By Joergen Ostensen

The Rose Hill Marketplace has been increasing its vegetarian and vegan options over the course of the 2017-18 academic year, according to Melanie Simeone, Aramark’s registered dietician.

The process of adding to the number and variety of vegan and vegetarian options has been a response to a collaboration of student demand and changing menus from the Aramark Corporation, according to Deming Yaun, dining services liaison.

Arielle Brender, FCRH ’18, the vice president of Sustainability for United Student Government and the president of Students for Environmental Awareness and Justice, said she worked with Aramark last year through the Sustainable Food Practicum. She said she enjoyed working with them.

“They were so excited to work with us,” she said.

Brender said she struggled trying to maintain a vegetarian diet when she had a meal plan her freshman year, and the lack of food options played a major role in her decision to move off campus, but she was pleased with the progress Aramark has made this year.

“Aramark is actually doing a really good job to increase those options [and] improve them,” she said.

Yaun said part of the reason for the changes is an increased awareness of the issue of sustainability and the fact that plant-based products have less of an impact on the environment. However, he said creating attractive food options has been a challenge.

“The planet has to make a decision, how are we going to sustain ourselves?” he said. “Collectively we have to move this way, [but] people aren’t going to go if it’s not appealing.”

Aramark hosted a training program last month at the Rose Hill campus where 30 chefs from area universities, including Fordham, learned how to cook vegan products.
Yaun said the goal is not to encourage Fordham students to live a different kind of lifestyle. The vegan and vegetarian lifestyle already exists on campus; Aramark is just trying to meet the demand with attractive options, according to Yaun.

Hayley Coughlin, FCRH ’19, is a member of United Student Government’s (USG) Sustainability Committee. She said that as a vegan, she has had a hard time finding food to eat on campus. She said said she was not satisfied last year with her meal plan when she lived in O’Hare and had to have one.

“There were very few vegan options, it was mostly just salads,” she said.

She said that becoming vegan has become more common in recent years due to the issue of sustainability.

“A couple years ago, being vegetarian and vegan was because you cared about animals, it wasn’t necessarily because you cared about the environment,” she said.

She said that environmental concerns were a big part of why she decided to become vegan.

Brender said she became vegan out of a sense of moral responsibility.

“The more that I learned about our very corrupt and very broken food system, it became abundantly clear to me that I had a moral obligation, as somebody who cares about justice issues, and who cares about environmental issues, to put my money where my mouth is,” she said.

Brender also said veganism has helped her lead a healthier lifestyle.

“I became vegan for the environment and for the humanitarian and ethical reasons but I stayed because of the health impact,” she said.

The Veg-Out station, which is new to the caf this year, is an example of how Aramark is trying to make vegan options a more mainstream aspect of the dining experience, according to Simeone.

She said that part of the goal is to minimize the stigma surrounding vegan food. According to Simeone, the attachment of the word vegan to a product can make it less desirable.

“We’re trying to take away that stigma,” she said.

Voice of the Consumer Surveys indicate that students are satisfied with the Veg-Out station, according to Simeone.

“I think a lot of people just eat at that station because it looks good and it sounds good,” she said.

Simeone said that the increased demand for vegan products extends to the corporate level.

“More companies are realizing that people are becoming more flexible with their diet,” she said.

At first it was a difficult adjustment for the staff because it required them to learn how to use new products, according to Simeone. She said the training program helped make them more comfortable with the additions.

“They are becoming more comfortable with that cooking, so the food quality is actually improving quite a bit,” she said.

Yaun said the staff will adjust to the positive feedback they have received.

“The staff wants to be there with people who are smiling back,” he said.

Coughlin said that after she moved out of O’Hare and meal plans were no longer mandatory, she was happy not to have one.

“I could not be more excited to get rid of my meal plan because they could not accommodate me,” she said.

She said she hopes to work on USG’s sustainability committee to make Aramark aware of what products vegans on campus are interested in.

“We just have to let them know,” she said.

The system of mandatory meal plans is unfair to students who feel that their diet is not accommodated by Aramark’s food offerings, Coughlin said.

“If they are going to have mandatory meal plans, they have to make sure that everybody is accommodated,” she said.

Brender said she believes Jesuit values and a plant-based diet are connected, and, consequently, the Jesuit values of protecting the environment and social justice need to be reflected in greater education of students about the issues surrounding the meat industry.

“[Fordham] should be the one educating the student body about the horrors of the animal industry and industrialized agriculture,” she said.

Fordham should require students to take classes on the impact of humans on ecology, according to Brender.

“If [Fordham] were to embrace the really widespread benefits of plant based diets and making that accessible for students it would be effectively putting action where its words are,” she said.