Vegetarian at college?!

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Ah yes... The Midwest with it's steak and potato entries and an animal food product at every meal. I lived and went to school and taught in Michigan and Ohio, so I'm familiar with the cafeteria meals provided by the lowest cost food distributor. I strongly urge you to contact the cafeteria staff on campus and see how they would accommodate a vegetarian. Sadly, even vegetarian foods may contain animal fats or flavor enhancers (MSG). The ingredients can be of low quality so the flavor is enhanced. The direct cost of ingredients for each meal is embarrassingly low. I would be most concerned about MSG because there are no limits set and it can be toxic to some people. Some of the larger cafeterias may have enough diversity to tide you through, but often times, these foods are contaminated with excess salt, sugar, artificial flavorings, or fat (vegetable or animal).

You need to think about the real food pyramid, not the one influenced by the food industry.

- Fresh Leafy Greens
- Whole Grains
- Legumes (cooked or sprouted)
- Whole Fruit
- Colorful Vegetables
- B12, D
- Flax seed (Omega-3)

Otherwise, avoid over processed foods. Sadly, more people are developing allergies to common ingredients such as wheat, corn, and soy because Monsanto has been so successful in promoting genetically modified agriculture in the US. The US has no labeling laws requiring the labeling and most often these are the lowest cost ingredients in the cafeteria menu.

Set up an appointment to see if your needs can be met. Otherwise, I'd plan to be resourceful about your food. Sadly, very few restaurants are likely to be much better.

from my experience at a Midwest school, they did but it was nothing special maybe something like pain boiled squash. i'm vegan and it was awful living on campus and having a meal plan that i could barely use.even my biggest meat eating friends were getting mad at the staff for not having one veg option (and there were enough vegetarians and vegans on campus to support the need for these dishes). if they had vegetarian food it would sometimes have animal broth (they labeled everything) in it or something like that but most times they had a decent vegetarian dish. during the week when the inspectors came in they would have a lot of veg food though.the kicker is that the head chief supposedly used to work at a vegan restaurant.

i visited another school in my state and they had tons of veg stuff. so i guess it depends.

i would email your potential school and ask them about it.