Category Archives: Mastering The DC

Mastering the DC: MAKE YOUR OWN PEANUT BUTTER

By Lauren Duffy

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When we all came back from our Winter Break, two of our campus’s Dining Commons had a pleasant little surprise waiting for us…. Berkshire and Worcester now have make-your-own natural peanut butter machines! They are absolutely amazing! Not only are these machines really easy (and kind of fun) to operate, but they also provide a healthy alternative for students looking to satisfy their peanut craving. Just as before, all four Dining Commons still offer their usual Jif® Peanut Butter, but I highly suggest that you give the more natural stuff a shot…

The Jif® Regular Creamy Peanut Butter that you’ll find at all four of the DCs (located near the bagels and toast) is a highly processed peanut spread. In order for it to be so creamy and a bit on the sweeter side, Jif® adds molasses, sugar, preservatives, salt, and various oils. This may cause the peanut butter to be a bit more spreadable, but it also makes the numbers on the Nutrition Facts significantly higher.

The new peanut butter machines at the Dining Commons are completely different. Just by looking at the machine, you can see that there is one main ingredient: peanuts. No sugars, no molasses, no preservatives– essentially nothing to take away from its nutritional benefits. The peanut butter it makes has less fat, less calories, less carbohydrates, less sugars, and less sodium… but more protein and nutrients! You can’t see it, but the machine may add a little bit of vegetable oil to make the peanut butter easier to spread, but it’s nowhere near as much as Jif® adds, so don’t worry about it too much.

So next time you’re looking to add peanut butter to your bagel, banana, sandwich, or celery, be sure to try going for the more natural choice and test out the new peanut butter machines! They have signs on top of them that tell you how to operate them in four easy steps.

Remember… everything in moderation! The more natural you eat, the healthier you’ll be. Just keep in mind that eating a ton of peanut butter (natural or not) will not do you any good. Happy peanut butter making!

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Mastering the DC: BREAKFAST

Posted in Food & Diet, Mastering The DC by

By Lauren Duffy

If you’re looking to live a healthy lifestyle, it’s important to remember that common phrase: “breakfast is the most important meal of the day”. Eating breakfast has proven to be a reason for better weight-loss results, more energized people, and less hungry people, so it is important to incorporate breakfast into your daily routine. But we must keep in mind that while choosing to eat breakfast is beneficial for your personal health, choosing to eat an unhealthy breakfast is not. Unhealthy food is bad for your body no matter what time of the day you eat it, so you need to make the right choices; however, these choices can be tricky if you’re eating breakfast at a Dining Common.

Every morning Franklin and Hampshire open at 7am to start serving breakfast to the early-risers of the UMass campus. These DC breakfasts have a Main Line, an Omelette station, a fruit section, hot and cold cereals, a make-your-own waffle station, and a toast section. They do have healthy options available, you just need to find them hiding among the insane amounts of unhealthy options.

