Vegan victory on campus

Vegetarian Times, April, 1995 by Jan Parr

VEGAN STUDENTS at the University of California-Berkeley are finding dorm food a little easier to swallow these days. Activists at the school have successfully petitioned for improved dorm cafeteria meals that not only skip the meat but also leave out dairy products, eggs and honey.

Berkeley has been dishing up vegetarian meals for at least seven years, says Nancy Jurich, assistant director of dining services, and vegan food had been available 90 percent of the time. But according to Leor Jacobi, a recent Berkeley grad and an organizer of the food reform movement, the options were inadequate. Jacobi says that vegan students had been forced to eat salad, baked potatoes and bread day in, day out.

Working with two campus groups, Students in Support of Animals and The Coalition of Students for Healthy Dorm Food, Jacobi circulated a petition for improved vegan options; he obtained signatures from 1,200 dorm residents, one-fifth of all students living in dorms. The groups then met with dorm administrators, armed with the Physician's Committee for Responsible Medicine's Gold Plan, which supplies vegan recipes and nutritional information to food-service personnel, and other supportive material.

"Our seeds did fall on fertile soil," says Jacobi of Berkeley administrators, adding that Jurich, a former vegetarian, was "very open to our pleas." Following the meeting, the administration received the results of a poll it had conducted, which showed that 15 percent of dorm residents are vegetarian; 5 percent of the total are vegan, up from 1 percent in 1993-94. The deal to improve vegan dorm food was sewn up at a second meeting.

On January 11, the university's dining halls served an all-vegan lunch to celebrate a daily vegan menu option. About 525 people feasted on such dishes as chili, stir-fry vegetables, tofu kebabs with peanut sauce, hummus, lentil dal and rigatoni. "It went great," says Jacobi. "Only a couple of people complained about not having their meat, but we expected that."

For students who want to see more vegan--or even more vegetarian--options in the lunch line, Jacobi has a few tips: Draw attention by circulating a petition. Work with the student government; the Berkeley groups persuaded the student government to unanimously pass a resolution in support of vegan food. Have plenty of information ready to give to administrators and food service staff. Finally, stresses Jacobi, "make sure you don't turn it into a vegetarian vs. non-vegetarian issue. Do your best to try to include everyone in [the discussion]."