September 24, 1999

The department of Nutrition and Food Services recently launched Nutralert, a program designed to keep patrons in the Eat Street Café informed about the nutritional value of what they are eating. Nutralert has four components – a daily menu, special meal suggestions, a monthly nutrition topic and a nutrition guidebook.

The daily menu is posted at the entrance of the Eat Street Café with a listing of the day's offerings and the number of calories and grams of fat in each serving. Each day, a registered dietician makes two suggestions for "Nutralert meals" – meals that contain less than 650 calories and 22 grams of fat.

In addition, the Nutralert guidebook can be referenced so that customers can compare calories and fat in the standard daily offerings, and can be advised about which choices best fit into a low-calorie, low-fat diet. For example, the Nutralert guidebook shows that the 4-ounce turkey sandwich on a bulkie roll, offered at the deli bar, has 325 calories and 6 grams of fat.

"The recipes for the suggested Nutralert meals were adapted from those we found in a variety of sources, such as Bon Appetit magazine and the Internet," says project coordinator Susan Barraclough, RD, manager of Food Production and Retail Services. "We believe in choice. We are giving consumers nutrition information about what we serve, and the suggested Nutralert meals are just two of many choices that would fit a diet moderate in calories and fat." According to Barraclough, Nutralert is geared toward anyone who wants nutrition information about the foods that they select at the Eat Street Café.

"This particular program focuses on calories and fat because we feel that these are the most common concerns of customers," she says. In addition, specific dietary issues, such as sodium and fiber intake, recommendations for healthy eating around the holidays and vegetarianism, will be discussed at the Nutralert center each month.

Nutralert guidebooks can be obtained in the Eat Street Café. For more information about the Nutralert program, call Susan Barraclough at 4-4027 or the Eat Street Café at 4-8879.

From left, Marjorie Jones of Nutrition and Food Services and
Barraclough hand out samples of a Nutralert meal
at the program's kick-off.