Will somebody please think of the vegetarians?
In non-Western cuisines, meatless diets are not only conventional but often expected and even considered holier. In America, however, vegetarians have to deal with awkward carefulness and annoying conversations. As a reparation for what baloney vegetarians and their vegan comrades have dealt with regarding menus across the world, the campus should experiment with Meatless Mondays.
Vegetarians deal with enough frustrations outside of campus. At big catering events, the poor vegetarian, the only one in attendance, must wait on the side for the waiter to bring out the vegetarian option, which turns out to be overcooked mushy eggplant parmesan, or possibly zucchini, since it is too mushy to even tell. At small town restaurants, everybody else at the table gets to eat their flavorful chicken or beef, while the one vegetarian has to eat a “chef salad” straight from Walmart with iceberg lettuce that sticks to their teeth and cherry tomatoes that taste like something you should take to the veterinarian. When you do eat it, the nosy dinner guests ask, “So why are you a vegetarian?” as if they hope it is because of allergies.
This meat-as-default culture is mostly absent in the college’s goals for diversity. Cooper especially ought to step up its game. The lines at Late Night are already absurdly long and undermanaged, yet the line is an even worse wait if a student is vegetarian. Imagine having to wait ten minutes to finally order your food, your stomach aching after a hot, sweaty, people-infested line to get a meal and the manager tells you the meal you waited so long for would take twenty minutes to prepare while everybody else gets theirs immediately. You cannot make a big deal about it; what is more validating to meat-fetishists than a vegetarian becoming a Karen in the dining hall line, all because they have to wait for their specially-prepared meal?
“Karen” is a word that Internet culture has corrupted for “picky eaters” everywhere. Ordering something that is on the menu, at the very top even, should not mark you as insufferable or unreasonable. Combine this with the common irrational and suspiciously conservative hate for vegetarians; for a vegetarian to ask for equal consideration as their meat-eater counterparts is impossible without appearing oversensitive or narcissistic.
Cooper is the sole offender among dining halls when it comes to the campus’ attention to alternative diets. Lakeside and Pathfinder always have vegetarian options readily available. This distinction obviously originates in the current Cooper hiring crisis, but even before this semester, Cooper’s dining staff would repeatedly serve meat to vegetarians or be oblivious to what, or where, the vegetarian options were.
This would not do much to tamper the food industry, but it would let meat-eaters know what they are missing out on and end the stigma against asking for a meatless option.
Photo by: Michael Burrows via Pexels
