Campion serves up superfood salad

Last week, Campion dining hall offered a variety of “superfood salads” in their action station for lunch and dinner.

Superfoods are different types of food that are filled with antioxidants, vitamins and minerals, like kale, blueberries, quinoa, and pomegranates. Sometimes it is difficult to eat only all superfoods all the time. The idea within the superfood salad, though, is to get a balance of them in your diet throughout the week.

For example, kale is not the tastiest food in the entire world due to its bitterness. However, kale is “highly nutritious, containing high levels of vitamins, minerals, and brain-boosting phytonutrients,” according to LiveScience.com.

The best part about these superfoods is that you can always pair them with other food to either mask the taste or to get a variety of different flavors instead of just the one. Kale can easily be used in a smoothie with other super foods such as blueberries to create a sweet and healthy meal.

Salad is another great way to get a mix of all the different foods into one cohesive meal. “You’re going to come out of college [needing] to know how to go to the market and shop for these things,” Kimberly Reynolds, an employee in Campion dining hall, said. “So I always explain how I prepare my things for the students.”

Reynolds stresses the importance of having healthy eating habits while being young. She hopes to include fresh salads as an option in Campion dining hall once a month.

Reynolds’ favorite salad, is also the one that is most popular. “The Powerful Pear and Fearsome Feta Salad,” Reynolds said, “with fresh pear, roasted beets, feta and almonds tossed with a spinach, kale and romaine blend and sweet and tangy honey Dijon dressing.” This is a perfect example of how to get in all these superfoods without compromising taste. Adding in the feta cheese and the honey dijon, two food items that may not be the healthiest, with the kale, pears, and beets creates a perfect balance of health and good taste.

“I know nothing about superfoods,” said Benjamin Williams ’19. “I would like to know more about them for my own knowledge so that I can live a healthier life. It sounds interesting, I would want to know actually why there are so many benefits in them, I would want to know the science to it.”

Even though these salads were a limited time deal, they do not have to be gone forever.

“There are cards [in Campion] that say “Ask Me,” you can go online and ask for them [the superfoods] more,” Reynolds said. “The website is connected directly to corporate, and they will tell the chef to incorporate them more.”