The "Freshman 15" and dining halls

Healthy eating at the dining halls is a bit of an oxymoron. Last year, myself and a bunch of my friends gained weight at the beginning of the year. While we didn't gain 15 pounds, the amount referred to in the "Freshman 15," it was enough to get our attention. This is a common experience for college freshmen. According to Freshman15.com, the average first-year college student gains five pounds. 

My friends and I theorized this is because of increased alcohol consumption, less exercise and buffet-style dining halls. At OU, where the dining halls are all-you-can-eat, it can be tempting for freshmen to load their trays with lots of food.

The "Freshman 15," it turns out, is a hot topic on the internet. There are tons of articles on how to avoid gaining weight in college, like this one from the USA Today. Most of the articles include tips on how to eat well in the dining halls, which perfectly falls under the criteria of "Dining Halls Done Right."

So on that note, I thought I'd provide a link to Suite101.com's guide to healthy eating at the dining hall (specifically, how to avoid the Freshman 15). The site includes tips on how to keep your weight down upon entering college, and some general tips on how to stay healthy in college.

Freshman15.com provides an overview of the "Freshman 15," including a "Healthy Eating in College Guide" which provides tips for eating well in dining halls, general college health and getting exercise in college.

I'll put all these Web sites in the Links sidebar. And on an unrelated note, here is the Princeton Review's 2009 Best Campus Food list, as reported by Yahoo.com. Is anyone else surprised that Miami (OH) is on the list? I have a few friends who go there and I've never heard anything remarkable about the food.

The best times to go

When you walk in Bromley Hall, there is a sign displayed on a table on the right that shows the least crowded times to eat.

According to the sign, the best times to eat lunch are between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. The best times to eat dinner are between 4:30 p.m. and 5:15 p.m.

From personal experience, I know there are other times when Bromley is virtually empty. During lunch, for example, come anytime after 1 p.m. and you'll have the whole place to yourself. For dinner, come between 6:30 and 7 p.m. and it won't be nearly as hectic as earlier hours.

And the award for best dining hall goes to...

For various reasons, throughout my two years here at OU, I've never gone to Jefferson dining hall very often. In fact, I can count the number of times I've been there on one hand. I never gave it much thought until I ate there last week. 

Quite simply, I realized, Jeff hall is the hands-down, clear-cut best dining hall on campus and the runaway winner of Best Dining Hall at OU (an award I had no plans of giving out until I went to Jeff last week). 

Located on East Green at the bottom of Jeff hill, this dining hall is the best for several reasons. 

First off, it has a Wok bar that serves stir-fry at dinner Monday through Friday, and at lunch on Wednesdays. I can't underestimate how important this is. No other dining hall has anything like this. To OU's credit, the dining halls sometimes will serve "General Tso" chicken, with sauce tasting something like maple syrup. But all in all the dining halls are fairly lacking in Asian cuisine.

Also, the dining halls sometimes serve some pretty disappointing entrees, and it's nice to have a good-tasting meal to fall back on. And wh

ile some students might not expect much from dining hall-made stir-fry, it's actually pretty good. I wouldn't call it restaurant quality, but it's pretty darn tasty compared to most other options at the DH.

Part of this is because of all the options at the Wok bar. Stir-friers have an assortment of vegetables, a choice of noodles or rice, an option to include chicken or shrimp and several sauces at their disposal. The vegetable bar for the stir-fry is shown above and the line where it's made is shown below. My stir-fry, in which I got noodles, chicken, broccoli, pea pods and mushrooms mixed with sezchewan sauce, is below.

Aside from the stir-fry, there are other aspects of Jeff hall that set it apart from the rest. On your left as you walk in the dining hall is a smoothie bar. Smoothies! This is another feature of Jeff that isn't in any other DH. Because this is the dining hall we're talking about, the smoothies of course are not as good as store-bought ones. But they are surprisingly tasty. There are about five or six juices to choose from, and you can mix the juices as well (Last week I got wild berry and mango in mine). When the smoothie comes out, it has the icy consistency of a slushy.

