By JULIE CARLE
BG Independent News
Kierston Hoying is a dietetics student at Bowling Green State University whose nutrition knowledge has gone to the dogs.
As the nutrition intern for BGSU Dining, some of her internship is devoted to making healthy and tasty dog treats from the dining halls’ food scraps.
The initiative, called Waste Not, Wag a Lot, is the latest sustainability idea developed by Chartwells Higher Education in partnership with BGSU Dining. The idea was proposed by one of the chefs who loves dogs, Hoying said during a recent interview in the test kitchen at The Oaks Dining Center.
The inaugural batches of the dog treats were offered before Thanksgiving to students, faculty and staff to take to their dogs.
“There were no complaints,” said Jon Zachrich, director of marketing, communications and technology for BGSU Dining.
With that first round of happy dogs, the plan calls for batches of the treats to be delivered a couple times a month to the Wood County Dog Shelter on East Gypsy Lane Road in Bowling Green.
“This is another way, a fun way, we can give back to the community,” Zachrich said.
The dog treat recipe uses pre-consumer food scraps of carrot and cucumber peels, from vegetables that are popular ingredients on the salad bars.
“Sometimes we cut the tops and bottoms to add to the peels,” she said. “Anything they aren’t using we’ll take and use in the recipe.” Each week, approximately 20 pounds of carrot and cucumber scraps are available for the dog treats.
In addition to the two vegetables, the recipe calls for cooked oatmeal, flour, an egg and water. “We found the cooked oatmeal was the key to getting the right dough texture,” Hoying said.
Once the ingredients are mixed, the dough needs to be worked, similar to pasta dough, she explained. Spreading flour on the counter aided in making the dough less sticky and ready to be rolled and cut, similar to sugar cookie dough.
“The way the treats are made, they will be flaky, more like human people’s biscuit texture,” Hoying said. Once they are cooked at 325 degrees for about 30 minutes, they get crispier as they cool.
Two sizes of dog bone-shaped cookie cutters work the best—a small size for smaller dogs and a larger size for medium and large dogs. The small biscuits make about 50 per batch, while the larger size makes about 35.
She can make small batches of a tray at a time, or with additional help, the treats can be mass produced. “At Thanksgiving, I did 11 batches, with cutting out the treats taking the most time of the process,’ she said. The sustainability intern also helps with the process, Hoying said.
The production will operate during the semesters when the students are on campus, as well as during the summer months when various camps and conferences are held on campus, Zachrich said, “making this close to a year-round opportunity.”
During the fall and spring semester, the university’s dining halls provide more than 20
pounds of the carrot and cucumber scraps per week to produce the dog treats, he said.
The use of food scraps is not the first sustainability program implemented in the dining halls.
“This is an extension of the Feed More, Waste Less program on campus” that was started as a research project by Katie Dietz, a previous sustainability intern, Hoying said.
Food that has been cooked but never put on the serving lines is used to make meals for the program which benefits the Falcon Food Pantry, the on-campus food pantry. “We will take a protein, starch or grain, and vegetables if they are available” to create meals that are frozen for 24 hours and then delivered to the pantry, Hoying said.
Chartwells and BGSU Dining also regularly sends thousands of pounds of food waste to Hirzel Farms for composting, keeping those methane-producing wastes out of landfills.
“We find sustainability especially important on campus,” Zachrich said. As part of the teaching mission of the university, “We think it’s important that we are reaching out and teaching students about nutrition and sustainability.”
The students are learning, but the various innovations also teach the dining teams different ways to implement sustainability initiatives.
Programs such as Waste Not, Wag a Lot helps the dining halls and the university extend its sustainability programs into the community. “We love the sustainability aspect. We have a passion for it and hope to grow it,” he said.
One idea that has been tossed around is to use the green roof to occasionally grow catnip as a fundraiser, Zachrich said. “That way we can make dogs and cats happy.”
