Grades got you down?
The new health inspection grades of the on-campus dining facilities are enough to churn anyone’s stomach. Inspection scores averaging a decline of 13.5 points campuswide, according to a Feb. 17 Guardian article, may have caused more than one wayward glance toward the kitchen of a bustling eatery.
But are such worries really founded?
For one, it makes sense that scores from the dining halls should be lower than those from coffee carts or Price Center’s fast-food chain restaurants. The limited menus and formalized food-preparation structure of the latter two make compliance with safety regulations much less complicated.
Another important issue, which is a bit more subtle than the first and seems almost absurdly obvious once it has come to light, is the very nature of the grading system implemented in the recent health inspection of UCSD food facilities. If it seems that food standards in the dining halls are pretty much the same as they were last year, despite the heightened grades last year, it’s because there has been no real change in food standards, period. Has anyone really noticed a decline in food quality? Therein lies the dilemma.
Food facilities have strived so hard to meet the requirements posed to them by last year’s system that the new system has simply caught them unaware. The standardized inspection methodology has not only become stricter in order to match pre-existing state regulations, but has also lost the flexibility needed to emphasize degree of transgression in food preparation, choosing to err on the side of noncompliance instead of practical food safety. When touring a dining hall in an effort to understand the newly lowered grades of facilities that had previously boasted near-perfect scores, the errors that show up are surprising, to say the least. Points are deducted on an all-or-nothing basis; the new methodology does not differentiate between small infractions, which may not necessarily cause health concerns, and more significant violations. For instance, if a refrigerator is one degree Fahrenheit above the established safety temperature of 41 degrees, no matter the content stored, points will be deducted for that category. The methodology does not take into consideration loss of temperature to the environment due to constant use by patrons, or the fact that the refrigerator may store items such as chilled sodas, which would not suffer unduly from a one-degree differential.
Points were also lost for reasons not related to food at all. Cracks in the floor, open doors and boxes left sitting on the floor were also causes of point deductions at some dining facilities, so that matters concerning construction of the physical space were taken into account along with actual safety of consumables. As food safety seems to be the issue that causes the most contention among campus diners, these additional standards would not direly affect a patron’s choice in venue. Dining halls such as OceanView Terrace, Earl’s Place and Canyon Vista have no reports in recent history of harm caused by the food they serve. Considering only two people need report the same symptoms from a dining hall at any given time for it to be considered an “outbreak,” this is definitely heartening news. Fear not, diners of UCSD. While a lengthy history of low grades would give cause for concern, this one new set of grades should not dishearten you from purchasing your meals in a dining hall.