Perhaps the best thing about Jeff hall is its hours. Sunday through Thursday it is open for dinner from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. Not only are these the longest dinner hours of any dining hall at OU, they are the latest. This is very convenient because no other dining hall at OU is open past 7 p.m. Sometimes an undergrad will want to go the dining hall at night, but forget. In this kind of situation, it's Jeff hall to the rescue. On Friday dinner ends at 7 p.m., and for some reason Jeff is closed on Saturdays.

Anthony Riel, a sophomore and Bromley resident, said he eats at Jeff hall frequently when he visits his girlfriend who lives on South Green. He said he has had plenty of experience eating at Bromley and Jeff halls, and provided me with some insight on the differences between the two.

"(Jeff has) chicken wings and chicken nuggets more often than (Bromley)," Riel said. "(Jeff's) deli is better because the ham and bagels are more fresh (than Bromley's). 

"They have delicious smoothies," he added.

Riel pointed out that Jeff hall does not always have a burger bar, a permanent feature at Bromley hall. He also told me that on weekends during the NFL season, Jeff hall projects football games on the wall.

My roommate Zach Schwab said Jeff provides a wider variety of sauces than any other dining hall. He calls Jeff "the king of condiments."

"Jeff has a bunch of condiments that I would never expect a dining hall to have," he said, citing buffalo ranch sauce as an example. "I've never even seen buffalo ranch in a grocery store."

Milkshake Monday

I thought I'd let everyone know that the best day of the week to eat at Bromley, Milkshake Monday, is fast approaching. It's pretty self-explanatory. Before, during or after you eat, pick up a milkshake. You can find them where the ice cream is served, across from the burger stand.

Now, because this is the dining hall we're talking about, you can toss your normal expectations for milkshakes out the window. In other words, they're not that great. In my opinion, they're a poor-man's Frosty from Wendy's. Nevertheless, every week, everyone I know is visibly excited about Milkshake Monday (Again, I think this speaks more to the shoddy quality of the DH food than how good the shakes are). But I'm only one person, so I conducted an informal poll of students on my floor in Bromley.

"Milkshakes are one of the highlights of the dining hall week," said Zach Schwab, my roommate. "I think they taste like Frosty's from Wendy's. They're solid milkshakes. They compare to something you could buy somewhere."

"To be honest with you," my friend Dan Kraft said, "they taste pretty bad. They're a step below the milkshakes you can get at a UDF (United Dairy Farmers)."

"It depends who's making (the milkshakes)," Ben Brierly, a sophomore, said. "Sometimes they're really good and sometimes they're bad. They're definitely better than some of it (other stuff at the DH), because I don't like some of the dining hall food."

So there you have it. Reactions are mixed. Although it's hard to provide a definitive rating for the shakes, I think it's safe to say that they are, as Schwab said, a highlight of the dining hall week.

Stay tuned for more posts, including a the recipe for a sandwich called the "Maniac Maley."

The "Maniac Maley"

I was eating dinner in Bromley recently when I came upon a meal that looked exceptionally good. Too good, in fact, to have been made by the dining hall crew. I was standing by the toaster, which is used more often by students to melt cheese on sandwiches than it is for toasting toast. 

Sophomore DJ Maley was doing just that. 

He was finishing up a sandwich that not only smelled good, but looked delectable. It seemed he had melted not just one piece of cheese, but two. On one half of a wheat bun, he had melted what looked like pepperjack cheese on top of turkey. On the other half, he had melted a yellow cheese on top of what appeared to be an assortment of vegetables. 

Next to his sandwich was a plate of green pasta. A mixture of alfredo and marinara sauce sat daintily on top of it. The pasta and sauce was sprinkled with shredded parmesan cheese. 

I asked Maley about his meal, and he graciously explained to me how to make it.

The Sandwich (The "Maniac Maley")

Ingredients:

• Wheat bun

• Turkey

• Tomato slices

• Spinach leaves

• Pepper jack cheese

• Colby cheese

• Barbeque sauce

• Mayonaisse

• Honey mustard

Process: 

• Stop by the deli stand. Every dining hall except Boyd has one. The deli stand is where you'll need to ask for the wheat bun, turkey and cheeses. 

