Have you ever thought about trying a plant-based diet?
Too hard??? Going to miss your burger?
Well there are some great new products out there that will allow you to try a plant-based diet and have all the taste and satisfaction of a meat-based diet with lots of benefits to your health and well-being.
If you would like to try, even occasionally, eating a plant-based diet there are places out there to help. If you are cooking at home, go to my website: thepracticingvegan.com and find a host of products that you can find in the grocery store.
Are you on your college campus and eating in the cafeteria? Well, if you are here, at the University of Hartford, you are in luck! The Commons cooking service team (UHART Dining) is working to create new and improved plant-based diet choices with the help of a group of vegan students and faculty.
If you are not on our campus, this article will help you to discover how to create a plant-based atmosphere at your school.
I call myself a practicing vegan because I see it as something I try to do my best with, learn things as I go, and get better at it. Similar to playing a sport.
This article is not asking you to become a complete vegan, just practice. It is important to have alternatives and information, if your current diet is not making you feel your best.
Over the past few years, vegan eating has exploded in popularity on college campuses nationwide. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has been grading college cafeterias since 2013 and many schools have been substantially improving their grade with 4 colleges in Connecticut getting an A rating this year.
According to a survey released by PETA, meat- and dairy-free menu items have become one of the hottest things on college cafeteria menus.
There are many reasons why people become a vegan or vegetarian.
Here are a few:
Health
Weight Control
Mental alertness
The Environment
Animal welfare
But let’s take a look at the facts around these reasons…
Health and Weight Control:
Research has shown that a more plant-based diet may help prevent, treat, or reverse some of our leading causes of death, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Also, improved digestion, increased energy, and better sleep, and significant improvement in their physical functioning, general health, weight control, vitality, and mental health (Greger 2016).
Mind Alertness and Lower Risk of Mental Decline:
There is also research that plant-based diets will keep your mind alert and lower the risk of mental decline. This evidence is based on research done by Martha Morris, a nutritional epidemiologist at Rush University Medical Center. It looks at the MIND diet (Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay), which is a plant-based diet that emphasizes is on eating from 10 brain-healthy food groups: green leafy vegetables in particular, all other vegetables, nuts, berries, beans, whole grains, fish, poultry, olive oil and wine. Her study found that the plant-based diet lowered Alzheimer’s risk by 53 percent (DiFiore 2015).
Environment:
Students are understanding, not only the health benefits of plant-based foods but how it also impacts the environment. A 2014 Oxford University study showed that meat eaters have an environmental footprint of 15.82 pounds of CO2 per day and vegans have a footprint of 6.4 pounds of CO2 (Dwyer 2016).
Animal Welfare:
This is where this subject area gets a bit touchy with some. No one wants to see those videos we find on our social media of animals being treated with abuse and cruelty. But based on the way our economy and the meat industries work, this is the way it is. The only way for your McDonalds hamburger to cost a dollar is for animals to suffer. But I will leave it at that.
“Vegan food has now reached the mainstream in even the most rural parts of the country, which is why college campuses are often the incubators of emerging trends, the progress doesn’t end there: After students graduate, they’ll be entering a world where major brands such as Chipotle, Ben & Jerry’s and even White Castle now advertise vegan options front and center”, Ben Williamson, senior international media director for PETA.
If the cafeteria management is worried about cost, share this fact with them: the 36,000-student University of North Texas has had a 300-seat all-vegan dining facility since 2011. After the school installed the vegan dining hall, “meal-plan sales rose by 20 percent while operating costs remained comparable,” according to PETA.
A few simple things a college can to create plant-based change:
Replace egg-based mayonnaise with a plant-based one
Offer vegan cheese
Offer vegan meat brands, including, Beyond Meat, Field Roast, Gardein, and Tofurky.
