One day over spring break, I drove to the Livingston Dining Commons and headed into the kitchen to get a glimpse into Rutgers Dining Services transition to becoming a more plant-based team. Our dining staff at Rutgers was part of a 2-day, hands-on, plant-based culinary training with the program Food Forward, which operates through the Humane Society of the United States. This program brings culinary training to universities across the country; they came to Rutgers and demonstrated 40 new recipes (and provided a recipe book of 100 recipes) with the hopes of educating the dining staff on how to create a healthier, more sustainable menu for the students.
Rutgers Dining Services is looking at these recipes as a resource for the dining staff to expand upon to make the dishes unique to Rutgers and the chef’s that are preparing the dishes. Because the next few months are going to be spent trialing the new recipes, the new menu will not be in full effect until next semester. However, you will still see some new vegan entrees before the end of the semester as they test them out. After being in the kitchen myself with some of the chefs over spring break, I can assure you the recipes look, smell, and taste good.
Kate Watts, one of the program coordinators, told me that the implementation of this food is not merely to please the vegans and vegetarians on campus. The idea is for all people to have more options that are meatless in hopes that students can focus on having more plant-based meals and generally healthier nutrition in their diet.
Meat-lovers are still going to be exposed to the same foods they’ve been eating, but with delicious, meatless options offered as well. Meatless Monday is an important movement because of the health benefits and reduction in carbon footprint that result from just one less day of meat every week. Rutgers dining halls have been promoting it all year; I’m confident that next year students will be able to see the words “Meatless Monday” and be assured that they can find satisfying, truly appetizing food that doesn’t contain meat. The idea of offering vegan-friendly meals does not mean the staff is necessarily doing this “for the animals,” but that they are tapping into the chef’s culinary mind, seeing the delicious plant-based food they can create.
The Harvest Café, over on Cook/Douglass in the Institute for Food, Nutrition and Health, has set the bar high for providing healthy, sustainable food on campus. If any of the dining halls emulate the food at The Harvest Café, even a tiny bit, I will be genuinely impressed. They use mostly whole, minimally processed food. While to some it that may seem that all of these new recipes and their implementation is too good to be true, or that nothing will really happen, I disagree. Normally, this would seem far fetched for Rutgers: Home of the RU Screw. But I was in the kitchen myself, experiencing the demonstrations and preparations for many exciting dishes like Lo Mein, Eggplant Parmesan, Cauliflower Fried Rice, and Bananas Foster (all vegan)!
The University of North Texas opened up the nation’s first all vegan dining hall. Food Forward’s head chef Wanda White spearheaded the transition; she and the university’s chefs simply veganized the southern comfort foods that everybody loves. This is all that colleges around the country need to do to create a menu for their students that is healthy and sustainable- it doesn’t have to be as complex or glamorous as some people think. If people across the nation increasingly transition to a vegan diet, the demand to change the types of food that are served will rise. If you’ve ever thought about experimenting with veganism or transitioning to a vegan diet, I encourage you to go for it. Take it slow if you need because there’s no need to stress about it and there’s nothing to lose. And if veganism is not for you, that’s fine too – but I encourage you to do research on plant-based diets and meatless diets, and explore the deliciously simple vegan and vegetarian options that are out there.
All photos courtesy of Morgan Crooks