Missing Meat & Ditching Dairy
With vegan and vegetarian diets sweeping the nation, you might be wondering what the fuss is all about. Well, thereâs a number of benefits to having a meatless diet, including health reasons to reduce your risk for many cancers, environmental reasons to cut back the meat industryâs carbon footprint, and just ethical reasons to avoid eating animals. No matter what the reason is, the push toward vegetarian and vegan diets has been growing stronger, and itâs always Marist Diningâs goal to keep up with the times.
Marist Dining has implemented a number of exciting new vegetarian and vegan initiatives at the beginning of this semester. Weâve begun Meatless Mondays, vegan smoothies on âThirsty Thursdays,â and avocado toast on Friday mornings, a choice that obviously supports vegetarian and vegan diets. We have also continued our Simply Servings stations, which features sides that are always vegan. At special events, Marist Dining also provides special options for vegetarian and vegan students. The idea is to accommodate these diets, and your ideas, with fresh new ideas every semester.
People are often looking for alternatives to dishes with meat in them, such as âzoodlesâ to replace noodles, cauliflower wings to replace chicken wings, and Beyond Burgers to replace beef burgers. All of these have been incredibly popular on campus because theyâre high quality alternatives to the originals. The zucchini noodles, referred to as âzoodles,â were recently featured at Chefâs Table and have been a crowd favorite.
If youâre wondering where the idea for this initiative came from, the answer is YOU! Marist Dining chose to begin these initiatives based off the feedback from the Fall 2018 Dining Satisfaction Survey. There were many requests for a greater vegetarian and vegan presence on our menus, and when students talk, they listen. It was a direct result of these remarks that we made it a priority to expand our vegetarian and vegan menus.
There are also always people to contact with questions. You can ask staff, make a one-on-one appointment with Marie, our dietitian, or text MARISTEATS to 82257, our myDtxt system, at any time with suggestions. Through this system, your opinions immediately get sent directly to the Marist Dining team, and it is through this feedback they can introduce changes to the students.
While there have been some great new additions to the main dining hall, itâs also important to note that the retail locations across campus are constantly getting new products, many of which are gluten free or organic or simply healthier than a regular bag of chips! Make sure to check them out and let us know what you think!
So what are you waiting for, Red Foxes? Try a Meatless Monday, or a Thirsty Thursday, or a Simply Serving station dinner, and help your body and the Earth!