Students petition for nutrition labels on menus

CHICAGO — A group of students started a petition a couple of weeks ago in an effort to improve nutrition labels on the menus in DePaul’s student center.

Freshman Thomas Rietz, a residence hall council (RHC) member who resides in Corcoran Hall, was the first to imagine a petition for better nutrition labels. Rietz said it all started with a simple offhand comment made during a conversation with one of his residents. Within a couple of days, the petition garnered more than 250 signatures.

Rietz and his supporters want to see calorie counts next to items on student center menus so students can be more informed about what they eat. Although nutrition information is posted in the student center, it is presented as a large spreadsheet that many find difficult to use.

“If you go to Ranch (a restaurant in the Lincoln Park student center), there’s going to be a stand there with this gigantic sheet of all the calories and every single item from lettuce to beans and pork,” Rietz said.

Rietz said students would have to use a calculator to figure how many calories are in a meal.

“If they provided the calorie count on the menu, then you would know ‘this is 400 calories,’” Rietz said. “It would be a lot easier for students, especially in between classes to figure out how to eat healthy on the go.”