Audrey Robinson and Elena Eaton don’t have trouble avoiding their food allergies in the dining hall, they said.
Both are juniors at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science on the Mississippi University for Women campus, and both schools share the Hogarth Dining Center, which introduced a completely allergen-free food station called Simple Servings on Tuesday.
Robinson and Eaton — who are mildly allergic to shellfish and peanuts, respectively — said they are curious about Simple Servings’ offerings.
“I definitely tend to eat the same unhealthy burger or pizza every day, so it’ll be nice to have a little more protein and better options,” Robinson said.
Sodexo, MUW’s food service provider, already offered some Simple Servings dishes but instituted a larger station with more variety after a student survey expressed demand for it, said Kelsey Rosenbaum, Sodexo’s district campus dietitian.
“The Simple Servings station will always have a protein, a carbohydrate and a vegetable, and additionally we’ll have some sort of salad and some sort of plant-based option,” she said.
One example is South Carolina barbecue with coleslaw and corn, Rosenbaum said, and Tuesday’s menu featured grilled steak with sauteed vegetables, a hummus plate and a quinoa salad.
Simple Servings is open for lunch Monday through Friday and dinner Monday through Thursday. The station does not cook with gluten, peanuts, tree nuts, shellfish, eggs, milk, wheat or soy.
Even without any of those ingredients, Simple Servings still has a wide variety of options, Rosenbaum said.
“The ideal is that the station’s really for everyone,” she said. “It’s not just for students with allergies.”
The expansion came after the Student Government Association conducted the survey of the student body last year in response to some suggestions and complaints about the selection of food at Hogarth, SGA vice president Emerald Bowen told The Dispatch.
“Some students felt that some options weren’t to their liking or (meeting) their dietary needs,” Bowen said. “As SGA, we felt that it was our place to change that for students, to make it better.”
The survey generated requests for a wider variety of options, including allergen-free and vegan selections, and for “the cafeteria to accommodate everyone,” she said.
The dining hall already puts up signs so people are aware of allergens in food products, Eaton said, but she appreciates the addition of a completely allergen-free station.
“I think it’s nice,” she said. “It’s very considerate of people’s dietary preferences and limitations.”
Hogarth Dining Center has a series of measures in place to ensure the Simple Servings ingredients and dishes do not come in contact with any allergens, executive chef Matthew Molina said. All the ingredients are stored separately in color-coded containers, and the Simple Servings cooks and servers wear specific uniforms so the rest of the staff can identify them. Simple Servings is not a buffet-style station, so the servers are the only ones to handle the food before it goes on the plate, and they use fresh plates every time, Molina said.
Since he became executive chef in April 2020, Molina has been conscious of what students want and need from their dining options, he said.
“It’s not a static menu,” he said. “(Simple Servings) helps us give students a variety day after day, week to week, month to month, and with that we feel we’re able to capture students’ interests to keep coming back to see what else we’re serving on a day-to-day basis.”
The new station benefits more than just MUW and MSMS students. Carla Lowery, a member of MUW’s information technology staff, said she appreciates Simple Servings’ healthy offerings.
“I don’t have any allergies, but I try to eat healthy,” Lowery said. “I sit at a desk most days, all day long.”
MUW alumna Margaret Triplett said she and her husband eat lunch at Hogarth every day. She was one of the first people to visit the Simple Servings station, and her plate included wild rice, quinoa salad and marinated celery.
“I like the variety and I like that you’ve got healthier choices,” Triplett said. “(I’m) kind of experimenting with some of this new stuff here.
“I’m not sure about this,” she added, indicating the wild rice on her plate, “but the other stuff I’m sure I’m going to love.”
Tess Vrbin was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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