New RPS service promotes healthy eating

The age of the Food Guide Pyramid is over. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently introduced their newest nutrition guide, which is known as MyPlate.

This semester, Residential Programs and Services is focusing on how students can incorporate this new food model and its dietary guidelines when dining
on campus.

Just as the pyramid divided a triangle to illustrate how much of each food group one should eat a day, the MyPlate model presents a similar division. It depicts a plate and a glass divided into the five food groups — 20 percent fruits, 30 percent vegetables, 30 percent grains, 20 percent protein and a small circle to represent dairy.

“The whole idea is to teach individuals how to
visualize their plate in order to achieve a better outcome in portion control,” RPS Dietetic Tech Susan Herr said.

To incorporate this new food model when dining on campus, students can dine at Eat Right, which has locations in Wright Quad and Gresham Food Courts, as well as in Landes Dining Room at Read Center.

The chefs and nutrition staff at Eat Right make sure each recipe meets the guidelines of this new model, Herr said.

“RPS Dining decided to incorporate the MyPlate model into our healthy dining concept, Eat Right, so that students would easily be able to find appropriate portion sizes along with the best choices to fill each of the food groups,” she said.

RPS dietitian Rachel Noirot said Eat Right has posted a menu with nutrition facts at each of their dining locations to help students make better diet decisions. They have also upped their marketing efforts to inform students about MyPlate.

“RPS is promoting MyPlate as a tool for students by featuring weekly Eat Right tips on table tents,” Noirot said. “The educational component has been a bigger push, as well, starting at freshman orientation when students first visit campus.”

Although Eat Right is the only concept explicitly incorporating the new model, students can use this model on their own while dining anywhere on campus.

“Students can combine items from different concepts in the food court to obtain a healthy plate,” Noirot said. “If they get a meat or sandwich from the grill, items from the salad bar and couple their meal with a low fat dairy product, they will meet all the food groups.”

Freshman Claire Glezer, a Read resident, said she frequently dines at Eat Right in Read’s traditional dining room.

“Eat Right always has fresh fruit and vegetables, which would never be offered at, say, Taco John’s,” Glezer said. “It’s nice to actually see the true color of your food instead of something that has been fried in grease or is loaded with fat.”