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p class=”p1″>It’s a day ending in “y,” so Cornellians are hungry. From trudging up Libe Slope with bookbags to prolonged periods of intense studying, life at Cornell can quickly drain you of every ounce of energy you may have. Away from home, you can no longer rely on Mom or Dad to prepare snacks or dinner; instead, you have to scour campus dining to curb your appetite. And more often than not, hunger seems to strike at the most inconvenient of times: when the dining halls are closed, when you’re far away from one, and when you have a class to make in a couple of minutes. This is when on-campus eateries come in handy. But anyone who has prematurely depleted their BRB balance (like me) knows that responsible food choices are key to staying full while not breaking bank. You may have a hankering for a salad, but will a bunch of lettuce really give you as much energy as you deserve for the amount you’re paying? Will you be hungry a couple hours after eating that salad?
In setting out to write this article, I hoped to identify the items at various campus eateries that provide the most nourishment for the least amount of money. To this end, my first instinct was to relate the prices of foods to their masses. The logic is simple: Foods with large masses tend to physically fill your stomach more than those with smaller masses. But there is one problem with using mass to measure fullness. You don’t have to be a food scientist to know that drinking 100 g of water is different from eating 100 g of peanuts. Thus, it is critical to analyze the nutritional composition of food to determine how full it will leave you.
As an engineer, I am pretty much clueless when it comes to making sense of different nutritional properties. But one thing I do know about is the Internet, and I used it to find a formula that computes the “Fullness Factor” of a given food — that is, how much given food will satiate you on a per-calorie basis. Multiplying the Fullness Factor index value by the total amount of calories in a given dish yields a relative measure of how full that dish will leave you. I will be using this metric to quantify the satiety of a given food. If you’re interested, I included the formula used to arrive at the Fullness Factor at the end of the article.
But measuring fullness is only half the story. If a filling item is exorbitantly priced, is it actually worth purchasing? To address this issue, I will be ascertaining how much a given food fills you up in comparison to its price by dividing the Fullness Factor by the cost of that item. This means that items with a higher ratio fill you up more for less money. I have also included the pure Fullness Factor rankings in case you want to purchase the most satisfying item irrespective of its cost.
Note: Nutritional information is provided by Cornell Dining. Not all items/vendors have nutritional information available. I have only included items that Cornell Dining has listed on its website.
Bus Stop Bagels
Item | Fullness Factor/Price Ranking | Fullness Factor Ranking |
Bagel with Butter | 1 | 16 |
Route 10 PBJ & Banana Bagel | 2 | 10 |
Bacon Egg & Cheese Bagel | 3 | 2 |
Sausage Egg & Cheese Bagel | 4 | 3 |
Route 65 Tuna Melt Bagel | 5 | 7 |
Turkey Sausage Egg & Cheese Bagel | 6 | 5 |
Route 32 Chicken Avocado Bagel | 7 | 1 |
Turkey Bacon Egg & Cheese Bagel | 8 | 8 |
Route 15 Caprese Bagel | 9 | 12 |
Ham Egg & Cheese Bagel | 10 | 9 |
Route 41 Turkey BLT Bagel Sandwich | 11 | 4 |
Egg & Cheese Bagel Sandwich | 12 | 13 |
Route 31 Roast Beef Bagel | 13 | 6 |
Route 92 Goat Cheese & Olive Bagel | 14 | 14 |
Route 21 Avocado Veggie Bagel Sandwich | 15 | 15 |
Route 13 Salmon Bagel Sandwich | 16 | 11 |
Cornell Dairy Bar
Item | Fullness Factor/Price Ranking | Fullness Factor Ranking |
Grilled 3 Cheese Sandwich | 1 | 1 |
Vegetable “Gyro” Wrap | 2 | 2 |
Thai Peanut Vegetable Wrap | 3 | 3 |
The Big Tuna Melt | 4 | 5 |
Pork Barbacoa Sandwich | 5 | 6 |
Muffaletta Sandwich | 6 | 4 |
Goldie’s
Item | Fullness Factor/Price Ranking | Fullness Factor Ranking |
French Dip Sandwich | 1 | 1 |
Chicken Panini | 2 | 2 |
BLT Wrap | 3 | 3 |
Apple Brie Melt | 4 | 5 |
Green Goddess Sandwich | 5 | 6 |
Orange Ginger Salmon Wrap | 6 | 4 |
Mattin’s
Item | Fullness Factor/Price Ranking | Fullness Factor Ranking |
Italian Sub | 1 | 1 |
Egg and Cheese Bacon Sandwich | 2 | 14 |
Ham and Cheese Croissant | 3 | 15 |
Turkey Sub | 4 | 3 |
Chicken Club Sandwich | 5 | 4 |
Egg Cheese Sausage Sandwich | 6 | 16 |
Chicken Bacon Ranch Sandwich | 7 | 5 |
Chicken Quesadilla | 8 | 2 |
Buffalo Boneless Chicken Wings | 9 | 8 |
Egg and Cheese Sandwich | 10 | 18 |
Vegetarian Hot Wrap | 11 | 13 |
Tuna Melt Sandwich | 12 | 10 |
Egg Cheese Ham Sandwich | 13 | 17 |
Chicken Chipotle Wrap | 14 | 11 |
Vegetable Quesadilla | 15 | 6 |
Cheese Quesadilla | 16 | 7 |
Spicy Italian Wrap | 17 | 12 |
Roast Beef Sandwich | 18 | 9 |
Synapsis
Item | Fullness Factor/Price Ranking | Fullness Factor Ranking |
Pasta Bake with Alfredo Sauce | 1 | 1 |
Marinara Pasta Bake | 2 | 2 |
Pasta Bake with Garlic Herb Sauce | 3 | 4 |
Chicken Marinara Pasta Bake | 4 | 3 |
Grilled Cheese Panini | 5 | 5 |
Tomato Grilled Cheese Panini | 6 | 9 |
Ham Grilled Cheese Panini | 7 | 6 |
Turkey Pesto Grilled Cheese Panini | 8 | 7 |
Caramelized Onion Grilled Cheese Panini | 9 | 11 |
Thin Crust Hot Italian Pizza | 10 | 8 |
Thin Crust Phzani Pizza | 11 | 10 |
Stackt Cobb Flatbread Salad | 12 | 12 |
Thin Crust Aloha Pizza | 13 | 14 |
Vegan Tuscany Thin Crust Pizza | 14 | 15 |
Thin Crust Margherita Pizza | 15 | 16 |
Thin Crust Mediterranean Pizza | 16 | 17 |
Stackt BME Flatbread Salad | 17 | 13 |
Thin Crust Tuscany Pizza | 18 | 18 |
Thin Crust Genoa Vegetable Pizza | 19 | 19 |
Vegan Aloha Thin Crust Pizza | 20 | 20 |
Vegan Margherita Thin Crust Pizza | 21 | 21 |
Vegan Phzani Thin Crust Pizza | 22 | 22 |
Vegan Tomato Pesto Thin Crust Pizza | 23 | 23 |