Harvard continues to look for innovative ways to get people to eat--or not to eat.

In the past, students signing up to participate in Harvard's biannual fund-raising fast would heroically give up their dining hall meal...and eat dinner in the Square.

Now, a decision yesterday by the Committee on House Life allows fasting students to have the option of eating a "subsistence meal" in three of the dining halls to give students a sense of what it means to eat at subsistence level.

"In the past, the idea was that students would give up one dinner at the dining halls and Dining Services would donate the money saved to the Hunger Action Committee," said Molly G. Ware '95, chair of the Hunger Action Committee of Phillips Brooks House. "But many people were concerned that the fast was losing its educational value, since students would sign up and then go eat at Uno's." Ware said she hopes the option of a subsistence meal of rice, beans and water will encourage more people to participate.

If a student chooses to eat the subsistence meal, the full amount for a foregone meal will still be donated by Dining Services to Oxfam, Ware said.

At the dining halls where the subsistence meals will be offered--Leverett, Currier and the Union, according to Dining Services Director Michael P. Berry--speakers from Oxfam will make presentations to increase student awareness, she said.