Nearly every Washington University student is aware of Bon Appetit’s online menu system, which can be accessed at either diningservices.wustl.edu or menus.wustl.edu. These Web sites display a database for every food item prepared by Bon Appetit. For those who make a conscious effort to eat healthy food in a college setting, this menu system is a key weapon in the fight against the “Freshman Fifteen.” Recently, however, we have noticed that the online menu system has some flaws.
While we commend Bon Appetit for focusing on distributing nutritional information to its students, we believe that certain changes need to be made.
The most notable problem with Bon Appetit’s menu system is that some of its menu items have insufficient ingredient information. There is only one ingredient listed for a blueberry muffin, which is “blueberry muffin.” Similar cases can be found in the ingredient lists for menu items like angel food cake (“angel food cake and water”) and wild blueberry bagels (“wild blueberry”).
It is difficult to see why the ingredient lists for these items are so uninformative. Bon Appetit provides a breakdown of every menu item’s nutritional content, which includes its total fat, cholesterol, sodium, carbohydrates, dietary fiber, sugars and protein. If it can provide such a detailed nutritional inventory of a sugar cookie, for example, then it is surely capable of coming up with a better ingredient list than “sugar cookie.” There is simply no legitimate reason why this information isn’t provided.
Moreover, many students with food allergies depend on these ingredient lists to provide them with information on which foods are safe to eat. As such, Bon Appetit should be doing everything it can to provide information on its foods that is as accurate as possible. While a disclaimer is listed on the menu website declaring “it is ultimately the responsibility of the customer to judge whether or not to question ingredients or choose to eat selected foods,” we believe that Bon Appetit can do more by correcting the ingredient lists for its menus.
Another change that we would like Bon Appetit to consider is to look into how the serving sizes are apportioned for some of its menu items. For example, the serving sizes that are listed for cream of asparagus soup and Chinese pork noodle soup are 6 oz. and 8 oz., respectively. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but the serving cups for both soups are the same. Additionally, the pasta serving sizes are listed as one ounce, which is clearly less than the amount that the average student eats in a meal.
This lack of uniformity is unnecessary and misleading, and many students who are attempting to regulate their portion sizes will find this confusing.
None of this is to say that Bon Appetit does not do a good job trying to help students become mindful about what they eat. Its “Balancing Nutrition” online menu system is certainly a commendable feature.
That said, the online menu system is only useful if the nutrition information on it is accurate, complete and easily accessible. Otherwise, the system is seriously flawed.
We believe that the ingredient lists represent a definite breakdown in Bon Appetit’s efforts to provide accurate menu information to Washington University students, and this needs to be fixed immediately. This is especially true considering that Bon Appetit actively promotes its commitment to providing nutritious food for students.