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Fluorescent lights flicker above wilted lettuce and oozing tomatoes at New York University’s Rubin Dining Hall. A student stops at the shabby salad bar to get dinner – a handful of carrot sticks and hummus smeared across a wrap. While this meal would leave most stomachs grumbling, these scraps of subsistence are all vegans and vegetarians can eat at NYU.
The university champions its vegan and vegetarian dining programs, earning recognition from PETA as one of the nation’s Most Vegetarian-Friendly Colleges. But vegans and vegetarians at NYU think that dining halls lack sufficient protein alternatives. The limited variety frustrates students trying to eat meat-free, balanced meals.
While vegetarians do not eat meat, vegans avoid animal by-products of any kind, including dairy and even honey. Because of their dietary restrictions, vegans and vegetarians find little variety at NYU. They often eat the same meals throughout the week, simply because there are no other options.
Hannah Hodel, a sophomore, is a vegan who was required to have a meal plan her freshman year. Hodel felt limited by what she could eat at NYU. “You get stuck with a lot of peanut butter sandwiches and salads,” she said. “You’re just going to eat broccoli for every meal.”
As a freshman Alex Neinast, a vegan, also ate at NYU dining halls. “I got tired of eating carrot sticks, hummus and salads, which is pretty much all I could eat,” she said.
With the opening of Hayden Dining Hall, NYU has tried to present a more welcoming attitude to vegan and vegetarian diners. Hayden offers three vegan options a day and they rotate each week. Students who do not enjoy Veggie Indian Curry, Asian Sesame Pasta, or Stir-Fried Tofu can eat a soy burger or a salad.
In other residence dining halls, these few options are not available. Junior Lauren Dunivant, a vegetarian, lived at Rubin as a freshman and felt that the school catered to meat-eaters. NYU’s monthly Vegan Night and weekly Vegetarian Night offered a wide variety of meat dishes, said Dunivant. NYU Dining canceled both events last year, while weekly events like Steak Night and Seafood Night continue, offering only a salad for those who do not eat meat.
“Seafood Night at Rubin smelled horrible,” said Dunivant. “It’s probably cool for some people, but I’m definitely not a fan.”
But Owen Moore, the Director of Dining Services at NYU, said that every dining hall has vegetarian and vegan options for all three meals of the day. According to Moore, NYU still has vegetarian and vegan nights, which is not obvious from an online menu. Entrees for this week at Hayden are Beef Stroganoff, Rotisserie Chicken, and Roast Lamb. Hayden’s traditional vegan night offers the very un-vegan Baked Ham, with the bone still in.
Moore said that vegetarian and vegan options are readily available and easily recognizable. Students can always speak to a staff member, and signs identify vegan and vegetarian options. “Some are obvious like the salad bar,” said Moore.
Not quite so obvious, according to Neinast. At the salad bar, Neinast has seen students use the same scoop for vegetables and bacon or cheese. Not all foods marketed as vegan really are, like the vegan pancakes, which cooks make next to regular buttermilk pancakes. Neinast has also had her soy burger grilled next to hamburgers. “I’m forced to get something I hope is vaguely vegan,” she said.
Neinast eats vegan, and saves money, by eating off campus or making her own meals. “Eight dollars on campus gets a salad and a water bottle,” she said. “It’s cheaper to go to Whole Foods and load up at the salad bar.”
Some students cannot afford to eat off campus, however. Sophomore Kelly Sielert, who is vegetarian, also lived at Rubin, but could not afford to eat off campus. “I didn’t have a job and pretty much stuck to my meal plan and eating at dining halls,” she said. Sielert did not mind eating at NYU and felt that there were enough vegetarian options, although she opted out of a meal plan this year. “Some days I still eat on campus,” said Sielert. “It’s not so bad when you don’t have to eat there every day, three meals a day. You just get sick of eating dorm food.”
For some students, they got sick from eating dorm food because they were not getting necessary nutrients. For vegans, the lack of alternative sources of protein can be dangerous to students’ health. When Hodel ate at NYU, she could not find enough sources of fatty proteins. “I didn’t go off campus, I just tried to get by,” she said. “I had trouble with my health. Over the summer, I was finally able to get the nutrients that I needed.”
Moore says that the campus dining halls offer the nutrition needed by vegan and vegetarian students. “I don’t know why they wouldn’t be getting the nutrition they need,” said Moore. “There are plenty of proteins and B12s in fruit.”
Besides B12 vitamins, vegans and vegetarians need to make sure they consume the recommended amounts of protein, iron, and calcium, said junior Chi-Ser Tran. As a peer educator, Tran informs NYU students about the best ways to get their nutritional needs. According to Tran, the first step is to make existing options more vegan and vegetarian friendly. “Separate vegan-only stations, with sterilized serving utensils, would make sure students can eat without worrying about what they’re eating,” said Tran. “Another option would be to list food ingredients on the on-line menu.”
Adding more options would also benefit the entire NYU dining community, said Tran. “It would be great to see more nuts and avocados or meat alternatives like tempeh or seitan,” said Tran. “Eating the right amounts of protein-rich foods isn’t only for vegans, it’s just good nutrition.”
In 2007, PETA ranked NYU No. 7 in its top-ten list of the Most Vegetarian-Friendly Colleges, considering the university’s proximity to off-campus restaurants and canceled programs, but not nutritional value. “Not only does NYU have the benefit of being close to many of the nation’s best vegetarian restaurants, it also promotes Weekly Vegetarian Nights and Monthly All Vegan Meals,” the organization’s website said.
Sielert agrees with PETA’s ranking, but points out that NYU could work harder to support vegan and vegetarian students. “Other schools don’t pay as much attention to vegetarians, but that only says how bad other schools are, not how good NYU is.”
Even students like Sielert who do not mind eating at NYU still want to see variety in the dining halls. Until NYU addresses students’ frustration, vegans and vegetarians will be opting out of a meal plan instead of vegging out in a dining hall.
3 comments:
This is a really good post. NYU has been completely unresponsive to vegetarians and vegans, all the while patting themselves on the back for offering us both broccoli and peanut butter. NYU's animal rights group, Students for Education on Animal Liberation and inidividual students have tried unsuccessfully to encourage NYU to be more veg-friendly. I think we should petition to allow freshmans the option to opt-out of the mandatory meal plan since it clearly doesn't offer what they need
I completely agree- this is a great post. I live in Rubin currently, and not only does seafood night smell horrible, but it also inserts random seafood products covertly into pasta dishes that otherwise (and misleadingly) look identical to the ones that were vegetarian before. I was told yesterday that a stuffed pepper I took was vegan, only to cut it open and find it filled with cheese.
Hayden is great. But anywhere else makes it like solving a puzzle to create a decent and nutritious animal-free meal.
"“There are plenty of proteins and B12s in fruit.”"
thank you owen moore. as a vegan for years, there is definitely NO b12 in fruit, nor is fruit a real source of protein.
no wonder vegan night was canceled.
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