To ensure student safety, NC State Dining works to prevent allergens such as gluten, nuts and fish from contaminating food across all of its locations.
Lisa Eberhart, registered dietitian and director of nutrition and wellness, spoke about what dining does to prevent cross-contamination. She considers NC State to be cutting-edge with regards to allergen safety.
“Many universities have decided ‘if you have an allergy we’re going to make your food separately, and then if you have a peanut allergy we’re just going to ban peanuts and tree nuts from the campus,’” Eberhart said. “NC State decided to go a different route … We decided we’d try to mark our foods down to the ingredient level for every item on campus so students would know what’s in their food, and that’s been very successful. I think we have fewer allergy incidents here than places where they do this total restriction for people.”
According to Eberhart, around 700 students have identified themselves to the university as having food allergies. These students receive emails whenever dining has special events, such as the Thanksgiving dinner at the dining halls, which include out-of-the-ordinary allergens like pecans in pecan pie.
“We give the students their bill of rights,” Eberhart said. “They’re allowed to talk to the chef, they’re allowed to ask for things that are going keep them safe, and that’s worked really well for NC State.”
Many retail locations on campus, such as Jason’s Deli, have what’s called a “purple preparation” kit, which can be used upon request. According to Eberhart, this contains items such as purple knives, cutting boards and gloves. This is so that both the student and the employee preparing the food know that there are no allergens contaminating the board and knife, which are washed after use.
Scott Curtner, manager of Clark Dining Hall, emphasized that dining employees do not deviate from recipes to ensure food safety.
“If you’re following a recipe, then it has already been tested for nutritional analysis, allergen analysis,” Curtner said. “If you deviate outside of that recipe, then the possibility of a cross contamination could greatly occur, and it could turn out to be a bad thing.”
He also said that surfaces and equipment used to prepare food containing specific allergens are not used to prepare any other foods until everything has been cleaned and sanitized.
“If you’re going to fry fish, then whatever fryer that was used, that’s the only thing that can be fried in that oil, is fish,” Curtner said. “If you have fried fish for lunch and you’re not going to have fried fish for dinner, then after lunch, that oil is thrown away, and the fryer is cleaned and sanitized and fresh oil is put in.”
Eberhart described how the recent outbreak of E. coli in romaine lettuce was addressed by dining.
“It was just starting to be talked about, and we got rid of all romaine on campus,” Eberhart said. “We actually sent out people to make sure that it happened. We’d go out and ask people to order a Caesar salad and see what they would get, and everybody got rid of everything.”
According to Eberhart, the employees serving the food, the manager of the establishment and the electronic kiosks located in dining areas are the best points of contact for anyone with specific concerns about their food. More information about allergen safety and other nutritional concerns can be found at NC State Dining’s nutrition webpage.
