Students will have additional options for healthy and nutritious meals this school year, according to officials in the Department of University Dining.
Aiming to meet the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, outlined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, many retail dining locations including Sbisa Dining Center and Duncan Dining Hall now carry a range of healthy food choices. These include whole-wheat couscous, roasted red pepper hummus, fresh fruits and vegetables and a variety of gluten free vegetarian and vegan options.
“As someone planning on going into pediatrics, the future of food quality does worry me,” said Megan Wheeler, a sophomore biomedical sciences major. “It has become increasingly easy and cheap to buy processed foods full of fats and low on good nutrition. This and the fast food world we live in has made childhood obesity skyrocket.”
Toward these goals, University Dining hired Sandra Baxter, a dietician, to create an online University Dining nutritional database for students. Baxter also said she plans to meet with dietary restrictive students throughout the year to develop a variety of meal choices that coincide with the upcoming 2012 meal plan.
“It’s always the student’s choice about what they want to eat,” Baxter said.
Many new retail locations will debut this school year. With the renovation of the Commons, a new Mongolian Grill in Duncan Dining Hall, and the Memorial Student Center’s reopening in April, University Dining Director David Riddle said he is eager to see all these changes and hopes to keep a variety of meal options for students.
“We just hired a new executive chef from Texas Tech,” Riddle said. “We’re excited to see all the new recipes in store.”
Many campus dining locations close in the afternoon or early evening, but there are late-night options scattered across campus for students. Bernie’s Café and Sarginos’ at North Side, Common Grounds in The Commons at South Side, Poor Yorik’s at Evans Library, and West Side Exchange and Time Out Sports Deli at West Campus remain open until 11 p.m. or midnight most nights of the week.
For the early riser, 11 campus locations open at or before 7 a.m., with Duncan Dining Hall greeting cadets and other students as early as 6 a.m., Monday through Friday.
Additionally, University Dining has special events throughout the academic year. Aggies celebrate Chinese New Year with a special regional menu, participate in a Muster BBQ every April, and cram before finals during an all night breakfast extravaganza at Sbisa.
The latest item added to the University Dining menu this year, though, is heard, not tasted.
“We’ve also installed a plan to accompany our Sbisa Sunday Brunch with a live Jazz Band,” Riddle said. “It adds great variety to our meal service throughout the week.”