This week has been a project week for me. I have been busy working with Dustin the dietitian here at UND to try to finalize the Stomping Grounds coffee project and begin my next project on incorporating portion control education into the dining halls. Rather than boring you with all of the data entry and research I was doing this week, I thought I would give a little sneak peek in on the projects -- with pictures!
The Stomping Grounds coffee shop nutrition information is not live online just yet, but we have a site we have been testing to see what the finished product will look like. Some little things may change, but it should be available to the public soon. Students, staff and faculty will be able to click on a Stomping Grounds link from the UND Dining nutritive menu analysis page and see something like this: (There is some debate over whether we will leave prices listed or not. Do you think it looks better with prices included?)
Then if you were to click on the blue "Nutritive Analysis" button in the middle, this page would come up listing every item available from the coffee shop:
Scrolling down will get you to all of the beverage options available at Stomping Grounds, sorted by Hot and Cold beverages. You can select multiple items on this page to see the nutrition information for an entire meal, or click on an individual item to see the nutrition information and ingredients for that single item. Right now they are sorted alphabetically, and we put the sizes at the end of the name so students can easily compare the difference in calories from one size to the next.
Then, say you have ordered a Blended Cookies and Cream cold drink, and wanted to know how many calories it has. If you click on that link, you'll find out that it has a whopping 959 calories -- the most of any of the drinks offered on their menu!
With Dustin's help, we also had to do some research to confirm which products contain wheat and which do not, for individuals with Celiac Disease or gluten intolerance. Interestingly, the strawberry banana smoothie mix they use contains some wheat ingredients! Not something you would think has wheat in it.
This project was definitely a group effort, with a lot of work done by the Stomping Grounds staff before I got here. My primary job was entering in all of the nutritional information and allergens. There was also some confusion over how to name the drink sizes. Starbucks uses an 8oz cup as their small hot cup, but Stomping Grounds has a 12oz as their smallest size. We went back and forth through all the recipes listing them by oz or sizes multiple times, only to change our minds again and switch back to sizes, but going by the industry standard sizes used by Starbucks (the 12oz hot drinks at Stomping Grounds are now listed as Medium, 16oz is Large, 20oz is Extra Large). Stomping Grounds will likely end up getting 8oz cups in the future so that they truly offer a "small" size. Overall, it feels great to be nearing completion of the project!
My next project will be using the newly released MyPlate portion plate from USDA to incorporate portion control education along with the Guiding Stars program that UND currently uses in their dining halls. I've made some rough drafts of pamphlets, a possible online resource page, and a presentation with a lesson plan to be used for nutrition education programs at the residence halls next year. USDA is sending a CD that will hopefully help us make better graphic displays, and we'll be meeting with the marketing people here at UND to get their help on the project as well. Once it all comes together, I will post some pictures of that project too.
It has been an exciting week, getting to see these projects grow and get closer to being completed. It's amazing how something many people take for granted, like having access to the nutritional information for a particular food, takes so much time and energy from so many people to come together! But hopefully this will serve as a great resource for the UND community and allow people to make healthier choices at the Stomping Grounds coffee shops. And the nutrition education lesson plans, pamphlets and displays I am making will help enable students eating in the dining halls to make informed decisions about the portions of food they select. I am hopeful that somehow MyPlate can be combined with the Guiding Stars cards for each food item, but I'm not sure how feasible that will be. I can't wait to see how the finished projects turn out!
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