  • The Main Line seems to draw the most attention at breakfast time, so I’ll break down those options first…
    • The Eggs:
      • Each morning scrambled eggs are offered in the main line of the breakfast options. I don’t know what the DCs do to these eggs to make them so fattening, but try to avoid them. According to the Nutrition Cards, these eggs are loaded with fat and calories, so they are not a good way to start off your morning. The healthy alternative? They have hard boiled eggs on the main line! You crack and peel your own so you know that nothing extra is added to them. Just try to avoid having too many yolks and you’re good to go!
    • The Meats:
      • The main lines offer bacon, ham, sausage, kielbasa, and corned beef hash (one or two of these options are available daily). These five meats are offered on a rotating basis at the DCs. The only advice I can give… keep away from them! They sit on the main line in a puddle of their own grease and they are swimming in sodium, fat, and calories. To some people they may be tempting, but your arteries will thank you if you steer clear of them.
    • The Potatoes:
      • The DC breakfasts have either home-fries, hash-browns, or some weird shaved-potato thing depending on the day. Home-fries are okay in moderation because they are relatively low in fat and calories (just watch your carbs). And the mysterious shaved-potato thing is okay in moderation, too… I think. But the hash-browns are fried, so try to avoid them.
    • The Sweets:
      • Hampshire and Franklin always seem to have an option for those with a sweet tooth. They have muffins, muffin tops, flavored or stuffed french toast, flavored pancakes, and assorted pastries at the end of the main line each morning. These are more of a dessert than a breakfast food so I wouldn’t reach for them if I were you. 
  • The rest of the breakfast options (simply put)…
    • Omelette station:
      • Many people don’t know that you can ask that your omelette be made with egg whites to avoid having too many yolks. Request egg whites, load up on the offered vegetables, and go easy on the cheeses and you’re good to go!
    • Fruit section:
      • Eat fruit! Eat lots of fruit! The cantaloupe, honey dew melon, pineapple, and grapes are pretty fresh on a daily basis, so enjoy those! Just go easy on the fruit that was clearly taken from a can because the syrup it sits in is very high in sugar.
    • Cereals:
      • Hot Cereal: There is always hot oatmeal or hot cereal offered in the mornings (it’s at the soup station). The DC oatmeals are kind of bland and sticky, but you can make it more tasty by adding some dried fruit or nuts from the fruit section and adding (a little) brown sugar, cinnamon sugar, or honey.
      • Cold Cereal: Honestly, when it comes to these go for the more natural-looking options. If the cereal is brightly colored or chocolatey, it’s probably all sugar.
    • Make-your-own Waffle:
      • The batter is all fat, the syrups are all sugar, and the whipped cream is as unnatural as they come. Two words: walk away.
    • Toast station:
      • I just read an article that explained that a typical bagel is often the equivalent of four pieces of bread smooshed together. So, to avoid extra carbs, try to reach for toast instead of bagels. Also, go for the whole grain or wheat breads, and go easy on the butter, jelly, cream cheese, and peanut butter, too (but it’s all okay in moderation).

So… eat breakfast! Just keep this information in mind as you’re choosing your meal. Make time for it in your schedule if you want to feel less hungry and more energized during your crazy college day. DCs are often very quiet before 10am on weekdays, so you can get some work done as you enjoy a healthy breakfast. Happy dining!

*One more fun tip about breakfasts at the DCs:

On weekends all of the Dining Commons offer breakfast, but try to avoid going into a DC before 12:30pm on a Saturday or a Sunday. This is not because the food is bad before 12:30, but it’s because sometimes the DCs think it’s a good idea to have a live band play on early weekend mornings. If you have a hangover, the unnecessary loudness and noise of the live bands can make you want to curl up in a ball and die. It’s the worst… You are warned.

Mastering the DC: THE GRILL

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By Lauren Duffy

Each Dining Common on the UMass Amherst campus has its own grill section that is always open for lunch and dinner. While most food stations change up their options day to day, the grill sections stay consistent. It’s the best place to get your french-fry-fix or your mini-cheeseburger slider, but if you’re on a diet, you need to know how to make the right decisions at the grills.

  • The Meats:
  • Hot Dogs:
  • Every time my family visits, one of my brothers always runs straight to the grill section to grab his favorite offering at the Dining Common: the hot dog. He’s told me several times that he wants to attend UMass someday just for the hot dogs. I’ve never tried one, but he says they’re the greatest. But there’s a reason he thinks they’re so good: the DC hot dogs are loaded with sodium, fat, and unknown animal products to somehow make them taste ‘good’. So if you’re on a diet, steer clear of these hot dogs!

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Mastering The DC: THE SOUPS

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By Lauren Duffy

When we think of the UMass Dining Commons, we commonly think of the pizza station, the main line, the salads, the pastas, etc. But each dining common has a little station that most of us seem to forget about: the soup station. All four of the Dining Commons have one, and they offer several different kinds of soups every week. Berkshire’s soup station is located at the end of the salad bar (towards the TV), Hampshire’s is at either end of it’s salad bar, Franklin’s is near the Deli, and Worcester’s is between the bread and the salad bar. If you’re fighting a cold or it’s just a chilly Amherst day, the soup station is sometimes the perfect place to pay a visit. But, as usual, sticking to healthy choices can sometimes be a challenge.

