The dining halls now have Smart Choice meals, a version of the Chef’s feature which meets USDA MyPlate nutrition standards.
Students looking to avoid the “freshman 15” have a specific dining hall station to check out.
The University of Maryland’s Dining Services has served Smart Choice meals — dishes designed to meet certain caloric and health standards — for decades. However, this year the meals will be served alongside the Chef’s Feature meal at the North Campus Dining Hall and Emma’s station at the South Campus Dining Hall and will meet Agriculture Department MyPlate standards.
The Smart Choice meals will be similar to the Chef’s Feature meal and the same price, but with a few modifications, Dining Services spokesman Bart Hipple said.
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In past years, Smart Choice meals were based on a 1,200-calorie diet for both lunch and dinner, Hipple said. This year, he said Dining Services is using USDA standards as a guideline for Smart Choice meals, with each meal having calories, fat content and other nutritional values analyzed to meet USDA requirements.
“You’d get a great meal and it was a great educational piece, but it was more cumbersome to students,” he said. “You’d have to go to at least two or even three stations to get a meal. We’re responding to students’ desire for better access to more nutritionally sound food. We want students to be aware of the healthy choices we have.”
Senior Executive Chef John Gray, Dining Services Quality Coordinator and Nutritionist Sister Maureen Schrimpe and a group of nutrition and food science students and interns work as a team to help with the analysis for USDA standards, Hipple said.
“For example, if the chef’s meal has sour cream or a fried item, a Smart Meal choice wouldn’t include sour cream,” Hipple said. “It would be the same item, but baked.”
Sophomore Mary Woolsey said the changes make the meals easier for students to purchase.
“It’s good they changed it to make it easier and more accessible for students to eat healthier,” said Woolsey, who is enrolled in letters and sciences. “Now that I know more about it, I would definitely get [a Smart Choice meal] instead of just wandering around and searching the dining hall for healthy food.”
Hipple said he hopes this will also be a learning opportunity for students to learn how to eat healthier.
“You can look at the [Chef’s Feature and Smart Choice meals] and compare them to see what modifications you can make to any meal and compare it to MyPlate standards,” Hipple said. “If you’re wondering how to cook more healthily for yourself, you can see how to do it.”
Freshman Allie Kaloss said she agrees and addressed the difficulty of eating healthy on a college student’s budget.
“It’s great they are offering healthier choices on a student’s budget,” the animal sciences major said. “With a traditional plan, you only have a certain amount of points to spend, and you have to work around a budget to keep healthy and not gain the freshman 15.”
So far, Hipple said he believes about a quarter of the Chef’s Feature sales have been Smart Choice meals. Dining Services officials will be evaluating sales throughout the year to pinpoint the program’s success, he said.
“I certainly hope there’s a learning outcome and that students learn more about eating healthily,” Hipple said. “I hope they will recognize and understand that we do serve healthy food in the dining halls and that we will all be able to work together towards nutritional and flavorful outcomes.”
