals and occasional take-out and delivery meals to sustain herself. She struggles with buying the right amount of groceries, enough to last her at least a week or two, but not too much to avoid spoiled food. Due to her very busy schedule, she hardly has time to cook and usually will buy meals to-go or get them delivered to her. Although this lifestyle is quite expensive, she often will split her food into two meals since she doesn’t eat much, which she has found to not longer save money, but also reduce her food waste.