Allergic to the DC: Superior Dining Center becoming more allergy friendly

A section of the salad bar at the Superior Dining Center. Photo by Jasmine Baerg

The Superior Dining Center (DC) is making changes to help people with food allergies.

The DC serves over two million meals a year to a wide variety of students, according to Betsy Helgesen, director of dining services and part-time UMD nutritionist.

However, with serving so many meals, mistakes are bound to happen, specifically when it comes to allergies. 

According to Cameron Spinner, a student with a peanut allergy, a situation arose where the chef didn’t know if the cooking oil at the Mongolian grill was peanut-free. Spinner had been told that it was peanut-free by the nutritionist, but the chef believed it contained peanuts. In the end, the oil was peanut-free. Spinner recommends asking Helgesen if you are uncertain about what type of allergens are present.

Students with allergies know the frustration that comes with trying to grab a bite to eat, but the DC is trying to reduce this frustration.

Although only having one year under her belt at UMD, Helgesen is already working on improvements. The DC is currently in the process of hiring a new dietitian who will be part of the full-time staff. This is new, considering that before the dietitian was only part-time.

Helgesen also envisions receipt binders to be made containing exactly what is in each dish. She is also working on creating online recipes to be available on the website. 

Another thing that the DC has done is the food-to-order stations. The Mongolian grill, salad bar, sandwich bar, and pasta bar are all areas were students can get their food made the way they want. These stations allow for students to make their food to-order. By having this choice, there are more food options for everyone.

“Just a few years ago we were a lot more than just scoop and serve [meals],” Helgesen said. “Now, you have a lot of ways to control what’s in your food.”

But even with all these improvements, issues with allergies are still a challenge.

“I would like to see them make a section of the kitchen safe from the top allergens,” Spinner said. “Because a lot of the food, like desserts, are free of allergens in their ingredients, but they are made in the same kitchen as everything else, so the DC can’t guarantee that the food will be 100 percent allergen safe.”

And it seems that the DC is working on that.

“In the new dining center, all there will be four different stations… and one of them is about clean eating,” Helgesen said.

This clean eating section will not have any items with gluten or the top eight allergens: wheat, egg, peanut, milk, soybean, fish, shellfish and nuts. Many of the foods served there will be made to order. Again, letting students have more control over what is in their food. The new dining center is even planning to have a separate dishwasher for their allergen-free dishes.

But, in the end, this is still not a 100 percent allergy free section. However, the change of contamination will go down significantly.

So there is always a struggle to accommodate with allergies at the DC, but Helgesen is trying to improve conditions at the DC and future locations.