Nutrition Month Means Good Food
Photo/Peter Arroyo
“Spa Cuisine” returns to the Upstairs Caf� as one of the TrojanHospitality offerings available during National Nutrition Month.
Because choosing what to eat can be a challenge, especially on a college campus, the members of TrojanHospitality will present an assortment of healthy meal choices at Parkside Restaurant this month.
An opportunity to question experts about nutrition at Everybody’s Kitchen has also been arranged.
“Spa Cuisine,” an eclectic menu first introduced last year, returns to the Upstairs Caf� the week of March 21-25, executive chef Mark Baida said.
The meals, planned by Baida and chef Robert Phillips, come in at about 600 nutrition-packed calories.
Each day features a different appetizer and main course, from Monday’s hearts of palm salad and chicken pot-au-feu, to Friday’s asparagus and orange salad and spicy Thai coconut shrimp.
For dessert, think along the lines of Persian poached pears or strawberries marinated in port. Spa cuisine meals are $13.95 per person (excluding tax and gratuity).
Making choices at Parkside can be daunting because the international menu offered there is so vast, said TrojanHospitality nutritionist Patrice Barber.
“We introduced the ‘Healthy Meal of the Day’ in early March,” she said. “It will help the university community in their pursuit to look good and feel great.”
At Parkside Restaurant, from Monday through Friday (at both lunch and dinner, through the semester), diners will find a display of one of the healthy meal combinations that are available. These are 600- to 700-calorie meals that have a healthy balance of protein, carbohydrate and fat, planned by Barber with the assistance of junior Teresa Liccardo, a health promotions major.
Liccardo’s goal is to become a nutritionist, and the Parkside format provides an educational opportunity to provide mentoring.
“Teresa’s input was very valuable,” she said, “because she had a great sense of what students would actually like to have.”
Barber said they chose to present “whole meal” combinations at Parkside, rather than just marking items as “healthy choices,” in order to show that any food people enjoy can fit into an overall healthy diet, at least some of the time � even pizza.
At Everybody’s Kitchen, there will be an opportunity to “Ask the Expert” about nutrition choices.
On Thursday, March 24, Tuesday, March 29 and Thursday, March 31, health and nutrition displays will be presented by students from the HP 431 class (Behavior and Education Strategies for Nutrition and Fitness), under the direction of professor Carol Koprowski and Barber.
Throughout the month, Barber and her team hope to encourage people on campus to build balanced meals, rather than just collections of low calorie/low fat foods. Their goal is to educate � in an entertaining and delicious way � and to make healthy eating something that those at the university will carry with them beyond the campus.
“At TrojanHospitality, we feel that lasting learning that works in other environments is a greater service than simply marking individual healthy choices on a menu that is only available in only one location,” Barber said.
For more information, call (213) 740-6285.
