Bon Appétit Management Company

Going gluten-free is growing in popularity, with many people abstaining for a variety of health and personal reasons, or because they have Celiac disease, a severe intolerance to gluten that can cause serious illness. As awareness grows, more colleges, like Biola University in La Mirada, CA, are offering gluten-free menu options in the dining hall.

What’s in our food? Most Americans think we have a right to know — and that means not just calories, salt, fat, and preservatives, but genetically engineered ingredients such as corn and soy. The Bon Appétit Management Company has joined forces with more than 450 consumer, healthcare, environmental and farming organizations, manufacturers, retailers for the Just Label It campaign, which is calling on the U.S. Food & Drug Administration to label GE foods. Last week Just Label It released a new video, directed by Robbie Kenner of “Food, Inc.” and designed to persuade consumers to tell the FDA they agree.

For Jewish college students following a kosher diet, meal times on campus can be daunting – unless they attend Washington University in St. Louis, MO, or Goucher College, in Baltimore, MD. These universities were ranked Nos. 1 and 3 by College Prowler as offering the best kosher dining options, and since College Prowler’s rankings are created “for students, by students,” prospective students can trust that these schools have got them covered.

For this month’s Well Being Challenge, we encourage you to seek out a synergistic food combination once a day for one week.

For examples. visit cafebonappetit.com. Share your experiences by posting comments or photos of foods that work together on our Facebook page wall. Here’s a recipe to get you started

The community of Lesley University in Cambridge, MA, is a competitive one. For the campus’s second Chopped! competition, contestants had to create a meal in only 30 minutes from a basket of surprise ingredients — with a sustainable twist: they were mostly local.

Chocolate is such an integral part of American culture, and I too believe that little in this world can beat a bite of really fantastic chocolate. Well, I’m happy to report that getting to see where chocolate comes from, and learning all about how it’s grown and processed, actually gave consuming the finished product a run for its money. In October I had the immense pleasure of traveling to central Colombia to visit the birthplace of the delicious Fair Trade Certified™ Cordillera chocolate with which Bon Appétit Management Company chefs bake.

For this month’s Well Being Challenge, we encourage you to seek out a synergistic food combination — foods that complement each other nutritionally — once a day for one week. For examples. visit cafebonappetit.com. Share your experiences by posting comments or photos of foods that work together on our Facebook page wall. Here’s a recipe to get you started.

The holidays are a time for celebration, but also a time to help those less fortunate. Project Open Hand, an organization that provides daily “meals with love,” groceries, and nutritional counseling for homebound and critically ill people in the Bay Area, found a way to combine the two.

Jacob’s Farm is 300 acres plus 1 million square feet of greenhouse space filled with wonderfully pungent smells, intensely flavorful tastes, and beautiful, brightly colored flowers. This is one of the largest farms I’ve visited on my travels — and one of the most socially responsible. Jacob’s Farm offers great benefits to its employees: paying more than minimum wage and offering health care, dental care, and a 401(k) plan; and providing paid time off and end-of-year bonuses.

Located in the heart of ranching country, Whitman College in Walla Walla, WA, is proud to support the work of grass-based ranchers like Cheryl and Robert Cosner of Upper Dry Creek Ranch.

Whitman Executive Sous Chef Julie Zumwalt, Dining Manager Susan Todhunter, and I recently had a chance to visit the Cosners. We stood between two grassy hills dotted with heritage apple trees in the foothills of the Blue Mountains in Weston, OR, where the Cosners raise lamb and beef on 2,200 acres of certified organic grassland.