University of Washington Examiner

The Facts About Nutrition Facts

I've been on both sides of the hot plate. During my freshman year I worked as a lunch lady in the cafeteria in my dorm, and when I wasn't serving the food I was ordering it; so i had a unique perspective on student dining hall dining habits.

I just wrote an article for The Daily on a project underway by the Housing and Food Services (HFS) that would make available nutrition facts for all of the food served on campus, utilizing online resource NetNutrition. The Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW) Student Senate passed a resolution last week in support of using NetNutrition (it seems that the sponsors of the resolution did not realize that this project is already well underway). The project is labor intensive (nutrition facts for each ingredient used in every single recipe must be calculated) and the software expensive.

The question is, will the information make a difference in how college students eat on campus?

We are talking about an age-cohort that considers beer a food group. And we all know that beer leads to unrestrained orders of hot honey garlic Wing-Zone at 2 in the morning. Forget the rule of not eating after 7 p.m. Nutrition fact labels are ubiquitous to a point where they become almost meaningless. And besides, what liberal arts major wants to calculate how many calories are in a box of organic macaroni and cheese if a serving size of 2.5 oz (70g/About 1/2 cup pasta and 1 1/2 tablespoons dry cheese mix) (Makes about 1 cup prepared) Servings per container About 2.5. It makes me feel like I'm doing a logic puzzle on the LSAT! Mathematical struggles aside, I don't think this information would be enough to encourage a student to watch their cholesterol or saturated fat intake unless they are already concerned about it.

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