Knowing the serious aftermath that an unhealthy diet entails, I decided to use my knowledge about nutrition and exercise to help the students in our school. With such a goal in mind, I took the initiative to set up a club and named it “Crazy Scientists Bakery” with a few other students who also share my passion for food.

The origins of my obsession with food

There is an old saying in China “There is nothing but food and love that we cannot fail to live up to.” I have been a passionate food lover since I was young. My Mom had to bribe me with a stick of candied haw to go shopping with her. When I was in 5th grade, I had a chance to attend a bakery lesson and immediately fell in love with baking. I became so obsessed with food, whatever I do seems to be related to food. I watch food-related TV programs, read books about food, write about food and take part in activities relating to food. My parents could not help but gradually come to the conclusion that their daughter’s love for food was not just a passing whim but a lasting addiction.

Apart from that, I am also quite interested in food culture and the nutritional value of food, the history of food, food science and food related biology, psychology and politics. My love of food broadened my horizon and increased my curiosity about the diversity of the world. I found a lot of happiness in the food and enjoy cooking. I feel that food can serve as a bridge connecting us to each other, despite differences in languages, cultures and races. To me the greatest moment is to see everyone love the food I prepared and give me a happy smile.

How my love of food inspired a mission of public service

During my two-year study in at UWC Changshu China, I found that “health problems” are quite common when engaged in an academic curriculum as rigorous as the International Baccalaureate Program. Being engulfed in the workload required by IB study leaves us with limited time to spend on physical exercise. Our community is not paying enough attention to health as a whole. Students often eat very immoderately during meals. Their food consumption in the canteen is already highly unbalanced, not to mention all the snacks, take-out and instant noodles they order from off campus or buy online. This was truly shocking to me.

Knowing the serious aftermath that an unhealthy diet entails, I decided to use my knowledge about nutrition and exercise to help the students in our school. With such a goal in mind, I took the initiative to set up a club and named it “Crazy Scientists Bakery” with a few other students who also share my passion for food.

Club members: Bella Zhou, Selene Pan, Sophie Huang, Melody Zhong, Raymond Feng, Selina Tian, Yilun Hua

Because of UWC’s multinational environment, with students and teachers coming from over one hundred countries, it is very challenging for the canteen to prepare a menu that will cater to everyone’s tastes. We frequently heard people complaining about the limited choices and the unhealthy cooking style of the canteen food. Due to their dissatisfaction, students opted to consume even more unhealthy street food. This urged me and my club members to do something to address the situation. We decided that the first thing we should do is to start changing the canteen food.

The huge success of the Trial Week

First of all, we collected a lot of information from the students, and developed a general idea of the sort of improvements we needed to make. We received valuable suggestions like; increasing the vegetarian dishes, expanding the salad bar variety with more vegetables and fresh fruits, cutting down oily dishes, adding coarse grains and incorporating international cuisine.

Examining the survey results, we also found out that only about one third of students take breakfast regularly at the canteen. It is common sense that breakfast is the most important meal in a day, so we cooperated with the canteen and made a great change in the breakfast menu, providing more varieties as well as Western style breakfast to make it more appealing. We aimed to provide a healthier and tastier breakfast to draw students to the canteen for breakfast before going to the class. We put up the daily menu via wechat and emailed every morning before breakfast. These steps proved to be very effective, as a lot of students got up early to rush to the canteen to try the pancakes, eight treasure rice and the greens before starting a hugely demanding day of study and activities.

With the breakfast crisis resolved, we then turned to lunch and dinner.  To cater to different students' and teachers' appetites, we got the canteen to offer more international cuisine such as mashed potatoes, mushroom baked rice, hot dogs, pasta, curry, shepherd's pie, lasagna, sushi, Korean stylerice, and Thai style chicken soup. More fresh vegetables like cabbage and mixed lettuce are also beneficial to people who prefer more fibers. Since our goal was not only to help everyone enjoy the healthy and fresh food, but also to encourage them to develop healthy eating habits, we also reminded everyone when we put up the daily menu that a healthy diet not only refers to having more kinds of food but also taking in the appropriate amount of food.

Great variety of choices at breakfast. Potato cakes, sweet potatoes, corn, pancakes, eight-treasure rice pudding, fried dough sticks, porridge and French toast. We also added more varieties to the cereals to make the breakfast both healthy and attractive. 

Great variety of choices at breakfast. Potato cakes, sweet potatoes, corn, pancakes, eight-treasure rice pudding, fried dough sticks, porridge and French toast. We also added more varieties to the cereals to make the breakfast both healthy and attractive. 

Great variety of choices at breakfast. Potato cakes, sweet potatoes, corn, pancakes, eight-treasure rice pudding, fried dough sticks, porridge and French toast. We also added more varieties to the cereals to make the breakfast both healthy and attractive. 

Cooperation with the canteen staff

During the Trial Week, we received our canteen’s full support. It was very difficult for the canteen staff to change their routine. However, the canteen manager sacrificed his own resting time to discuss the menu with us. The chef tried his best to cook the dishes we had suggested. We were all working together to get a healthier diet for the UWC faculty and students. 

In the process of communicating with the canteen manager and chef, we also discovered many critical factors that we didn’t take into consideration before. The canteen not only needs to consider the taste of the food, but also the budget, access of ingredients, allergic and religious requirements, arrangement of stoves and cooking time, etc. Only when we started to think from the canteen’s perspective, did we realize their pressure and their difficulties to try and satisfy the taste of such a large group of people. We became all the more appreciative of what we already had.

Discussing the menu with Chef Liu

All our efforts paid off

Our club had no way to know the difficulties involved until we did them ourselves. Everything wasn’t as simple as we imagined. In order to make our Trial week more meaningful and effective, we needed to publish every day’s menu through all the media platforms we could use, from posters around campus, to posting pictures of the dishes before every meal to entice more students to eat at the canteen. Our efforts have definitely payed off. Some students told us that the new menu for breakfast became the only reason for them to wake up half an hour earlier. Therefore, we need to give a big hug to all the canteen staff as well as all the people who helped organize this Trial Week. Without their cooperation, we could never have achieved such a positive outcome.

Discussing the menu with Chef Liu

Students enjoying their meals 

Communicty feedback 

One of our teachers commented that: “This week, we have seen a group of inspired students in the crazy scientist bakery put forth a monumental effort to make positive change in the food options at our canteen. I don't know about the rest of you, but I have been thrilled at the new variety of food available to us.”

“If you agree with me, I would like to encourage you to take the opportunity to express your pleasure and gratitude. Find a member of the crazy scientist bakery group, or talk to a member of the canteen staff. Tell them how much you like the food, how much you appreciate the change.”

One student also added: “I feel so grateful to this group of students who care so much about everyone’s healthy life and healthy diet in this community, and actually taking actions to make a difference. Even though these actions seem to be small but they have brought us so much happiness and contentment every day.”

Looking back and moving forward

This project for me and my club members is not only about improving the food in the canteen, it is a first step to realize my dream to learn and exchange the beauty of food culture among peoples from different parts of the world. UWC has provided the best platform to start my journey. 

Trial week was just a start; our club aims to try our best to form a positive attitude and healthy environment in our campus. We plan to do all sorts of activities such as producing videos promoting healthy diet, conducting workshops on nutrition, and organizing sports competitions in the future. We want all students to both excel in the academic field and enjoy good health. Watch out for more from us.