Texas Campus Serving Healthy Portions

DENTON, Texas

These days Mean Green means more than the green-jerseyed football team at the University of North Texas.

The campus also has a hot new cafeteria called Mean Greens. And as you might suspect, it serves up a lot of green, and otherwise healthy, food.

Steven Garza says he’s been eating most meals there since it opened in October. One day recently, he was dining on a turkey sandwich, three pieces of sushi, vegetable soup, milk and water.

Garza likes the fact that an entree generally has fewer than 300 calories and 10 grams of fat. And meals with an entree and three side dishes usually total no more than 400 calories, so it’s easy to keep track of how much you’re eating. Students are limited to one main dish but can eat as many side orders usually salads or vegetables as they want.

“In other cafeterias it’s unlimited. It’s the reason why people put on the Freshman 15,” said Garza, a self-described health nut.

Mean Greens, serving up about 1,000 meals over dinner and lunch, is doing a bit better than two other similar-sized cafeterias on the sprawling campus, said Regenia Phillips, director of dining services at UNT. The competing campus dining spots offer everything from barbecue to pizza to more traditional cafeteria lines. There are also two other larger dining halls on this campus of 32,000 students.