There are two different kinds of soups offered each day, and the soups always change daily. I’ve seen so many different kinds of soups offered: Italian Wedding, Clam Chowder, Chicken Noodle, Minestrone, Broccoli Cheddar; you name it, they’ve offered it. To be honest, it’s sometimes alarming to see how many calories and how much fat can be in some of these soups (according to the Nutrition cards). But on a brighter note, it’s actually relatively easy to determine which soup will stay true to your diet. Let me break it down:

  • The Chowders, etc.
    • I have personal rule that I try to follow when it comes to choosing certain foods; it applies to sauces, salad dressings, and soups of all kinds. The general rule is: If you can’t see through it, it’s probably not a good choice. What I mean is, you simply need to avoid anything that looks creamy. You’ll notice that DC soups such as Corn Chowder, Clam Chowder, Cheddar Broccoli, etc., are very creamy and therefore they are high in fat content. The cream adds extra fat and calories that can really add up, so you’re better off just avoiding the creamy options all together.
  • The Clear Broths:
    • Soups with a clearer broth are almost always a good option to choose at the soup stations. The soups that the DCs offer with clear broths are Minestrone, (homemade) Chicken Noodle, Italian Wedding, Tomato Tortellini, and a few others. Of course I don’t mean that these broths are completely clear, but they’re not thick and creamy like the aforementioned ones. They’re a lot healthier because they’re lighter, packed with veggies, and low in fat. What I like about these soups is that when you’re ladling them into your bowl, you can essentially choose what you want in your soup. For example, you can go heavy on the veggies and broth, and light on the noodles to cut out some excess carbs.
  • Campbell’s:
    • I am not sure whether or not the previously mentioned soups are homemade by the DCs, but I do know that sometimes they serve Campbell’s brand soups. I know this because they will tell you if it’s a Campbell’s soup right on those small Nutrition cards that they put next to the soups at the stations. Let me put this simply: if you see a soup that says it’s Campbell’s, walk away. Campbell’s is famous for it’s red label and it’s “mmm mmm good” slogan, but it’s also very famous for the amount of sodium found in the soups. The DC’s offer Campbell’s condensed Tomato and Chicken Noodle soups, and they always seem to be popular choices by students. But keep in mind that even though these soups may remind us of our childhoods, they can also make us bloat from their extremely unhealthy and excessive amounts of sodium. So.. beware of Campbell’s!
  • Crackers:
    • Next to each soup station there are always little packages of Oyster crackers or Saltine cracker packets. Even though adding these to your soup may add some extra carbs, just go for it– one pack of these won’t undo your day. Sometimes adding a little crunch to your soup is the best part! :)

As much as there are plenty of bad choices offered at the soup sections of the UMass DC’s, there are also plenty of opportunities to choose a healthy soup that will follow your diet. You just have to know how to choose the right one! Be experimental with the soups and try something new! Bon Appétit!

Try our soups:

Spicy Harvest Pumpkin Soup

Chicken Sausage, White Bean and Kale Soup

Mastering The DC: The Deli

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By Lauren Duffy

Okay, okay… I’ll admit it: Worcester, Berkshire, Franklin, and Hampshire all have pretty decent Deli Bars. Berkshire has a Deli Bar run by student workers for lunch, but it’s often replaced by the Sushi Bar for dinner. At Franklin and Hampshire, the Deli Bars are open for both lunch and dinner every day. You simply walk up to the Delis and tell the cutest little old ladies what you’d like on your sandwich and they make it for you. Worcester is a bit different; there you have to make your own sandwich. But whether you make the sandwich or a worker makes it for you, when you’re living off of a meal plan and you’re at the complete mercy of the DC’s menu, sometimes it’s kind of nice to feel like you created your own meal. But as always, creating your own sandwich still can be an unhealthy choice for your lunch or dinner– it all depends on what you choose.

All of the Deli Bars have several different ingredients for you to choose from:

The Breads:

    • First thing’s first, you have to choose what bread you’d like your sandwich creation to be on. The methods for choosing breads are pretty simple: Avoid white bread because of its artificial coloring and ingredients (this includes the white wraps, sub rolls, pitas, and bulky rolls), and instead reach for any wheat or whole grain option. I like to choose the wheat wraps because they’re pretty thin and you can rip off any of the excess that you don’t want to eat to reduce the amount of carbs you take in. Essentially, just go for the more natural- looking breads.

