NYU Dining Must Recommit to Plant-Based Diet Programs

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Alexandra Keenan, Guest Editorial

The first time I visited NYU, I thought I was dreaming. I sat in Washington Square Park, the sun on my shoulders, a book on my lap and BY CHLOE take-out at my side. There were sidewalk chalk messages on the concrete that read “stop eating animals!” Students sat on benches, clad with their vintage Levi’s and green smoothies. I tried dairy-free mac and cheese. I was asked to sign a petition for farm animal liberation. That weekend, I decided Greenwich Village was my Mecca.

I choose to follow a plant-based diet because I believe it is practical—it spares lives and it saves the planet. I chose to attend NYU in part because of the support for — or even encouragement of — this type of conscious living. During my time at NYU thus far, I’ve come to realize that even NYU, one of the most liberal universities in the country, has trouble confronting evident truths. Earlier this semester, NYU Dining agreed to host a week-long plant-based dining program in one of the residential dining halls. This program would function as a means to collect data on how successful a plant-based dining hall might be at NYU, and to promote health, sustainability and animal welfare on campus. The program was scheduled for the end of April during Go Green Week. Recently, NYU Dining backed out of this agreement and is now hosting a three-day plant-based dining program instead. This program will not provide sufficient attendance data, will not allow for enough exposure to plant-based eating and will not fall during the Go Green Week time frame. Though this adjustment to the plant-based dining program is disappointing for many environmental and ethical reasons, it is most disheartening for its lack of the aforementioned consciousness.

As a freshman who lives in a dorm with a dining hall and is required to have a meal plan, I find myself disappointed each time I go to any of the dining locations on campus. Particularly on the weekends, there is a lack of plant-based dining options: the options that are available are bland and repetitive. I am vegan because I firmly believe it is the most mindful way to live, thus I am disappointed to see that NYU is more interested in catering to default settings than to conscious ones. I do not say this to assert that vegans are automatically more righteous than meat eaters, but rather to point out that the destructiveness of animal agriculture is hard to see — its atrocities are designed to be invisible to the consumer.

I would hope that institutions with the power to inform and the power to choose would encourage consciousness over default settings. In terms of pursuing the full-length plant-based dining program, NYU is failing. NYU is not the compassionate wonderland I once believed it to be, but students are seldom to blame. From what I’ve seen, students want real and impactful change on campus. It’s time the people with the power to implement these changes got with the program.

Opinions expressed on the editorial pages are not necessarily those of WSN, and our publication of opinions is not an endorsement of them. Email Alexandra Keenan at [email protected].