Being vegan at Brandeis University is widely misunderstood. Most students complain about the meal plan, but when you are a vegan, options are even more limited. Many of my fellow vegans at Brandeis simply get off of the meal plan immediately by either moving off campus or living in a dorm with a kitchen. I feel most bad for freshmen that are vegans, because they began school believing the false premise that Brandeis caters to vegans. The reality is that there is only one vegan station out of all the food options on campus. It is located in lower Usdan and is closed on the weekends. (Because vegans do not eat on Saturday and Sunday?)
During the week, the options are often pitiful. Many non-vegans do not mind the vegan station and find it to be a suitable and “healthy” option. However, many other vegans and I are put off by the faux-meatballs and faux-steak and therefore tend to avoid the vegan station. It is evident that Aramark does not understand what it means to be a vegan. Being vegan does not mean eating tofu at every meal with flavorless vegetables and half-cooked rice. If a vegan nutritionist were to visit campus, I’m confident he/she would grade our vegan options with a ‘D+’ at best.
Last semester, Brandeis was ranked the 2nd most vegan-friendly school in the “small-school” category of PETA’s “Most Vegan Friendly College” Competition. Northwestern ranked 1st and Georgetown ranked 3rd.
“Thankfully for the campus chefs, vegan food is one area where students have nothing but kind words. With popular dining choices such as in-house vegan brownies, vegan spaghetti and meatballs, barbecue veggie riblets, and vegan beef tacos, it’s easy to see where students get their energy.” (www.peta.org)
I can honestly say that I have never seen a vegan brownie, and I have no interest in eating faux-meat for both health and moral reasons. The PETA survey that resulted in Brandeis’s undeserved award for being a vegan-friendly campus circulated the school last year (2010-2011), and the majority of people who responded to the survey were not vegan. A friend and fellow-vegan Kimiko Van Wickle was interviewed for an article about the PETA Vegan Survey for The Justice and made a great point. She said that having non-vegans complete a survey about the quality of vegan options at Brandeis is as helpful as having people who do not keep kosher fill out a survey about the quality of kosher options at Brandeis. It simply makes no sense whatsoever.
It is possible to adapt to being vegan at Brandeis, but it is certainly not made easy by the University. Here is an example of what I eat in a day:
Breakfast
Banana and peanut butter – $1.53
Lunch
Faculty Club Buffet – $7.99
-salad with leafy greens, chickpeas, tomatoes, jicama, banana peppers and olives
-roasted winter squash and sweet potato
-pesto pasta with red peppers, sweet onions and black olives
Snack
Nut and Dried Fruit Mix – $3.99
(C-store or Einstein’s)
Dinner
Usdan Salad Bar $10.00
-salad with spinach leaves, green beans, pinto beans, tomatoes, olives and hummus
-sweet potatoes
-quinoa, pasta, couscous or rice
I am on the “All-Points” meal plan. I began the semester with 1400 points. This comes out to about 72 points/week. Therefore, I should use about 10 points a day. We are currently one-third into the semester, and I am already more than halfway through my points. This is problematic and ridiculous because vegan food is actually cheaper in the “real world” than meat, dairy, and eggs. This is not the case at Brandeis. It is much cheaper and accessible to eat meat at this school.
“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” -Albert Einstein