What does 500 calories on campus look like? Well, it depends.

At South Dakota State, there are a variety of restaurants to choose from. Each restaurant offers different types of food, each with varying nutritional values.

Consuming 500 calories at Chick-fil-A is a whole crispy chicken sandwich with cheese and a cup of fruit, while eating 500 calories at Union Coffee is just one blueberry scone and a tall vanilla cappuccino.

Finding a meal with 500 calories or less wasn’t impossible, but it wasn’t easy. In fact, finding meals with 500 calories or less seems to be rare. Guessing how many calories are in a meal, simply by looking at the portion size, is not possible.

For example, a cup of fruit at Chick-fil-A is 45 calories while one blueberry muffin at Einstein’s is 420 calories. Both are small items but vastly different in terms of nutrients.

Making sure to know how many calories you’re consuming is essential in maintaining a healthy and balanced diet. Remember, you can’t just guess how many calories are in your food. Looks can be deceiving.

Visualizing it: