At Grand Valley State University, students have several options when it comes to dining on campus. There are the traditional sit-down venues such as Engrained and Fresh Food Company, and there are the quick stops for students on the go such as the Lobby Shop in the Kirkhof Center or The Pod in Connection.

Throughout the year, campus dining takes suggestions from the GVSU community about how they can improve their services. Starting Sept. 23, campus dining’s food committee will hold meetings every third Tuesday for students to come and ask questions, offer suggestions or voice complaints. We at the Lanthorn have a few concerns of our own.

Let’s start with one of the Connection’s dining venues, Engrained. We’ll take just a quick peek at their lunch menu for Sept. 22. Students visiting this dining establishment will have several options, but we’ll let you decide if any of them can be deemed healthy or well balanced.

Option No. 1:

Meal: Buffalo chicken wrap. This wrap has 47 grams of fat and 793 calories. To give you a little perspective, McDonald’s Premium Southwest McWrap (crispy) has 32 grams of fat and 670 calories. In this case, going to McDonald’s is not only healthier, but probably cheaper too.

Side: Fresh cut french fries. While we’re sure these are delicious, french fries are not a healthy side no matter how “fresh” they are.

Option No. 2:

Meal: Magic oven mac and 4 cheese. Campus dining doesn’t have the nutritional information listed for this option, but we don’t have high expectations at this point.

Side: Crispy green beans and garlic aioli. Or, in other words, deep-fried green beans. Is it really necessary to deep-fry our vegetables now?

Now, to be fair we should mention that there is a salad bar at the Connection, and in our opinion it’s a great option. However, campus dining, do you really expect students who want to eat healthy to live off of your salads? We think you may need to give them some more options. This is especially important for students who are vegetarians or have other dietary restrictions.

Okay, time to move over to freshmen land and the popular Kleiner Marketplace, which offers several venues including Bene, Bistro, Grille Works and Croutons, among others. To narrow the focus we’ll continue to look at Sept. 22 menus.

The Bistro has 10 options listed for Monday. The first one on their menu is a smoked turkey panini with pesto on sourdough bread. The name is making us drool; reading the nutritional information, not so much. It has 73.75 grams of fat and 1,376 calories. We’ll give you a comparison again. A Big Mac has 530 calories and 27 grams of fat. The panini is the equivalent of 2.5 Big Macs. Yep, you read that right.

But the Big Mac isn’t even the worst thing on McDonald’s menu. That honor goes to the Big Breakfast with hotcakes and a large-size biscuit. This meal has 1,150 calories and 60 grams of fat. The Bistro’s panini still has more fat and calories than McDonald’s worst menu item.

For those of you who eat on campus and hope to avoid the freshmen 15, or the senior 15, may the odds be ever in your favor.