Thursday, 08 July 2010

• How to Make Healthier Choices in a Cafeteria

  I am currently in Trois-Rivières, Quebec doing a French-language exchange program. The program is completely funded by a government bursary for Canadian students. I'm having a lot of fun and meeting great people here. I'd definitely recommend it to other Canadian students! We're not allowed to speak English here. I actually got "red-carded" this week and had to recite a French poem. Le sigh! The French Explore program's website is here: http://www.myexplore.ca/

  Anyway, accommodation and food is provided 100% free here. But I feel like I'm in first year university again. Why? Because I'm eating three meals per day at a cafeteria!

  
  The cafeteria at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières

  Most cafeterias have a lot of unhealthy fast food and are infamous for providing university freshman with the not-so-lovely "freshman-15". The cafeteria that I'm at works a bit differently. The students get food stamps and every meal provides one of the following:

  

  Here are some quick tips on how to make healthier choices in a cafeteria (and in general, every day choices too!):

  Soup: Having soup before a meal can actually help you feel fuller and prevent overeating. But watch out for what kind of soups. The best low-cal soups are broth-based (so they have a thin consistency, not like thick creamy milk-based soups) and are full of vegetables. Eg. Vegetable soups, minestrone, etc. Soups are also high in sodium (even homemade soups), so only have them in moderation if you are concerned about high blood pressure.

  Drink: Low-fat or skim milk is a great choice to balance out the food groups for your meal. You can also consider soy milk if you are concerned about the hormones-levels in cows milk. My second favorite choice is green tea for its great abundance in antioxidants. I'm not a soda/pop drinker, but I notice that a lot of people are! Soda/pop is purely liquid-sugar and I definitely think it's the worst choice possible for drinks.

  Entree: In this cafeteria, if you don't want a burger with fries, then there are only two choices: a vegetarian meal and a non-vegetarian meal. In the picture above, I got served a vegetarian stir-fry with white rice. Really not much choice, especially in the whole-wheat department! But I try to choose entrees with the most vegetables. Ideally, we should be filling at least half of our plates with vegetables. Veggies can help us maintain a healthy weight and prevent chronic diseases like cancer.

  Bun: Try to choose whole-wheat here of course! If you want to have a spread on it, margarine is definitely a better choice than butter. There is a myth that margarine is made out of plastic and causes cancer. These are the old margarines. Today, most margarines are made out of vegetable oils like olive oil. They are very heart-healthy and contain no trans fats. See Becel's website for more information on butter vs. margarine and common margarine myths:
  http://www.becel.ca/en_ca/about_becel/margarine_myths_and_facts.aspx

  Fruit: I usually grab a fruit and save it as a snack for later. When choosing snacks, it's best to choose foods that fit into one of the four food groups. Fruits are a perfect, sweet snack for in-between meals!

  Dessert: At this cafeteria, you can choose between a piece of cake, jello, pudding, or cup fruit. I usually try to choose the cup fruit, but I like how the desserts here have very small portion-sizes that can fit into a healthier lifestyle. Desserts at most restaurants are over-sized. One piece of cheesecake can come to over 700 calories!

  These are some broad tips, but I definitely want to update again and talk about salad bars and deli sandwiches. For now, I still have 3.5 weeks left of cafeteria food and lots of French before I head back home to Vancouver!

  Ooh question for you guys: What's your school/work cafeteria like? Does your cafeteria strive to provide healthy choices for students and workers? My high school cafeteria was awful. Pretty much only french fries. The University of Guelph was pretty good though! But I guess that's because they are well-known for their nutrition program and hospitality services.

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