"university" news and stories

Anyone writing checks to a college (or who caught the video of the Royal limo riot), knows that tuition is up worldwide, making any dollars for living -- books, housing, food -- tighter than tight. Low-income students, who may have received free or reduced-priced school lunch from pre-K to senior year, are hit especially hard. Enter the college food bank.

Laura Pick, a graduate student and coordinator of Oregon State University's (OSU) emergency food pantry, told Food Safety News: "Food pantries on college campuses are unique because they seek an underserved population of students that many people may not be aware is struggling."

OSU's food pantry, also open to the general public, serves upwards of 200 students each month. They usually open the doors "toward the end of every month because that's when people generally tend to run out of food stamps," says Pick. According to a September 2010 report by the USDA, food stamp numbers are up by about 50 percent, with 22,000 new applicants every day.

Pick believes every college should have a food bank, and OSU is now trying to partner with other colleges to get them started. UCLA also offers a food bank, which is run out of an abandoned storage closet. And we thought we had it bad with ramen and Easy Mac.

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in conjunction with the University of California, Davis, has uncovered a difference in the way that the eating habits of men and women are impacted by body image.

When shown images of "ideal-bodied people" of their own gender, young men and women often changed their eating habits depending on how they perceived their own body in relation to the image shown. If they were insecure about their bodies, some women would eat less after seeing the image, while some men would eat more. The food used in the study was pretzels, which the participants were given free access to during another activity.

The body images that the women saw were taken from magazines like Cosmo, Vogue, Shape and Elle. The men's images came from fitness magazines, including Men's Health, Men's Fitness and Muscle & Fitness. The participants were all of average build.

The question that remains is what effect viewing these images has in the long run and whether it contributes to the development of eating disorders.

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Application season is winding down (or gearing up if you're the procrastinating type), but for vegetarians and vegans still in high school, it might be interesting to take note of PETA's list of the most veg-friendly schools for 2006. The list of schools was generated by and voted on by visitors to PETA's website, most likely students from the various schools who wanted to promote the things that their campuses are doing to diversity their offerings. The only real drawback to the list is that it doesn't take into account the ease of being a vegetarian off-campus. If it did, odds are that Berkeley would top the list with its tremendous amount of vegetarian and vegan fare just seconds from campus and Indiana University, located in a state where the only vegetarian food at some restaurants is a wedge salad sans bacon and dressing, would be further down the rankings. As it stands, here are the most veg-friendly campuses in the US and Canada:

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The rivalry between UC Berkeley and Stanford has been taken to a new arena: the kitchen. The Big Cookoff was held over the weekend in Cal's Pauley Ballroom, which was made over into an approximation of the Iron Chef's Kitchen Stadium, where fresh vegetables and other ingredients lined the walls. The two 5-student teams were allowed to bring in outside specialty ingredients, as well.

The secret ingredient - fresh tomatoes - was revealed 30 minutes before the official time began and the teams had to complete three dishes in 35 minutes, although they both made more. Cal's Cooking Club came up with a trio of soups: Gazpacho, Spicy yellow tomato and ginger, Roasted tomato, chipotle, and pancetta; panko and chili crusted chicken breast with three salsas; pizza on puff pastry with prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomato topped with mixed green salad and a sundried tomato vingairette; and a tomato, pineapple, mango, and lime wonton-ravioli drizzled with chocolate sauce and served with a spicy tomato sorbet. Stanford made panzanella salad with an aged balsamic vinegar reduction dressing, two tomato soups, and a tofu, goat cheese, crab and tomato custard as the main dish.

Taking a cue from the Axe that is up for grabs in the Big Game, the two teams competed for "the cleaver." The new trophy will be passed back and forth (if Stanford actually manages to beat Cal at some point) as long as the battle of culinary skill rages.

Go Bears!

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Cornell University's new president was honored with his very own ice cream flavor from the Cornell Dairy as part of a tradition that the campus-run dairy started several years ago. The new flavor is called Banana-Berry Skorton, a blend of chocolate ice cream with banana and raspberry swirls. The previous presient's flavor was known as Inauguration Swirl, and featured a mocha swirl in chocolate ice cream.

One would assume that they are taking into account the flavors that the presidents like - after all, a vanilla ice cream fan wouldn't want a chocolate ice cream. If you could choose to have an ice cream named after you, what flavor would you want it to be? Mint chocolate chip? Cannoli? Cookie dough?

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