I cringe when I think about all the crap I ate when I was in college.
Between consuming mostly a liquid diet as a freshman and eating fast food or Easy Mac, I want to throw up just thinking about all the toxic things I put in my body before I became vegetarian. It wasn’t until right after college that I gave up animal products and never really considered how hard it would have been to keep this diet up living on a campus without many veg dining options. And it wasn’t something that really crossed my mind until I met a local NEW blogger-Kate from didyousaycakeorkate?-who attends a college near me. I admired her determination to eat vegan on campus AND try to maintain that diet at home, with some family members who maybe haven’t yet grasped that she’s trying to eat this way. I know that feeling all too well, and I asked her if she’d like to write up something about trying to eat healthy while in college, on a meal plan, with very limited kitchen space in the dorms. I’d love to see more campuses offer more vegan, gluten-free options, especially in the Boston area!
Oh, and she already has some awesome recipes posted, so make sure to check them out!
And now…here’s Kate!
Hi everyone! I’m Kate, a blogger over at http://didyousaykateorcake.
I’m a 20 year old student and cross country and track athlete at Brandeis University (and a future marathoner, if all goes according to plan), and actress! You can read more about me on my appropriately titled “About Me” page on my blog. 😛
I was lucky enough to meet Lisa and learn about The Vegan Pact after searching for a copycat recipe for yummy vegan sweet potato and date pancakes that I’d enjoyed a t a restaurant in Watertown that we both like (Red Lentil). We met up for lunch one day, and she invited me to discuss my experience as a health- and nutrition-conscious college student with you!
I’ve always been aware of food and how it made me feel (at least, since I started running, which was a while ago now!). However, I have a sweet tooth and used to be super picky about foods- I’ve never really loved spicy foods (and still don’t), and I also used to wrinkle my nose at foods that seemed funky to me- like mushrooms, spinach, and squash (some of my favorite staples now)! I was never an avid meat-eater outside of turkey and chicken, but chicken was definitely a big part of my diet. The past year or so has been really eye-opening for me as I’ve done a lot of research about nutrition for athletes and about the food industry in general. I couldn’t believe how many unnecessary additives were in the food I was eating on a daily basis! I became more aware of reading labels, and cut out a lot of the refined sugars and preservatives, etc. that I was consuming unknowingly before. I still had sweet treats and would indulge in my favorite goods, but I was just more conscious of what I was putting into my body. At the same time, I had some pretty scary experiences with chicken in the dining halls- undercooked, or filled with bristle, etc. I decided to go vegetarian, at least at school where I didn’t know where the meat was coming from and wasn’t sure of its quality. After doing so most of this semester, I really did not miss chicken at all (a big surprise to me, as it was one of my favorite dishes before), and I decided to become a vegetarian at home too (which was a decision aided by some of the reading about nutrition I’d done).
Now, let me put a HUGE disclaimer here- I understand that it must be extremely hard to provide food for large groups of people, and I think Brandeis does a great job overall- the workers are really nice, and we have a wonderful convenience store (the “Hoot Market”) with lots of fresh produce and goods from Russo’s. We have several small coffee shops and a pho to-go location, a Currito’s, and a salad and a sushi bar, as well as a sit-down restaurant and buffet called The Faculty Club. All of these locations accept dining points that are usually part of a meal plan. Then, there are 2 all-you-can-eat dining locations, which each have stations- salad, soup, dessert, pizza, pasta, and then hot foods and drinks, as well as bins of apples and bananas and sometimes oranges. One of the locations has a stir-fry station and a customizable sandwich station, and sometimes they have customizable omelets on the weekends at brunch, too.
A big problem with demand is that the college stereotype (that is sort of true) is that college students want to eat cheaply and don’t mind having any sort of food as long as it’s free or paid for- and I’ve seen this in action, with people having whole pizzas with no other nutrients on their plate. People are more than happy to eat burgers, fries, and ramen noodles for every meal but then don’t understand afterwards why they are so tired or feeling sick. I don’t judge anyone for their decisions about food, but this sort of consumer paired with people who enjoy meat in moderation can make it very hard for people who like eating more plant-based and whole-food-based diets, because the demand is relatively low for them on campus.
As a runner and weight-lifter and overall fitness enthusiasts, my biggest concern when switching to a vegetarian diet was protein (I know, vegetarians and vegans are probably sick of all of this protein talk, but it’s important)! Every day, I have lots of chickpeas on a big salad from the salad bar with roasted vegetables and usually an apple for lunch. I also usually have peanut butter and nuts as a snack- I can purchase the nuts from the c store, but if I want nut butter without added sugar, preservatives, or oils (which I usually do try to avoid), I need to buy it myself. I also do usually end up relying on whey proteins and Greek yogurts, etc. as they are easier to find without added sugars etc. and tend to be a bit cheaper than plant-based protein products.
A lot of the wellness, fitness, and nutrition accounts that I followed on Instagram recommended some great protein, no-sugar-added products as well. I’d recently switched to stevia-sweetened, no-artificial-additives whey protein powder (again- purchased on my own) and used it in protein shakes as well as baking. This protein and the other protein products I purchase (Quest bars, etc.) end up costing me a decent amount of money, but are staples after hard workouts in place of protein that I really can’t find outside of chickpeas and nuts at school. I purchase my own flax and chia seeds, and was enthralled to find D’s naturals vegan protein bars (SO DELICIOUS, check them out!) as well as some vegan protein powders that I really enjoyed. I often purchase my own snacks, whole grains, and more to ensure that I have easy, healthy options at school. Also, whenever I go home, I buy ingredients to bake and cook up a storm, and then bring back these meals and snacks to put in my freezer for more healthy options.
The meal plan I’m currently on includes:
8 meals per week in Sherman or Lower Usdan ($2565/semester). This plan includes $600 in Dining Points and 5 guest meals per semester. Not available to first year students. The estimated price of the meals that I use my dining plan on are: Lunch $8.95 and dinner $10.95. However, if I were to make salads with chickpeas and roasted vegetables with one or two pieces of fruit (meaning inexpensive, small apples like the ones included in the all-you-can-eat dining halls, or bananas), the cost per meal would be much cheaper than this estimated amount, so there is no way I am getting my money’s worth out of this plan.
Additionally, I end up spending most of my points in the on-campus store on fresh fruits and vegetables, and even these points are a rather inefficient use of money, as the cost of things in this on-campus store is inflated compared to their prices in off-campus stores. For example, a single banana is often over 3x the cost of a single banana in a grocery store off campus. I recently paid $21 for a small carton of strawberries, a kiwi, a mango, an avocado, an apple, and a bag of carrots, a “haul” that would have cost me much less at a grocery store.
Overall, the system in college dining halls is broken- required, expensive meal plans with inflated costs on individual items that cater more to people who enjoy consistently eating cheap, unhealthy options, instead of cheap healthy options (like lentils and beans) mean that I spend significantly more here than I would if I was cooking my own food, leaving me less money to purchase some of the specialty products that I enjoy. I hope to use my blog to help reach people to show them how delicious and exciting healthier foods can be, to inspire more people to change their lifestyles so the demand for wholesome products increases and these dining plans change to help us have more accessible healthy diets
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