Now we're cookin'
If you polled college students to find out what we disliked the most about our schools, food would likely rank somewhere near final exams. But it might surprise you to learn that the food here at Franklin College is getting better – maybe not in taste, but in health.
“The cafeteria has made improvements,” says Jessica Emlich, assistant professor of athletic training, who teaches nutrition on campus. “But it’s hard for students who are only here for a couple years. They can’t look at the broader perspective of where it was.”
Emlich says fewer students complain in her nutrition classes about the health of the food compared to when she started in 2004. Just this year, Sodexo, Inc. (the cafeteria’s operator) added a specialty sandwich, switched to serving real chicken breasts and began offering cheese quesadillas.
“The salad bar also has more options,” junior Kristen Beasley says. “It used to just be lettuce, cheese, carrots and that’s all you got. So in that regard, they have made improvements.”
But are these improvements going to help curb that dreaded freshman 15, which seems to afflict all students no matter their class rank? To find out, The Franklin invited Shannon Smith, a registered dietician from Johnson Memorial Hospital, to come to campus and give us the skinny on whether the changes will keep us skinny.
“There’s a few healthy options,” Smith says after examining the cafeteria. “But I think, with the trend in obesity, they could offer more healthy alternatives.”
Smith says the sandwich wraps and the salad bar are the only “real healthy” foods offered to students, both of which are part of the recent changes to the cafeteria. Les Petroff, Sodexo’s food service director, says they want to continue expanding on these nutritional options.
“We are looking for a way to put out healthy choices as well as vegetarian options,” Petroff says. “Last year we didn’t do as many wraps and sandwiches, so we changed that, and it worked.”
Sodexo’s corporate office is the biggest roadblock to specialized healthy options, because it sets each cafeteria’s menu through a 24-student focus group. While Petroff can make subtle changes to the menu, his influence mainly involves the changing of supply based on student demand for certain foods.
“We’re not given a blank slate,” Petroff says of the corporate menu. “There are a lot of things filled in already. And we just tweak.”
While Smith says adding more nutritional foods is a good initiative, she also sees some foods in the cafeteria that raise red flags. An oriental noodle dish being served contains 2,680 milligrams of sodium, more than one’s daily allotment. Also, a serving of macaroni and cheese contains half of our recommended daily fat calories, while a side of fries contains 61 percent.
Surprisingly, burgers and pizza are not on Smith’s most wanted list, since a burger contains less fat calories than fries and some of the pizzas are made with olive oil. But no matter what food you examine, Smith says, Sodexo fits the mold of the cafeterias she works with in nursing homes and hospitals.
“It’s about the same as most institutions I have seen,” Smith says. “I would probably eat everything in there at some point.”
The problem seems to be that not all the students are eating everything available. By reviewing the consumption of the food offerings, Petroff notes that the grill is always a leading attraction.
“I hear that we want healthier, but yet when I go through the line, the grill always has people in it and pizza is always popular,” says Petroff, who eats nearly three times a day in the cafeteria. “It’s up to us to offer some healthier options, but then it’s still about the choice that is made by the student.”
Eating healthy in our cafeteria, according to Smith, involves not just eating the specific health-conscience foods, but all the offerings. Living off the salad bar can be just as unhealthy as living off of the grill.
“All foods in moderation are fine, but it’s just limiting yourself,” Smith says. “When people start regularly over-indulging, then they are probably going to see problems in the long term.”
While Smith supports mom’s guidance to eat fruits and vegetables, many college students still regularly rush to foods with cheese, starch and meat. Petroff calls these basics “comfort foods,” and thinks Franklin students might rely on them more than other colleges.
“I call [Franklin students] more of a meat and potato kind of group,” Petroff says. “They don’t want far out foods you can’t even pronounce. They want the basics. And for those foods, moderation and portion control are the keys.”
But, if you would truly rather have veal scallopini than a double cheeseburger, Petroff says to utilize those comment cards.
