Cafeterias

‘This Is The Real Reason Colleges Are Going Vegan’ ∞

January 13, 2020

Christopher Elliott for Forbes:

The latest PETA Vegan Report Card, which grades schools on plant-based dining options, found the number of vegan-friendly college campuses is at an all-time high. The number of schools that earned an “A” or “B” grade peaked at 709, compared to just 189 when the report card debuted in 2013, according to the organization.

For many people, this could be their first exposure to vegan food — and although college campuses aren’t going to be the finest cuisine it’s a great first step. Exposure is the first step to normalizing, and I love this growth.

‘Vegetarian and Vegan Los Angeles’ ∞

December 1, 2019

I found an incredibly in-depth history of vegetarian and vegan food in Los Angeles from Eric Brightwell. Check out this part about the first vegetarian restaurant in LA:

By the late 1890s, there were devoted vegetarian restaurants in New York City, Chicago, Boston, and San Francisco — but none in Los Angeles. In 1900, associates of John Harvey Kellogg‘s Battle Creek Sanitarium opened Los Angeles’s first dedicated vegetarian restaurant on 3rd Street. Perhaps restaurant naming conventions were different back then as it was imprecisely referred to in print as both “the Vegetarian restaurant” and “the Vegetarian café.”

This article is overflowing with interesting tidbits, but it’s especially nice to be able to see actual photos and even videos of some of the restaurants — especially the Kellogg’s spot that opened up beside Angel’s Flight.

I loved the bit about raw food being called “unfired food”. And I wasn’t surprised to see the massive connection between veggie-eating with religion and cult.

And it’s fascinating to see the power of a novel and its influence on American dining:

Upton Sinclair‘s novel, The Jungle, was published in 1906. Although Sinclair hoped to The Jungle promote socialism, most readers were more affected by the descriptions of run-of-the-mill health violations, unsanitary conditions, and gruesome violence of the meatpacking industry. Sinclair noted of the reaction, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident, I hit it in the stomach.” In its wake, a wave of vegetarian restaurants opened and a directory of vegetarian restaurants in the US from that year listed 57.

It’s hard to imagine anything having that kind of power today.

‘Fort Sill’s dining facility is the first to offer troops a 100 percent plant-based entrée at every meal ‘ ∞

September 25, 2019

The Guns and Rockets Dining Facility at Fort Sill, Okla., is setting a new standard for healthy food options by offering a 100 percent plant-based entrée during every meal.

It’s the only dining facility in the Army providing options for soldiers who don’t eat meat, eggs or dairy, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jeremy Patterson, a food adviser for the 75th Artillery Brigade, told Stars and Stripes via telephone Friday.

This is great.

Let’s hope meals-ready-to-eat (aka MREs) happen next. There are currently 24 MRE options, with 4 that are vegetarian. It’d be nice to see at least 1 option be vegan. Being deployed is hard enough, but imagine not being able to eat well either. If most of the whole world is grouchy when not fed, I’m scared to imagine how that might affect someone who’s main job involves a gun.

‘SODEXO BRINGS ECO-FRIENDLY VEGAN MEALS TO 5,000 CAFETERIAS WORLDWIDE’ ∞

September 16, 2019

“When you see there are more than 20,000 known edible plants on our planet, and yet our food comes primarily from a dozen of them, there is definitely opportunity to change and discover new ways of eating,” John Wright, senior vice president, Sodexo Food Platform, said. “Today, we are helping consumers as they look for ways to adopt more sustainable diets. Future 50 Foods represents an exciting opportunity for our chefs to innovate in the kitchen and share Sodexo’s Love of Food (campaign) with diners in a way that’s also good for the planet.” Last year, Sodexo launched 200 new plant-based dishes at hundreds of corporate, university, and healthcare cafeterias nationwide.

This is a big move by Sodexo. They are the world’s largest food vendor and serve 13,000 sites with over 100 million people eating meals with them each day. Honestly though, the thing that I found incredible was the part about the 20,000 known edible plants.

It makes sense that there are that many plants to eat, but I’m just not sure I’d ever seen that figure. Now I’m wondering how many I’ve tried, or if I’m in the double-digits percentage-wise.

That’s the sort of number I like to see when I think of what it’d be like to eat at Noma or Vespertine. I hope they open my world up by introducing me to vegetables that I’ve not only never tasted, but maybe never even seen or possibly even heard of.

‘On Less Meat Mondays, Harvard’s famously liberal students ate more meat than any other day of the week.’ ∞

August 1, 2019

Some interesting thoughts from Selina Wang at I.M.H.O.:

Based on employee logs, meat entrées are high in demand. To counter this trend, many universities have started “No Meat Mondays” to reduce costs and encourage students to make healthy and sustainable decisions. To ease students into this new idea, HUDS tried a less extreme version, “Less Meat Mondays”: at dinner every Monday, instead of serving two animal proteins, HUDS served one animal protein and two vegetarian proteins. Martin said that on their first try, students ate more meat than when there were two animal proteins: “The grill got hammered. It was as if students were saying ‘if you tell me that I shouldn’t be eating meat, in fact I’m going to eat more.’”

When asked what would happen if HUDS acted more as a benevolent dictator that completely removed meat options from the grille menu once a week, with a sign by the gridiron explaining the benefits of eating less meat for health and environmental reasons, Davidson laughed. “There would be a revolt,” he said. […] To get around this psychology, HUDS has become more surreptitious about their actions. Starting last year, HUDS has reduced the amount of ground beef in ten dishes by 30 percent through the addition of mushrooms. This has not been met with any pushback from students, as this alteration does not change the flavor of the meat dishes.

Any step towards more vegetables being consumed is better for the world and the environment. That’s why I don’t hate Tyson’s move to make patties that are half beef and half pea protein. It’s not what vegans want, but it’s what the world needs.

✏️ by C. W. Moss