Switching Gears

This week marks the beginning of my Food Service Systems Management (FSSM) rotation, and the experience has been analogous to maintaining solid footing after jumping onto a train that is going 100 mph!

For the next ten weeks I will be working on campus at UK Dining with a Registered Dietitian who is employed through Aramark Corporation, a global provider of food to education, healthcare and business industry clients. 

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Our office is located at the new dining facility on south campus known as The 90. This may date me a little, but when I was a student living on campus "the 90" was just a reference to a literal 90 degree curve in the road that circled around William T. Young library. How cool that UK utilized that reference point in the name of their brand new state-of-the-art dining facility.

Wow, the dining scene sure has changed since my time of living on campus!! The food Aramark serves up is so delicious. The 90 is home to multiple restaurants and businesses, including Aqua Sushi, Taco Bell, Ovid's, Wildcat Pantry, and Fresh Food Company, which is the buffet-style dining hall. Fresh Food Company (FFCo) is an open kitchen, meaning all food is prepared out in the open where customers can see. They have a multitude of stations that offer a wide variety of foods, including vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, deli, pizza, Mongolian grill, traditions (meat and potatoes), pasta bar, salad bar, and desserts.

Here are some of the amazing things I have eaten in just one week!!

Now that you have a bit of background information, let me give you an outline of my first day at The 90. After arriving and taking a tour with my preceptor, she very quickly caught me up to speed on some of the projects her assistant is currently working on. She also put me in charge of marketing for the month of April, which included developing a month's worth of Twitter posts to promote the events that have been set in motion.

A project called "Show Your Body Some Love" is a presentation series about body image that the Nutrition Team attended a training workshop for in March. The last presentation was the very next day, and I was to stand in for the former intern who had moved on to the next rotation. Jaw. Dropper! As it turned out, no one showed up to the event, so I was spared from stumbling through the script. Although by the time the event rolled around I was feeling confident that I could pull it off.

There are a few different dining specific programs our RD participates in or has created. "Produce of the Month," also known as "Healthy Bites Sampling," is an event that showcases a different vegetable each month at Blazer Dining and Fresh Food Company. This month the vegetable at FFCo is jicama and Blazer is featuring asparagus. We are also hosting a Smoothie Bike event, which involves a blender rigged up to a bicycle, requiring the rider to pedal to pulverize ingredients into a healthy beverage. Cool!!   

​We also had a really successful program at Woodland Glen III last week. Don't even get me started about how nice these new dorms are though!! Let's just leave it at, they had a fully equipped kitchen with what appeared to be GRANITE countertops. Yeah. Let that sink in. Our event was called "Homemade Pizza," and we did a demonstration of two healthy pizza recipes, including Very Veggie Pizza and Rosemary Chicken Pizza. The turnout was fabulous, with about 30 students cycling in and out of the kitchen. Some of the students were very interactive, but others just showed up for the free food. The idea was to teach students how to incorporate more vegetables into their diet, using foods they already know and love. The evaluations showed the students really enjoyed the food, but they were expecting MORE food than what was provided. Here are a few photos of the event!

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​So, as far as training to be a Registered Dietitian goes, I'm still not quite sure I fully understand the role of my current preceptor as a food service dietitian. We have yet to set foot in the kitchen at Fresh Food Company. Although I must say I am confident in my culinary abilities, thanks in part to my extensive experience in the restaurant industry coupled with my personal interest in cooking. However, I was really looking forward to learning the administrative tasks to running a kitchen, such as budgeting, inventory, purchasing, etc. The RD in this setting appears to be more closely related to being a Community Dietitian, by planning and implementing programs geared towards nutrition education in the student population. 

I'm looking forward to learning more about the Fresh Food Company, Aramark Corporation, and UK Dining!

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Competencies:
CRD 2.1 Practice in compliance with current federal regulations and state statutes and rules, as applicable and in accordance with accreditation standards and the Scope of Dietetics Practice and Code of Ethics for the Profession of Dietetics.
CRD 2.5 Demonstrate active participation, teamwork and contributions in group settings.
CRD 2.11 Demonstrate professional attributes within various organizational cultures.
(Tip:  Professional attributes include showing initiative and proactively developing solutions, advocacy, customer focus, risk taking, critical thinking, flexibility, time management, work prioritization and work ethic.)
CRD 3.2 Demonstrate effective communications skills for clinical and customer services in a variety of formats. (Tip:  Formats include oral, print, visual, electronic and mass media methods for maximizing client education, employee training and marketing.)
CRD 3.3 Develop and deliver products, programs or services that promote consumer health, wellness and lifestyle management. (Tip:  Students/Interns should consider health messages and interventions that integrate the consumer’s desire for taste, convenience and economy with the need for nutrition and food safety.)