I'm tired of my school's cafeteria food. What can a vegetarian do?!
Answers: My school lacks in variety of food. There's a sandwich place, a salad place, a pizzeria, and Nathan's. I'm tired of their pizza, Nathan's is gross, the salads are never washed and I found a fly in it one time, and the sandwiches suck. I know I should be thankful that I have something to eat. I'm just saying, 3 years of cafe food really sucks especially that I'm a vegetarian. What to do? I can eat out, but the risk of getting robbed is so high around here. And no, I'm not going to stop being a vegetarian. I wonder what vegans do.
Here's a couple sample menu plans, primarily vegan but with some less-restricted vegetarian suggestions. Most of these require a lunch bag with a cold pack in it to keep the food cold; some might need to be microwaved for taste:
LUNCH ONE
Sandwich - use sprouted grain bread (like Ezekiel 4:9 - it's a complete protein), with slices of avocado or hummus spread and some bean sprouts or other vegetable to fill it - be careful, don't eat more than a third of a large avocado, it's very high calorie, treat it like you would butter, a little goes a long way.
LUNCH TWO
Pad Thai - Mix some diced baked tofu with cooked rice noodles and slices of carrots and a small spoonful of peanut butter; season with salt, pepper and other spices to taste. This will taste good chilled or heated up in the microwave. You can make a large batch and keep it refridgerated for a few days at a time.
LUNCH THREE
Store-bought TV dinners - Try the "Amy's Kitchen" brand, all of their meals are vegetarian and quite a few are vegan. They are delicious, though they DO have to be microwaved if you are at school. They're available at Whole Foods. There are also vegetarian or vegan frozen meals available at Trader Joe's - and TJ's also has hermetically packaged vegetarian or vegan jambalaya, lentil and rice biryani (Indian dish) or multigrain pilaf that would be a great main course for a lunch.
LUNCH FOUR
Spaghetti and veggie meatballs - cooked spaghetti, a tomato sauce and some meat-less meatballs that can be bought frozen; it couldn't be any easier than that.
LUNCH FIVE
Veggie Bake - it's like a casserole; dice some onions, potatoes, celery, carrots, legumes (like chickpeas, kidney beans, etc) and zucchini and bake until fully cooked; you can season it as you'd like, you might want to add cheese if you are not vegan; I have found that adding nutritonal yeast flakes gives this a cheesy taste and texture, and I add spices and seasonings to make it perfect. I prefer this a bit on the spicy side.
DISH SIX
Rice and beans are easy and fool-proof; you might want to add veggie sausage crumbles if that's how you're used to doing it. You can find vegan recipes for this; it tastes great cold and hot in my opinion.
With each lunch, add in some of the following:
- fresh fruit (avoid canned food)
- fresh cut veggies
- chips (it's okay to have chips now and then, I prefer Terra brand Spiced Sweet Potato chips and baked kettle chips - buy a big bag and ration it into a small container/baggie)
- home made trail mix (raisins, non-dairy chocolate chips, cereal, plain popcorn and nuts tossed together into a huge plastic bag - you can ration small portions from it - will last a long time!)
Bring you're own food
*You're lucky my school has none of that
All they have is nachos and chips or you can buy a funky salad that has meat already in it
Edit :
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Take your own lunch!!!
bring a packed lunch with veggies and fruit and anything else you like. if you pack something hot it wont stay warm.
if you cant bring a lunch, talk to your principle about changing lunches at school.
Bring your own food? Make your own salad and wash it. Get subway.
What vegans do is they don't eat dairy, which doesn't help you very much. I hear ya on the microwave use. Sometimes I find it a necessary evil... but rarely. There ARE some things the re-heat well, so you could make some things (if you have facilities to cook) and reheat if you'd use the microwave on occasion. You don't say what your cooking options are though, so it's kind of hard to make suggestions. Sometimes even snacky type foods can be combined to make a decent meal. Here are a few suggestions:
whole wheat pita, hummus, raw veggies or any combo of those things for lunch or snacks.
Salads with chickpeas, nuts and other veggies & letucces, etc.
Apples (preferably organic) with natural peanut butter
Celery stuffed with natural peanut butter
Bananas with peanut butter
I LOVE Fagi plain Greek yogurt with a little vinilla and sugar or sweetener with or without fresh strawberries
veggies on pita with mayo or mustard
I could give you LOTS of ideas for easy vegetarian hot dishes... but, again, don't know what your options are as far as cooking. I'm thinking you're on the run and want something you have at school, but not re-heat. It's hard when everything has to be eaten cold. That's great for a while, but it'll get old quickly.
Good luck!
Why don't you bring your own food??? Make whatever it is you like to eat and brown bag it for lunch. That's what I'd do instead of complaining about boring school food.
I always pack my own chow. Peanut butter and banana sandwiches are the food of the gods! Easy to find the parts, quick to assemble.
You don't exactly leave much room for success. You want WARM food but don't want to use a microwave, don't want to eat off campus and don't want the food they serve. Well, there's no other options is there? Maybe you should put an EasyBake Oven in your locker?
But seriously, you should be thankful you have as many options as you have. Most schools aren't like that.
I know what you mean! I wished there was an option of eating better quality foods instead of fat, I meant fast food.
My suggestion to you is, order out. Look in the Yellow Pages and see if there are any restaurants that allow delivery. It doesn't just have to be pizza. You could order pasta dishes since you like warm food.
Hope this helps.
I bring my own lunch, like sandwiches and soup in a thermos.
Also, my school has NASTY food. today it was 'hot' beef in a yellow liguid, stale bread, 'mashed potatoes', canned fruit and green beans. The potatoes aren't real, and one girl fond a hair in her meal today. Also, I saw the lunch lady EATING in the kitchen, standing up, licking the potato scooper.
Learn to pack your own food. Try sandwiches and stuff to start with. If you have access to a kitchen, all the better.
salad in tupperware