The Meats: 

    • This may not be the principle to follow for cold cuts you buy at home, but when it comes to the DC’s, choose HAM. The Turkey isn’t terrible for you but it’s pretty high in sodium. What stinks is that you can just taste how salty the turkey is– for some this may not be an issue, but I find the taste overwhelming. The ham they offer has the lowest amount of fat and calories at the Deli Bars (according to the little Nutrition Facts cards they display). While the Roast Beef that is available isn’t terrible, sometimes you can see the swirls of fat in it and it just doesn’t seem to be the most sensible choice. As for Bologna, Pepperoni, Bacon, and Salami– don’t even bother. Their fat content is through the roof and I don’t even want to know what ingredients make those meats so unhealthy.
    • Depending on the day, the Deli Bars will offer some kind of chicken salad, tuna salad, etc. These can be pretty healthy choices as long as you take a peek at how much mayonnaise they put in. This changes day to day– some days they make it pretty dry while other days they’re swimming in mayo. The less mayo there is, the less fat there is. Choose wisely.

The Cheeses: 

    • Choose Swiss or Provolone. Why? The Deli Bars usually offer 4 kinds of cheeses: Swiss, Provolone, American, and Cheddar (sometimes Cheddar Jack). Because American cheese is typically artificial and the Cheddar offered at the DC’s is often high in fat, the Provolone and Swiss options are the best choices because they have the lowest amount of fat and calories. Just make sure you watch how many slices they put onto your sandwich. One day you’ll get a worker who will give you one or two slices, while other times they’ll pile on the cheese and immediately add unnecessary fat and calories.

The Veggies:

    • Load up on the veggies!!! The Deli Bars always have onions, green peppers, tomatoes, pickles, and lettuce. But sometimes if you’re lucky they’ll have jalapenos or olives (or other random assorted goods). Have as many as you want!

The Condiments:

    • All of the Deli’s have mayonnaise, honey mustard, yellow mustard, brown mustard, and hummus. The mustards aren’t really that bad for you, and they never seem to put a ton of it on your sandwich so no need to fear them. Where you can run into trouble is with the mayonnaise. Mayo has a lot of fat and calories in it so you need to be aware of how much you put on. If you’re not making the sandwich yourself, you can either ask the worker not to put a lot of it on your bread, or you can venture to Hampshire because it usually offers a Lite Mayo option if you ask for it. The best option for a condiment on your sandwich is Hummus. As mentioned in the ABCs of Healthy Eating, Hummus is healthfully delicious and makes a great addition to your sandwich.

So next time you decide to stop by one of the Delis at the Dining Commons, just be mindful of what you put on your sandwich. If you make all of the right choices, you get to enjoy your creation knowing that you’re sticking to your healthy habits. Enjoy!

Mastering The DC: The Salad Bar

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By Lauren Duffy

A quick side-story: Last night, I met up with a bunch of my friends at The Blue Wall to celebrate my friends birthday. I wanted to avoid getting any of the fried meals and greasy pizzas that they offer there, so I reached for the French Meadow spinach, dried cranberry and walnut salad. After we finished eating, I looked at the bottom of the salad container for the Nutrition Facts out of pure curiosity and discovered the most unpleasant of surprises. That salad had over 95 grams of fat and 1165 calories. No, I’m not exaggerating. NINETY-FIVE grams of FAT and ONE THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY FIVE CALORIES. While none of those fats or calories came from fried food, that’s still absolutely absurd for a salad. Are you kidding me?!?! Needless to say, after this little discovery I want to first take a look at the DC salad bars to make sure no one ever has to consume a salad of such high fat and calorie content.
Anyway, every salad bar here at UMass has pretty much the same variety of veggies available at all times. You’ll almost always find: romaine lettuce, spinach, carrots, celery, cucumbers,  and tomatoes. (Call me Popeye, but I always reach for the spinach because of the nutrients it contains. It’s something to think about when you’re choosing between the spinach and romaine.) Then, depending on the day, you’ll find chickpeas, peppers, beets, broccoli, olives, and a few other delicious vegetables. Filling one of the Dining Common’s larger multi-colored bowls with any of these vegetables is certainly a healthy way to go, but it’s what you place on top of the salad that can make it run high in calories.
It’s all about moderation. I think the reason that that French Meadow salad was so high in calories was because it was loaded with walnuts and dried cranberries. Like these walnuts and dried cranberries, pretty much any of the toppings that you’ll find on the salad bar are technically healthy, but once you let the portions get out of control, you enter the danger zone.

