If it's true that you are what you eat, what does Harvard Dining Services (HDS) make you?

HDS provides a range of food for students, including at least one healthy option at every meal.

Healthy options provide students with foods that contain less than 350 calories and less than 30 percent of the calories from fat.

An average, 170-pound male and 140 pound female should have a daily caloric intake of 1,854 and 1,374 calories respectively, not accounting for daily activity.

To calculate individual daily caloric needs, divide body weight by 2.2 to convert pounds to kilograms, multiply by a gender factor (1 for males, .9 for females) and multiply by 24.

"There should not be a problem with anyone who wants to eat healthy food. The healthy option is at least one item a meal," says Teresa T. Fung, who gives nutritional advice to Harvard students

In preparing the four million meals served annually, HDS must also meet the special needs of the 6,400 undergraduates.

"If a student has special needs, the dining halls are very accommodating," says Fung, who is a doctoral candidate at the Department of Nutrition and Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Fung publishes a weekly table tent appearing on all dining hall table tops that provides students with "recent and basic" nutrition tidbits.

The tidbits include advice on sodium intake and smart snacking. Fung suggests that students try more nutritious snacks such as pretzels or raisins rather than chips, and fruit juice with seltzer rather than soda.

HDS mostly uses a non-hydrogenated canola oil--Smart Choice--in preparing foods.

"We use [Smart Choice] for all frying, baking and cooking. Occasionally we use other oils for stir-frys and sautes," says Executive Chef D. Michael Miller.

Even French fries are bought from a specific company because they use healthier oils, according to Miller.

"All our French fries come from McCain. I picked [McCain] because they guarantee that they only use vegetable oils," he says.

Miller adds that HDS has a program with the culinary school in which dining hall chefs are taught to cook lower fat meals.