Name: Roxanne Ramos
Year: Junior
Major: Psychology with a minor in Family and Child Sciences
Age: 20
Hometown: Miami, FL
Relationship Status: In a Relationship
Roxanne Ramos started her journey when she became a vegetarian at 14 years old and transitioned to vegan shortly after. In the beginning, she only did it for Animal Rights reasons because it didn’t make sense to her to even eat meat. However, the more she looked into it, the more she realized that there are a lot of health reasons and environmental reasons to become vegan or vegetarian.
Courtesy: Kimberly Wong
Her Campus (HC): Why did you become vegan?
Roxanne Ramos (RR): When I first became vegetarian, I did it first for Animal Rights reasons, it just didn’t make sense to kill animals so I can eat meat. The more I looked into it, I wanted to make sure I was giving myself the proper nutrients for my body and at the same time being healthy, so I decided to become vegan. I realized eventually that there’s a lot of health and environmental reasons that go with it and I love being vegan!
HC: What are your favorite foods to cook?
RR: I cook vegetable curry with tofu, which is my favorite dish out of all with a side of quinoa. I also like cooking pasta-salad, which is pasta with steamed vegetables on the side and dressing and you eat it cold- super good! My boyfriend loves it! There’s also tofu scramble and I eat it either for breakfast or lunch. Basically, you scramble it like if it were eggs, I add a bit of veggies and then I usually like to put it in a burrito style with avocado, fresh tomatoes and the veggies that are cooked inside.
HC: Is eating out on date night difficult because of your lifestyle?
RR: Oh no, date night is fine! My favorite type of food to eat out is Asian foods, so anything Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese and Indian is good! It is always easy to eat vegan with those types of foods because you can get veggie sushi, veggie stir-fry, lo-mein, vegetable curry and spring rolls.
HC: How do you manage to eat vegan being in a college environment?
RR: It’s not that hard because I guess I am used to it. I mean the culture of eating pizza and fast food doesn’t bother me. However, the only thing I do miss eating is pizza. Occasionally I do eat vegan pizza, but I will admit it’s not as good as cheese pizza, haha! But if I sit down and eat at the same time with my friend and she’s eating pizza I might miss it a little bit but that only happens if I haven’t eaten. It just takes 5 minutes to contain yourself from eating something that is not vegan.
Courtesy: Roxanne Ramos
HC: How do you eat on a budget while being vegan/vegetarian?
RR: To stick on your budget it is best if you cook by yourself and a lot because if you end up eating out a lot and buying frozen vegan dinners sometimes, you could spend more than what you intended to buy. I usually go to Publix and if I want more specific brands I go to Whole Foods, it does not come out too expensive.
HC: What vegan snacks do you eat?
RR: Honestly to be vegan you necessarily don’t have to eat always healthy, I personally am into health, but anyone can have chips just always make sure to check the label on anything you eat. Also any type of fruit is a super good snack to eat and vegan yogurt, but always check your labels on anything you want to eat.
HC: Any tips you would like to give other fellow vegans/vegetarians?
RR: Some tips could be to cook from scratch because it’s not that expensive to buy vegan food and it’s not expensive to buy rice, beans, pasta and even vegetables. Also smoothies is also an easy way to nourish yourself and if you’re someone who wants to become vegetarian/vegan and don’t like vegetables you can make a green smoothie because whenever I do it, I can’t taste the spinach that I’ve put in the smoothie and it is an easy way to get vegetables in your body instead of cooking them. Other tips would be not to go hungry and make sure you always have something to eat, like a snack in between your classes. And finally, always plan ahead.