For students trying to avoid certain ingredients, the EIU dining halls might not be the place to go.  

Sophomore hospitality major Cami Jean said she has dairy sensitivity and tries to stay healthy. She said she wants to know what fats and additives are used in the food she eats.   

Presently, the dining halls do not offer ingredient lists in person or on the EIU dining services website.  

While nutrition facts and common allergens in meals are offered online, Jean expressed concerns over the site’s missing information.  

“I think a website of nutrition facts is good, but you can tell that it’s not updated often and not every food is on there,” she said. “It also only shows the nutrition facts and allergies, not the actual ingredients. Because of this, I don’t really eat from the dining halls unless it’s something I know exactly what’s in it such as the myo [make your own] pizza or produce.”   

The dining halls offer allergy-friendly meals on request, though ingredient lists for these meals aren’t available either. Students can fill out a special diet verification form if they need assistance to meet their dietary requirements.   

Another way to get help with food allergies is by reaching out to pdiningnutrtion@eiu.edu, according to dining hall nutrition coordinator Dez Bonds. 

Bonds said she uses Microsoft Excel to create nutrition information for the different menu items by fact checking with the EIU’s food provider Gordon Food Service’s website.  

“Sometimes the brand does not list the nutrition information and ingredients on Gordons website,” Bonds said. “So, I will have to go to the foods actual website to get the information for the food.” 

Additionally, students are asked when applying for housing if they have any special dietary needs. 

“If they mark that, then our nutrition person will reach out to them through email to check in with them,” Associate Director of Housing and Dining for Panther Dining Christopher Coffey said. “Do you need help navigating any of the dining centers, figuring out what works best for you, what’s offered in the different centers that would meet your special diet concern? So, they meet with them individually and let them know where those nutrition cards are on the website.” 

The main reason for the missing ingredient information, according to Coffey, is that currently the nutrition coordinator must manually enter all information into the site.    

Coffey said that housing and dining have been trying to work on an automated system that would allow for all the ingredient information to be available and the dining site to be more user friendly, and he is hoping it will happen within the next year or two.  

“That’s the goal. Unfortunately, the system that we have now doesn’t allow that,” Coffey said.  

Other Illinois universities do provide all the ingredients for the food they serve in their dining halls.  

University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana and Western Illinois University do so on an app.  

“You can click on each food individually and see the nutrition information so it’s super nice. I use it almost daily,” University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana freshman Tyler Cantu said. 

Illinois State University, Southern Illinois University Carbondale and Northern Illinois University all use NetNutrition to provide their students with food information, including ingredients lists.  

Those universities’ dining menus also link the nutrition and ingredient information directly from the food in the menu, something Eastern’s system currently doesn’t allow.  

“So, it is a little bit antiquated but again, that’s what we’re working on, trying to get that more streamlined,” Coffey said.  

A feature NetNutrition has is a meal nutrition counter, which allows you to make a meal on the website and it tells you the nutrition facts of the whole meal.  

Illinois State freshman Henry Stafford uses it to track things like calories, proteins and fats to help him bulk.  

The software program that Eastern uses is CBORD, which recently updated its system and merged with Transact Campus.  

However, Coffey said that updated technology won’t necessarily be easy to obtain.    

“There’s a lot of red tape to get new programs and stuff instituted, but it’s definitely on the agenda or the project list is what we call all those things,” he said.   

The biggest roadblock is because each new module that CBORD comes out with costs money.   

“So, each new module they come out with, we’re going to have to go, ‘OK, is this something that we’re interested in? Is it cost effective?’” Coffey said.    

Coffey said that dining is open to suggestions on improving the current system for sharing nutrition information and to suggestions on how to make more people see the information.   

“I’d say make flyers if they haven’t already and make them visible on all the food stations,” Jean said.    

These videos would allow students to learn more about things that may not show up on the ingredients list, such as the oils used, she said.    

“I wish I knew what kind of oil they use to fry foods because sometimes they use an excessive amount,” Jean said.  

Bryce Parker can be reached at 581-2812 or at baparker2@eiu.edu.