Catlin Gabel School adopts SAGE’s dietary traffic lights

Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to include a quote from Assistant Head of School Barbara Ostos.

Red, yellow, and green are universal symbols for traffic but at Catlin Gabel School (CGS), they have taken on a new meaning. Analogous to the colors on traffic lights, SAGE Dining Services’ food traffic lights act as a guide for students to pick what goes into their meals.

This year, in place of CGS’ previous Barn staff, the school hired SAGE, a sustainable dining and catering service geared towards independent schools and colleges. SAGE has a digital menu that has red, yellow, and green circles by each item as part of the SAGE Spotlight Program.

According to the SAGE website, the colors indicate the nutritional value of each menu item. For example, vegetarian options are “green,” garlic bread and turkey is “yellow,” and cookies are “red.”

The SAGE website describes the color-coded program. “Spotlight is SAGE’s nutrition program intended to educate individuals on… a healthy and nutritionally adequate diet for optimal health.”

Inside SAGE’s temporary kitchen. Photo by Alyssa Zhang.

However, not all community members feel that the Spotlight system is working.

“I think food should be neutral,'' said Upper School science teacher Bianca Nakayama. “Everyone knows red is bad, yellow is slow, and green is good.”

“SAGE stopped posting calorie counts because of students with eating disorders, so they changed it in favor of the SAGE Spotlight,” said Nakayama. “I think this is arguably just as bad.”

Nakayama hopes that “it will be a simple fix to get rid of the dots.”

In fact, it is a simple fix! Because some members of the CGS community have objected to the Spotlight system, Assistant Head of School Barbara Ostos is working with SAGE on this issue.

“The health team has discussed this and made an official recommendation to remove the labels… which SAGE can do,” she said.

With this in mind, dialogue about the SAGE Dining transition is ongoing. Regardless, healthy and sustainable eating habits remain an important part of the CGS community and faculty and students alike are working towards this common goal.