Week 4

Here we are at week 4 already; time just flies when you’re having fun.  To start, Monday was the final day of recipe development for the Employee Health Fair next week, and I think it was one of my most successful recipes to date.  We tested some gluten free, Top 8 free, and vegan Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies and they actually taste like a normal cookie, with a little kick from some cayenne! I haven’t worked with vegan or gluten free ingredients too much before, so I was very pleased with how flavorful the cookies turned out.

Tuesday was the start of our Green Week with a panel on the OU Food Services sustainability efforts and environmental consciousness.  Even though I have been here for 4 weeks now, I’m constantly learning more about the operation and the key factors that play into it.  For example, we have our own hydroponic farm on campus! We also heard from Brad Burnett about how he became our exclusive cage-free egg vendor.  I think my favorite statement of the day was that the University actually has 7,000 free-range chickens that work for them.  I wish that I could give you an exact rundown of every point made, but we’d be here all day.  All in all, what a great way to kick off Earth Week! 

Wednesday and Thursday were event days, which meant a whole lot more running around than usual.  Wednesday was the bigger of the two events for us, as we helped organize the whole Food Safety and Sustainability Fair.  There were tons of our special recipes for people to try, informational games to play and win prizes, and booths from a variety of other vendors to provide students with even more information.  While the wind never really stopped blowing, it was nice to get out and interact more with the student body and educate them about our efforts to be more environmentally friendly. 

3 of our 6 carts for the fair... good thing Sam is an expert packer 

Our fun informational game booth with Sam's lovely wheel 

Thursday was event #2, however for this event we were just asked to provide some of our vegan, gluten-free, Top 8 free foods, so we didn’t organize this event.  If you remember the Nasi Lemak recipe from week one, this was the event it was developed for.  Nice to see a recipe come to fruition!  I heard nothing but good things from the students on the recipe, so definitely a success.  Both of these events offered me a trial run for the Health Fair next week and gave me a real look at everything I need to get done and prepped beforehand.  You never realize how much goes into events until you are on the planning side of things! 

A beautiful day for some Nasi Lemak 

Friday, I spent out of office at the Oklahoma Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics Annual Conference in Tulsa with all of the other dietetic interns in my program.  Basically, it was just a little intern field trip where we heard speakers discuss the benefits of a plant-based diet, some sports nutrition basics, and a little history of the Heart Healthy Diet.  It's always fun to meet up with everyone and share experiences throughout this journey, but I'm pretty sure I ended up with the best rotation.