Northwestern – its decidedly non-vegan wildcat logo growling – was named the most vegetarian friendly college in the nation Tuesday morning by peta2, the youth division of People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals.
NU received the most of 10,000 total votes cast among 30 U.S. nominees for the honor, beating out big names like Yale, Brown and Georgetown universities.
Ryan Huling, peta2’s college coordinator, said the nominations were based on information gathered from the Internet, then judged on a city-by-city basis.
“The main thing we’re looking for when we’re picking nominees are consistency and quality of the vegetarian options on campus,” he said. “We need to make sure that the college is meeting the requests of students looking for healthier, more humane dining options.”
Huling said NU’s accomplishment in winning was more impressive because it wasn’t on last year’s list.
“Over the past year we got word about the expansion of the vegetarian options at NU and we put it on the list,” Huling said. “The victory shows how stoked people are.”
Long time vegetarian Andy Craig said as a freshman three years ago, vegetarian options were poor in choice and quality.
“Every day it was the same thing and none of it was healthy,” the Communication senior said. “Everything that was vegetarian was covered in cheese or cream. Honestly, I put on a ton of weight from the dining hall.”
Craig said by the time she started eating on campus again this year the vegetarian options had improved immensely.
Anne Vanosdol, an associate director of University Housing and Food Service in charge of conference planning and food service, said this improvement was the result of a concerted effort. About a year ago Vanosdol – herself a vegetarian for 17 years – took the initiative to include more vegetarian options in the dining halls.
“I knew that we could do more,” Vanosdol said. “We wanted to have a fresh product and a more palate-forward product and a wider variety of products.”
Vanosdol said they typically introduce new vegetarian items on a limited basis, usually in Allison Hall, before expanding to the other dining halls.
The task of creating these recipes was left to food service menu planner John Ferraro. He said he spent the last two years experimenting so each dining hall could have one vegetarian and one vegan entree for lunch and dinner.
Ferraro said these dishes – many of which use meat substitutes like tofu or seitan, made from wheat gluten – are no more difficult to cook than meat-based ones.
“There’s a lot more product out there,” he said. “A lot of vendors are focusing on doing things with tofu and seitan that are making it easier for us to prepare.”
This commercial reality is a reflection of demand. In an e-mail, Huling cited a study by the Aramark food service corporation that found one-fourth of all college students said they saw vegan options on campus as “important.”
Vanosdol said the current situation is good news not just for vegetarians, but for everybody who goes to the dining hall.
“For vegetarians having great entrees means having something to eat,” Vanosdol said. “For everyone else they have really good vegetable sides.”
Meanwhile, Craig said she just enjoys being able to choose between food other than pasta or pizza.
“They’re using more stuff like seitan and those are the things that I gravitate to,” Craig said. “I tend to go for the more outrageous choices, I guess.”
Reach Michael Gsovski at [email protected]