Offers at least one vegan entrée at every meal
Offers nondairy milk
Label vegan entrées
Label vegan desserts
Include a vegan member on its student advisory board
Promote vegan options
Partner with students to distribute vegan food
Participate in Meatless Mondays
Offers an all-vegan station
University of Hartford
Hartford, CT
As this is pretty new to our college campus, I am impressed with what they are doing. They have taking the time and energy to create a panel of students/staff and they listen and implement what we have to say. As of this post they have implemented all of the students suggestions including: dairy free milk and deserts, Agave nectar, a vegan station with at least one hot meal, the promise of preparing special meals upon request and now they will offer Gardein brand Chickn(vegan chicken) and meatless meats.
Here are a few other Connecticut Colleges stepping up and creating change in the cafeteria:
Wesleyan University Middleton, CT Wesleyan has had an all vegan section in their main dining hall for years thanks to Chef Stephanie Zinowski, who joined the dining staff in 2002. The vegan section in the dining hall has become very popular, with recipes such as Cashew Tofu Bake, Baked Macaroni and Cashew Cheese, now being multiplied in order to meet student demand. Zinowski also hosts vegan cooking classes for students, where they’ve learned how to prepare and cook everything from Cashew Fried Rice to Aloo Gobi. The university has also seen success with their “Veg Out Tuesdays,” where the dining hall goes 100 percent vegetarian every other Tuesday and promotes plant-based eating as a healthful and sustainable choice.
Yale University New Haven, CT The vegan options abound at this Ivy League university—all 18 dining locations offer a vegan entreé at every meal. Far from your average sad salad or soggy wrap, Yale’s dining halls and cafés serve up vegan waffles and potato-scallion hash for breakfast, sweet potato and black bean burgers for lunch, and an elegant apple and cardamom olive oil cake for dessert. The University also made an appearance at the sixth annual Ivy League Vegan Conference, hosted by Harvard, and incorporated the offering of vegan options on-campus as a core value of the university in 2016.
As for those schools that still believe a vegan option is a sad-looking salad bar, PETA has a “Veganize Your Dining Hall” campaign pack, which gives students resources for lobbying their schools to adopt more robust vegan-friendly menus.
4 Step Process
1) Investigative Process- Look at what vegan options already exist in all of the dining halls before meeting with Dining Services.
Does your school have:
Meatless Mondays
Vegan Station
Hot Vegan Entrée at Every Dining hall
Plant-based milk alternatives
Vegan Desserts
Posters/Pamphlets that advertise available vegan entrees
how often vegan options rotate,
which dining halls serve as the best recommendation for vegans,
types of vegan options, and
whether staff seem knowledgeable about what is and what isn’t vegan.
2) Set Up a Meeting – Meet with dining services director and discuss these choices and changes you would like to see
Make sure that you’re prepared and knowledgeable about the current offerings as well as other vegan options elsewhere.
Research what vegan options are provided at other schools that your food provider services
3) Create buzz for Vegan foods on campus
Create a club that does small taste tests(with the permission of dining services)
Have literature and posters that give facts about a vegan diet
4) Publicize Your Victory
School Newspaper
Local Media
I will be continuing to find out how to make it easier for all of us to enjoy a plant-based diet. Please feel free to share your practicing vegan experiences in the comment box or go here to upload a video of what is happening at your school or workplace.
References:
DiFiore, N. (2015). New MIND Diet May Significantly Protect Against Alzheimer’s Disease. Retrieved from: https://www.rush.edu/news/press-releases/new-mind-diet-may-significantly-protect-against-alzheimers-disease
Dwyer, L.(2016). Vegan Food Goes Mainstream at US Colleges. Retrieved from: https://www.ecowatch.com/vegan-food-colleges-2034166814.html
Greger, M. (2016). Plant-Based Diets. Retrieved from https://nutritionfacts.org/topics/plant-based-diets/
Kovaleski, N. McLaughlin, S. (2017). The 10 Most Vegan-Friendly Colleges. Retrieved from: http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=9269&catId=2
Vegan Report Card. Retrieved from: https://www.peta2.com/feature/vegan-college-ranking/why-vegan/
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