College offering more veg*n options
Meals, minus the beef: More colleges branching out into vegan, vegetarian cuisine
“At Smith and Bowdoin colleges, dishes like tempeh cacciatore… have become standard fare.” Wow… tempeh at college. When I was in college, I didn’t even know what tempeh was.
According to the article, Smith and Bowdoin colleges, both in New England, are two of the top ten vegetarian-friendly colleges, according to PETA. Other colleges on the list are New York University, University of California-Santa Cruz, Columbia University, Indiana University, College of Wooster (Ohio), Virginia Tech, Vassar College, and Elmira College.
Though I wasn’t vegetarian when I was in college, I can definitely say that the food service folks didn’t cater towards vegetarians. And all the vegans I knew opted out of the food plan all-together. I don’t ever remember seeing a tofu dish anywhere. The best chance for vegetarian meals came on rare theme nights where they would serve up ethnic dishes. It’s curious, though, since a large percentage of college students are vegetarian (the article says 20 percent, though that seems a bit high, from my own experience). Of Smith College’s 1900 students, 200 are vegan and 300 are vegetarian.
My cousin, who just entered college, has been vegetarian for almost ten years. She said that there aren’t exactly many vegetarian options at her school either, which is kind of surprising, as she attends a major university.
I think if I were back at college now and living off of the meal plan, I’d raise an issue with the food plan. Vegetarian college students need more options than cheese pizza and vegans need more choice than side dishes.
It got better after you left, with a veggie/tofu bar and a tortilla/quesadilla bar.
when i was in college in dallas, often the promised “vegetarian entree” was corn!!
btw, i mentioned a few weeks ago that i left some of your stickers @ my gym. i noticed the other day that someone had tacked one up on a bulletin board that had a series of neatly arranged business cards on it–local merchants & what not. hee! so if you get a lot of hits from central queens in nyc, that might be why…
this is also quite a problem at my school; the only vegetarian options usually come from the vending machine.
it’s also a bit of a coincidence that you wrote about this: i’m attending a meeting of a fledgeling animal rights group at my school, and this was to be one of our major discussion points. :)
i’m a vassar student and i don’t think that vassar’s dining hall is actually that vegetarian and vegan friendly. there is a vegan station but it’s just a do-it-yourself stirfry thing which is the same everyday and can get boring. and they have veggie burgers, but they’re kind of gross. they need to pay at least a couple more people, students or workers, so that those people can just make veggie and vegan food. there are SO many vegetarians and vegans at vassar, and the number seems to be rising all the time. it would be really time-consuming to go to a restaurant off-campus all the time bc most students don’t have cars, and lots of dorm kitchens are too small to really cook every day in. i wonder if it’s the same situation at some of these other “vegetarian-friendly” schools. in my opinion, if you’re paying for a meal plan, you have a right to as good of a meal if you’re a vegetarian as if you’re a meat-eater, and that doesn’t seem to be happening…
I go to Valley Forge Christian College in PA, and last semester, they decided to start serving Vegan dishes.. Now, I’m a new Vegan, and coincidentally, haven’t seen one of those dishes since before Spring Break… So, hold on to the stuff ya’ll got :-) I usually make salads, and wheat pita’s with veggies in them…
My litle company (now called Natural Chef Foods, LLC) makes meat alternatives and some other veg products for college and university foodservice. The Top Ten list is great and they really do support vegetarians and vegans. However, without strong support from students the schools, their foodservice companies and the distributors that sell them food all tell me (as a producer) that there is no real need for vegetarian or vegan options and they go back to steamed veggies, tofu and a salad bar complete with iceberg lettuce!
Hopefully students will continue to form groups on campues and demand that their dietary needs are met.