Long gone are the days of sloppy joes and pepperoni pizzas being the only offerings at post-secondary cafeterias. Now, Canadian colleges and universities are setting and surpassing sustainability targets for plant-based food offerings.

Tl;dr: plant-based food options are on the rise at Canadian universities.

I’m skeptical of some universities’ self-reported #s though, particularly “York University hit 60 per cent vegan offerings in 2024.”

  • Kelsenellenelvial
    31·
    1 day ago

    Their 60% number is maybe misleading. What it probably means is all their meal items are served separately so if they’re doing a beef roast with roasted potatoes, and steamed veggies, that’s 66% of those offerings are vegan. It’s hard to get a good metric for what that means without also considering things like which vegan options are high in complete proteins, do all meals have good and varied options(if it’s the same vegan soup and salad bar for all three meals that gets old quickly) and if most of the vegan options are essentially side dishes for meat forward dishes or something that stands out as it’s own thing.

    Admittedly it can be tough, because there’s so many groups to support. Some need vegan, gluten free, halal, dairy free, no pork, no beef, plus less common allergies. It’s hard to accommodate everything with dishes that are still going to appeal to people that don’t have those restrictions, or significantly increasing costs to accommodate 10% of your customer base.

      • Kelsenellenelvial
        31·
        1 day ago

        Tell that to the people that follow those restrictions. Kosher is one thing that we never really got into at my last job, but the people that don’t eat beef or only eat halal don’t really feel accommodated when you only have vegan options rather than a halal and/or non-beef meat available. The vegan options also aren’t necessarily halal, and the kosher people expect a pretty high standard of cleansing of equipment used on multiple products. Though in all cases there’s people that are more or less demanding when it comes to someone else doing their best to accommodate.

        I’m also looking at it from the perspective of University food service where you have students on meal plans where you’ve committed to certain accommodations and providing for their complete nutritional needs. Most restaurants can get away with just not having halal proteins or just not having kosher options at all, but Universities that do dorm style housing with full meal packages have to put fort a little more effort.

        • Sunshine (she/her)English
          24·
          1 day ago

          don’t really feel accommodated when you only have vegan options rather than a halal and/or non-beef meat available.

          Not a justifiable excuse to slit the throats of animals and steal their secretions.