• From there, proceed to the toaster (which every dining hall has). Put the wheat bun through by itself, on a normal setting (a speed setting of 2 is good). 

• While you're waiting for the wheat bun to toast, go to the condiments stand (a feature of every DH). Get your BBQ sauce, mayo and honey mustard. 

• The salad bar should be nearby, and this is where you'll get the tomato and spinach. Once you've put the veggies on your plate, go back to the toaster. 

• Take out your toasted bun. Put the turkey on one half, and the veggies on the other. Put the pepper jack on the turkey and the colby on the veggies. Put both halves through the toaster.

• Once the sandwich is out, apply your condiments and you've got yourself a sandwich. 

Maley said he has been making the sandwich since Winter Quarter. He said he makes it once or twice a week, and changes things up by putting different condiments on it. 

"I mix it up with the sauces," he said. "Sometimes (I'll use) hot sauce." 

After I thanked him for showing me his creation, Maley had one request.

"Call it the 'Maniac Maley,'" he said with a laugh.

The Pasta

If you'd like to know how to make Maley's full meal (shown below), follow these simple steps.

Process: 

• Come to Bromley dining hall any day there is a pasta bar. According to OU's dining hall menu, there is a pasta bar there on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

• Get a plate of green pasta. Then, liberally add marinara and alfredo sauce. The combination of alfredo and marinara sauce is a popular option of Bromley dining hall patrons. • Then add parmesan cheese, which should be located at the pasta bar, and enjoy the meal.

• Milk, of course, is optional.

The Inaugural Post

Hi, and thanks for stopping by Dining Halls Done Right.

If you're reading this post, you're probably unhappy with the food at OU's dining halls.  Or maybe not.  But if you are an OU student, chances are you've had at least a year of living in the dorms, which means that for three quarters there was a dining hall that was a pretty big fixture in your day-to-day campus life.  

Perhaps you lived way out in New South (like I used to) and made the trek to Nelson everyday.  Or maybe you lived on East Green, and enjoyed the stir-fries of Jefferson hall on a regular basis.  Or you might have lived on West Green, with Boyd Hall and it's accompanying market and Grab 'n' Go close by.  Heck, you might even have lived in Bromley Hall (like I do now) and savored each weekday when you only had to ride the elevator downstairs to eat. 

If you follow my future posts, you might notice that I write about Bromley Hall more than any other dining hall.  If it seems like I have a Bromley-centric point of view, this is because I live in Bromley, which is conveniently located uptown and close to my classes, but inconveniently located away from anything else on campus.  But if you'll bear with me, I eventually plan to travel to all the dining halls to explore options and make comparisons.

Finally, I'd like to make a disclaimer that although it might appear as if I hate OU's dining hall food, in reality I really don't mind it all that much.  Some people eat to live and some people live to eat.  I fall into the latter category.  Perhaps it's because I'm not that picky, but most of the food served at the dining halls tastes pretty decent to me.  In my opinion, the real problem lies in the selection, in that it's non-existent.  I can only get Taco Bar and "Bromley Dogs" so often.  That being said, there certainly is some God-awful food sometimes.  But that's why I started this blog to begin with (that, and because it's the main assignment of my online journalism class).  We've all got to make due with what we're given at the dining halls, and that's what this blog is all about.  

Which brings me to my actual final point.  Once a week, I will post a recipe for a tasty dish that can be made from ingredients in the dining hall.  Think pizza bagels, quesadillas, something to fall back on when the menu is looking grim.  This is where you, the reader(s), come in.  From talking to friends and dining hall employees, I've scrounged together a few decent ideas for meals to make, but I only have so many.  So if you have any, please leave a comment and share them!  It doesn't matter if it's incredibly simple or incredibly hard to make.  When I get suggestions, I'll do my best to make the dish at the dining hall and document the entire process.  That way, if it turns out well, then we'll all have something good to eat.  And if it's a disaster, then hopefully you, the reader(s), can have a good time laughing at my failure.  

So thanks again for reading my blog.  I hope we all come out of this more educated patrons of the Ohio University dining halls.

(Picture at top right: the view from my room in Bromley Hall.  Photo by Nathaniel Maund.)