Good and good for you?

Stanley Murkland, a senior majoring in health and exercise sciences, is redefining how we perceive organic and nonorganic food. An avid cook, he consulted with nutrition and health expert Professor Paul Arciero and with fellow senior Gabe O'Brien to design an independent study about food and attitudes. In a unique partnership with a chef from the Murray-Aikins Dining Hall, Murkland's research (and cooking skills) made some great strides.

Many Skidmore students work in the dining hall in their first or second year, but Murkland has worked there for all four years. Having forged a mentoring relationship with Ben Niese, a chef at the Emily's Garden vegetarian station, Murkland enlisted Niese to help him with recipe development and cooking techniques for his research project.

Niese was impressed that Murkland's study was designed with "a variety of controls-differing quality of food ingredients and healthfulness of preparations-and that it also sought multiple levels of participant assessment-attitudes and feelings before, during, and after active involvement." He says, "I find it exciting and interesting to try to help quantify results from improved and healthful dietary changes and their overall impact on mood state and health."

Each week during his study, Murkland made a new meal in his campus apartment. One week, for example, he cooked a chicken and vegetable dish using all-natural, farm-raised, and organic ingredients, and the next week he cooked the same meal but using the least nutritional ingredients he could find. After serving the meals to his peers, he invited them to take a qualitative and quantitative survey to gather their impressions of the meal. Would they rate the healthier meal as more enjoyable? Murkland also wanted to explore whether they might value preparation and presentation more than the ingredients.

Data are being crunched, but already he says the project has been an excellent culmination of his Skidmore studies as well as his lifelong passions. "My whole life, I've always cooked. It's been a very large part of my family," he says. "I would like to find crossroads between the culinary aspect of foods and the scientific and nutritional aspects." He continues, "People are always asking me to give them meal plans. I would like to make a cookbook of healthy recipes for people who are really trying to change their heath and their bodies."