Five Days: Have You Had Your 5 Today?

Throughout March, Cornell Dining will motivate students and staff to eat more fruits and vegetables with our “Have you had your five today?” program. We’ll be encouraging our campus community to eat five cups of fruits and vegetables each day, and offering new and appealing dishes throughout the month highlighting colorful produce. 

The centerpiece of the effort will be “Five Days of 5,” a follow-up to Cornell Dining’s first successful Five Days initiative last year. For the week of March 9-13, Cornell Dining’s chefs, managers, and staff members will participate by eating five cups of fruits and vegetables each day for five days. Students, staff, and faculty will be encouraged to pledge their participation as well. 

Each week of March, we’ll highlight different colors of fruits and vegetables, kicking off with red the first week, orange and yellow the second week, green the third week, and blue and purple the fourth week. The dining locations and chefs will feature new recipes with each of these colors in our eateries, with posters displayed to describe the nutritional benefits the different-colored fruits and vegetables represent. 

Cornell Dining’s student managers will be tabling at eateries during the weeks leading up to the program, spreading the word about the “Have you had your five today?” program, and encouraging their fellow students to fill out a colorful pledge card, which will be displayed in the eateries through the month of March. Pledge cards will not only generate excitement about the program, but will act as a prompt to diners to fill their plates with ample cups of fruits and vegetables. 

Members of the Cornell community will also be able to pledge to participate via social media, and we’ll be encouraging participants to share their efforts, their questions, and their food photos online. We’ll lead the way with photos of fruit- and vegetable-heavy menus throughout the month. 

To help encourage photo sharing, Cornell Dining will host one of its regular social media photo contests the week of “Five Days of 5,” and community members who post their photos on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram following the contest rules will have a chance to win an iPad. Our chefs will be submitting recipes for the first-ever Cornell Dining Fruit & Vegetable Recipe Contest, as well, and we’ll highlight the winning recipe this spring. Find out more, and follow along, by finding Cornell Dining on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, or joining the Facebook Group, #Haveyouhadyourfive?