CORRECTION APPENDED

Students can soon expect the return of a contested presence in the dining halls: nutrition information.

According to a Harvard University Dining Services blog post on Monday by Executive Director Ted A. Mayer, nutrition information for foods that change daily—soups, sauces, and entrees—will be made available in dining halls beginning this week.

The information will be listed on printouts that can be picked up from a common location, such as the checker’s desk or the electronic kiosks present in each dining hall.

In addition, nutrition information for items from the salad, deli, bread, and cereal stations will be permanently posted next to those areas.

In the past, placards with calorie counts, serving sizes, and grams of fat and carbohydrates were posted next to each menu item in the dining halls.

The decision to reintroduce nutrition information resulted from discussions between the Nutrition Labeling Committee, the Committee on House Life, and HUDS’ Student Dining Advisory Committee. HUDS spokeswoman Crista Martin said that the printouts would tentatively be available by the end of this week.

Earlier this year, calorie information was removed from dining halls after parents and students expressed concerns that a focus on calorie counting would exacerbate eating disorders. Information remained available on the HUDS Web site and at dining hall kiosks.

Martin said that the new approach to providing information represents a compromise between different opinions.

“We are trying to address the community’s broad needs, and find a solution that is workable and respectful of everyone’s points of view,” Martin said.

Barbara Boothby, a UHS nutritionist and a member of the Nutrition Labeling Committee, said that the placement of the printouts would give everyone discretion to either view or disregard the information.

“Hopefully this will make the experience a little easier for students who may have struggled with having numbers so close to their foods before,” she said, adding that the program was a work in progress that would be reevaluated as feedback comes through.

Students responded positively to the decision and acknowledged HUDS’ desire to balance different concerns.

Kristen E. Arn ’12 said the reinstatement of caloric information was a “good idea” and would promote healthy eating.

“There are labels on every other piece of food that we buy, so I don’t see how this is any different,” she said.

Beside a new approach to nutrition information, a streamlined HUDS Web site debuted on Monday following requests to make online information more navigable. The Web site now requires “fewer clicks for fast info,” wrote Mayer in his blog post.

Visitors can now access the daily menu directly via the homepage, rather than going through multiple links. Clicking on food items leads to more extensive nutrition information pages with thorough breakdowns of percent daily values.

However, not everyone was pleased with the revamped Web site.

Duc P. Luu ’12, who said that he checked the menu everyday in order to eat healthfully, called the new format “confusing.”

“It’s terrible,” he said. “I couldn’t even find the menu last night.”

—Staff writer Liyun Jin can be reached at ljin@fas.harvard.edu.

CORRECTION

The headline of the Mar. 11 news article "HUDS Says Calorie Cards Will Return to Dining Halls" incorrectly stated that Harvard University Dining Services would be bringing back calorie cards in Dining Halls. In fact, HUDS will not bring back calorie cards and will instead provide calorie information on printouts that can be picked up from a common location in each Dining Hall.