Balancing Choices at NIH

Jan 1, 2010 12:00 PM, By Michael Buzalka

There's something for everyone in the array of dining choices at the sprawling Washington campus of the National Institutes of Health.

Defining “Healthful”

While adding variety and convenience are strategic goals clearly well under way to fulfillment, the goal of adding more healthful options has taken a little longer.

As part of its program, Eurest had brought its Balanced Choices healthy dining program to its NIH dining outlets three years ago. Balanced Choices is a company program that offers menu options meeting different nutritional and ethical criteria, each identified by different designations: low-fat, low-calories, organic, etc. The program is well established at many Eurest managed locations, meeting their needs for easily identified choices that satisfy their dietary concerns.


CHOICES. Variety in the main cafeteria is supplied by branded Sbarro and Austin Grill stations along with along with Eurest’s Wild Greens and Cultural Cuisines concepts.

Balanced Choices designations are based on internal Compass criteria that in turn are based on generally accepted industry standards for designations (“low fat,” “low carb,” etc.). While these designations satisfy the concerns of most customers, the customers at NIH are unusually precise about definitions in what is after all the institution's area of expertise. As a result, Balanced Choices quickly drew questions and comments about some of the designations.

“Our customers know what they talk about when it comes to nutritional claims,” explains Crawford. “In the end, we had to modify some of the designations so that they are not so marketing focused but more nutritionally accurate.”

Fresh sushi made in front of customers is a feature of the Cultural Cuisines international station.

Photo: Michael Buzalka

The “modifications” involved meshing Compass' criteria with nutritional standards based on FDA and NIH guidelines, which in many cases were stricter and more precise.

“Our nutritionists worked with them on the terms,” says Crawford. “They looked at the nutritional makeup of the meals in terms of fat content, trans fats, sodium content to make sure they are truly nutritious, that they are consistent with what truly constitutes ‘low fat’ or what ‘no sugar added’ really means. Then they modified the icon guides they use to designate the different choices to reflect those nutritional requirements.”

The revised designations were given to the NIH's Nutrition Education Subcommittee for an informal but “fairly rigorous” review on its scientific and technical accuracy and its consistency with the FDA's 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Only after passing those steps was Balanced Choices relaunched, about a year after the original debut.

It's been positively received, Crawford notes. There were no negative comments, he says, and volume jumped about 12 percent right after the relaunch, showing considerable demand for healthful choices.

A Special Program

As a federal facility, the National Institutes of Health is under statutory obligation to abide by a Great Depression era piece of legislation called the Randolph- Sheppard Act, which gives the visually impaired a “right of first refusal” for certain government contracts. These include vending and retailing operations at federal facilities.

As a result of Randolph-Sheppard, the seven c-store locations scattered around the main NIH campus in Bethesda, MD, are operated by visually impaired proprietors overseen by the Maryland Business Enterprises Program for the Blind (MBEPB).

“The stores are essentially owner-operated by someone who is visually impaired,” explains John Crawford, Food Program Specialist for NIH’s Division of Amenities & Transportation Services, who oversees onsite dining operations at NIH.

The operators are identified and trained by the state’s department of education (MBEPB is a division of the Maryland Dept. of Education). They then bid for available spaces and are coached and aided by a counselor from the state program.

The space for the stores is provided free of charge, as are utilities and “everything they need to open the door,” says Crawford. The proprietors also get a cut of vending revenues from any machines in a facility that also has one of the c-stores. All vending operations at NIH also have to remit a portion of their revenues to the state to fund the MBEPB program.

The stores themselves operate at a strict profit-and-loss from their operations.