A new face in Leo’s is living behind the fro-yo machine. In an unassuming office ironically close to the tempting dessert section, you can now find Georgianne Belknap, R.D., L.D., Georgetown University’s Dietitian. You may have seen her walking around at lunch time asking students’ opinions about the dining hall, but if you haven’t it’s worth a post-fro-yo stop by her office to share your Leo’s opinions.
With a soft spot for the Rice Noodles with Tofu and Bok Choy, Belknap has eaten her daily lunch at Leo’s like a regular Hoya since she started this October.
“My duties include focusing on nutrition education and service to resident dining students, providing nutritional analysis and consultation for all dining services aspects around campus,” Belknap said. “We aim at providing the greatest variety possible and meeting as many needs as possible given students’ vast food preferences.”
Uninterested in maintaining the status quo, Belknap is also involved in new projects that will stifle students’ gripes about the dining hall. A weekly “Healthy Choice” menu selection for both lunch and dinner is already in the works. Belknap explained that “One menu selection will be primarily based on the main entrée and a second menu selection will be based on the vegetarian/vegan menu. The ‘Healthy Choice’ menus will provide a healthy balance of all the food groups along with calorie content for the food.”
Along with revamping Dining Services, her other plans include health pamphlets, a lunch box/nutrition lecture series, the redesign of the web site and a monthly Nutritional Marketing Campaign Plan, starting in 2007.
For those who still see Leo as the male incarnation of the Wicked Witch of the West for campus food never to be trusted, it’s time to put your money where your mouth is and try it yourself.
“The [monthly Student Food] Committee consists of students who are meal plan participants along with representatives from Auxiliary Services and the Dining Services team. The goal of the Student Food Committee is to obtain feedback on menus, communicate new ideas and seek student input on future planning.” said Belknap. For those interested in joining the group and getting involved with campus food, go to the Contact section of dining.georgetown.edu.
Programs like these and the availability of a registered and licensed dietitian right in the heart of the dining hall should wake students up to the idea that Leo is a much more accessible guy than previously thought. Belknap provides a worthy channel for students to learn more about improving their own eating habits and gives diners a chance to agitate for gastronomical change on campus. Although Leo’s is still a do-it-yourself dining hall for the moment, with more student involvement we can make the cafeteria a source of pride and make the Leo’s Dinner McGyver a necessity of the past.