Let me break down the salad toppings…
Marinated items:
Sometimes the salad bar will have marinated mushrooms, peppers, and/or other veggies available to put atop your salad. But the key word here is “marinated”.. because by marinated they mean soaked in olive oil. You always have to be wary of olive oil portions, because once you have two tablespoons or more of it, you’re consuming almost 100 calories at over 9 grams of fat. So if you’re going to have a marinated item, maybe let some of the oil drip off of it before you put it on your salad.
The nuts:
Worcester, Franklin, and Hampshire all have a small selection of nuts available at the salad bar. Berkshire offers nuts too, but they’re hiding over by the yogurt and bagels. Nuts are a good source of protein, but their fat content is through the roof. For example, it doesn’t take too many walnuts to reach over 200 calories and 20 grams of fat. So when adding any kind of nut to your salad, just add an amount about the size of a small handful to avoid excess fat and calories.
Salad on Salad?:
Each dining common often offers a salad to add to your salad. What?…. What I mean is, there are commonly pasta, potato, or macaroni salads available to add to your salad. None of these toppings are really my cup of tea, but if this appeals to you, you have to be careful with these portions. Not only do pasta and potato salads have high amounts of unnecessary carbohydrates, but these salads (including the tuna salads) are always smothered in mayonnaise. Mayo has around 60 calories and 5 grams of fat per tablespoon, and you just never know how much mayo the dining common chefs dump in to their mixes. If you go to scoop up one of these salads and you see the mayo drip off of it, it probably has way too much and will immediately make the salad unhealthy.

As for the rest of the toppings…

Hard-boiled eggs are good, just try to cut some calories by picking out the majority of the yolks. And try not to eat them after 8pm… they’re leftovers from breakfast. Ew.
For cheeses, there are often bleu cheese, shredded mozzarella, crumbled gorgonzola, etc. available for you. Just watch the portions; plain and simple. Same goes for croutons.
Anything that was once ‘pickled’ (ie. peppers, olives, etc) are low in calories but sooo high in sodium. Hello, bloating.
And finally, chicken is never offered at a salad bar, but if you venture over to the Grill section at any DC, you can grab some grilled chicken from there and cut it up for your salad. A great source of protein!

And finally… The moment you’ve been waiting for…
Dressings:
I always say: the clearer the better. The more you can see through a dressing, the healthier it will be. But either way, watch the portions!!!
The DC’s offer the dressing brand called “Naturally Delicious”, and they offer about 8 different kinds of this dressing.
The Good: Light Blush Wine, Light Raspberry, Light Italian (and there’s always oil, vinegar, and balsamic vinegar available if these don’t appeal to you). They’re low in calories and have low-to-no fat in them.
The Bad: Russian and Regular Italian. These aren’t terrible but they’re not the best for you… just be careful.
The Ugly: Caesar, Ranch, Bleu Cheese. Fat, fat, fat. Calories, calories, calories. Don’t even bother with these unless you plan on only using half a tablespoon. They’re loaded with unhealthy stuff.

Keeping a salad healthy at the Dining Commons can be an easy task as long as you’re able to control your portions. Just think about each ingredient you put on and try to think of what could be in it that you should be wary of. It’s easy to keep a salad healthy, but it’s even easier to make it unhealthy. Also, keep an eye out for the Nutrition Cards that the DC’s sometimes have around the food, because they’ll tell you exactly how many calories and how much fat is in each topping. Keep your eyes open and your portions small! Good luck :)

http://caloriecount.about.com/

Master the Dining Commons – Introduction

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By Lauren Duffy

Now that we’re wrapping up our second week of classes here at UMass, it’s safe to say that Summer is officially over. We’re back to the books, back to the alarm clocks, back to the reading, back to the school work, and (for some) we’re back to the dorms and dining commons.

After living off-campus in Amherst this Summer and having to buy all my own food, I can honestly say that I was very much so looking forward to my return to the simplicity of the DC’s. But as soon as I set food back inside one last week, I remembered just how much of a challenge Dining Commons really are. I seemed to forget how many fats and calories lie in those piping hot serving trays. As I mentioned before in my article “How To Eat Right At the Dining Commons”, we’re very lucky to go to a school that doesn’t serve mush of all different colors at each meal. But we have to keep in mind that UMass’s good-tasting food isn’t always good for you.

In my previously mentioned article, I talked about how to manipulate the different sections of the Dining Commons to create your own healthy meals. But now I want to take a closer look at each food section one at a time and dissect every part of it that can be a threat to your diet. Getting to the DC and swiping-in is the easy part; the challenge is what awaits you inside the doors of Berkshire, Franklin, Hampshire, and Worcester.