The dieting and health kick taking place in America paired with the “green” movement has brought attention to a logical hybrid of the two: the push for more local, natural foods incorporated into the diet.

Colleges across the country are receiving pressure to provide these options for students in their dining halls, and MU is no exception. Various student organizations are working toward finding affordable, sustainable options for Campus Dining Services, as is CDS itself.

The Missouri Students Association is one of the student organizations currently working toward finding ways to incorporate natural foods from local venues into dining halls.

“Providing more local food options to supply the dining halls is a huge priority for us,” MSA Director of Student Communications Zach Toombs said. “It lends itself to sustainability and environmental practices.”

Toombs said CDS has asked MSA to come to them with any ideas for foods that could be made solely within the dining halls because those are a better value for students and more sustainable if they don’t have to be shipped in. CDS allows MSA to come to them with any suggestions for improvement.

“We get a lot of our ideas from MSA,” CDS Marketing Manager Michael Wuest said.

For example, Toombs said MSA played a large role in getting trayless dining going, which cut down on food waste. Jordan Paul, the MSA president for the 2009 calendar year, began the push for this and Eric Woods, his successor, saw it through.

“Studies show that students waste less food when they don’t have a tray,” he said. “So there’s a convenience factor that’s lost, but it’s made up for in the fact that waste levels are going down.”

Monica Everett, an active Sustain Mizzou member as well as a SustainaRep, said both Sustain Mizzou and the Environmental Leadership Office are pushing for improvements in the sustainability currently achieved by CDS.

Everett has worked to promote the Real Food Challenge on campus, which is a national student organization movement that is working to promote the usage of “real” food on college campuses.

Although MU does not have a Real Food Challenge organization, two leaders from the group came to campus last year for a workshop held in partnership with CDS and the Wellness Resource Center. The workshop served to let students know more about the food used in dining halls — where it’s coming from, what can be improved and even what sustainability truly means.

Everett said the Real Food Challenge aims to have schools serving 20 percent “real food” by 2020.

Michael Wuest said that isn’t an unrealistic ambition for MU.

“We purchase approximately 15 percent of our food locally,” Wuest said. “That number increases during the Missouri growing season and dips in the wintertime.”

Everett said Sustain Mizzou has worked with CDS on a number of projects.

“CDS is actually really supportive of sustainability in general,” Everett said.

The two organizations have collaborated with Missouri Food for Missouri People, which is comprised of many small, local farmers coming together in an area partnership to provide larger venues with vegetables and produce. MU is one of these venues.

CDS also uses the local company, Legacy Beef, to supply the hamburgers in Pavillion at Dobbs.

Michael Wuest said CDS has been purchasing locally for 10 years.

“We do as much as we can when the opportunity is there,” Wuest said, also noting that most of their ideas come through organizations like MSA, who pay attention to what the students want as well as other organizations like Sustain Mizzou and do their best to deliver.

Separately from CDS, Sustain Mizzou is attempting to promote awareness among students to try to boost the demand for local, natural food sources.

Each year, the organization has a Local Food for Local People food drive.

“We dress up in fruit and vegetable costumes and buy food from local farmers to donate to the food drive,” former Sustain Mizzou President Tina Casagrand said. “It really helps to bring awareness to the issue.”

Tigers for Community Agriculture, a project of Sustain Mizzou, is working on promoting natural foods as well. Although there are two sustainable agriculture courses at MU, there is no production course in the Sustainable Agriculture major. This program allows students to get more involved in production. The group journeys to Bradford Research farm to attempt to grow food in as organic a process as they know how.

Everett is working on spearheading this effort.

“We have a cycle we’re trying to build,” she said. “The goal is to sell the food to CDS. Students will grow the food at Bradford and sell it to CDS and CDS will compost the waste, which will go back to where the students are growing food.”

Naturally, this will only come to place if Sustain Mizzou can reach its goal of working with CDS.

“We’re more about working with system than against it,” Everett said. “We value that CDS will listen to and actually take feedback from students.”

Everett said Sustain Mizzou also hopes to partner with MSA sometime in the near future, hopefully bringing the real food movement to another level for the benefit of MU students, the local economy and the environment alike.

MU students aren’t the only people concerned with increasing the amount of local and natural foods Columbia residents eat.

Eduardo Crespi, a resident of Columbia, is the founder of Centro Latino, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching locals about the benefits of eating healthy and exercising. Centro Latino provides citizens with the education necessary to understand what they’re eating and how to cook healthy meals.

“We propose people to eat more fruits and vegetables,” Crespi said. “Right now we’re working on juicing and selling vegan tamales.”

Comedor Popular, Centro Latino’s latest project, is an affordable restaurant dedicated to providing plant-based foods in a neighborhood typically inhabited by low-income residents. The organization emphasizes that everyone should be able to eat healthy.

Centro Latino has developed two community gardens to help produce the food it uses.

“I try to grow as much as possible,” Crespi said. “We can’t grow all of it because it’s a small garden. We have two but it’s not enough.”

Crespi said Centro Latino works occasionally with the local health department as well as the 4H MU extension, the MO Foundation for Health, the School of Nursing and the School of Social Work.

“We collaborate with every agency that pursues common goals,” Crespi said.

Crespi has a high opinion of MU’s efforts to provide healthier options.

“The university’s doing a very good job,” he said. “It’s an incredible eatery. They are doing a lot, but they have more demand than what their people can produce.”

Centro Latino welcomes MU students as volunteers. With a variety of tasks necessary for the upkeep of all of Crespi’s projects, volunteers can choose to do anything from working in the Community Gardens to teaching English to organizing the office.

This provides yet another way for anyone in Columbia to get involved and help to jumpstart the push for more local, natural foods used in the area.