What It's Like Being Vegan in College

Oct 20, 2018
4 min read

This past September I started a new chapter in my life at The George Washington University in Washington DC. Besides loving the school wholeheartedly, I also love the city. For anyone who has moved far away from home, you know how hard it can be to find all new amazing restaurants, the best places to go grocery shopping, and where to get cheap but tasty food. One of the coolest aspects of going to GW is that there is no dining hall on the Foggy Bottom campus (the main campus). Freshmen are given $2,300 in Colonial Cash which they can use at any partner restaurant near campus. I love this because it allows students to try out so much of the food that this area of the city has to offer. From Mediterranean food to sushi burritos, I would not be able to eat the kinds of food I am having here in a regular campus dining hall.

When I was applying to schools last year, it was always important for me to go to a school with a surplus of vegan options. I didn't want to feel restricted or not happy with what was offered. While researching vegan options at the colleges I was interested in, I came across this website by PETA: https://www.peta2.com/feature/vegan-college-ranking/ . This website is amazing! It allows you to search for colleges and PETA gives them a grade based on how vegan-friendly the school is. It also goes into detail in why they gave that school that grade.

One of the perks of going to a city school is that I'm only a few minutes walk away from the grocery store. I usually go grocery shopping once a week and pick up a few snacks and meals I can put into the freezer/refrigerator for when I have a lot of work and don't have time to go out for dinner. Some of the snacks I pick up every time are carrots, hummus, apples, popcorn, and Nature's Bakery Blueberry Fig Bars. I love having these on hand because they're easy to grab and bring to class or for when I just need a snack in the dorm. Then, I usually get different meals each time I go grocery shopping that way I'm not always eating the same ones. Currently, I have vegan lasagna which goes in the freezer, General Tso's vegan chicken (which comes in small one portion size contains with broccoli and goes in the refrigerator), and vegan pizza pockets by Gardein which goes in the freezer. Thankfully, the grocery store is Whole Foods so I am able to find many vegan options which may not be available in other grocery stores.

Some of my favorite restaurants on campus to eat at are & Pizza, Roti, Sweet Green, and Whole Foods. & Pizza is basically the Chipotle of pizza. You choose your dough, sauce, toppings, and then additional add-ons at the end. I always get the regular dough, marinara sauce, vegan cheese, vegan sausage crumbles, mushrooms, broccoli, and then arugula and barbecue sauce after it's finished cooking. As you can see, they are so vegan-friendly! Don't get me wrong, I love a good veggie pizza, but the fact that they have vegan cheese and sausage crumbles is so cool! They also have the vegan options labeled on their menu! Roti is a Mediterranean restaurant where you choose your base (rice or lettuce) and then your protein and toppings. What's great about Roti is that you aren't limited to the number of toppings you can get like many other Mediterranean restaurants such as Wild Fig and Cava. Here I get a rice and falafel bowl topped with hummus, mixed veggies, couscous, Israeli salad, pickles, lettuce, and a vegan cabbage slaw. It definitely is as much food as it sounds, and it fills me up for days! Here, the vegan options are labeled as well. Then, Sweet Green is a make-your-own-salad restaurant similar to Chopt. At Sweet Green I don't usually get the same salad, but one that I love is the Spicy Thai Salad which is one of their combination recommendations (roasted sesame tofu, raw corn, cucumbers, shredded cabbage, basil, cilantro, spicy sunflower seeds, organic arugula, chopped romaine, lime squeeze, spicy cashew dressing). It's amazing! Lastly, at Whole Foods, I love to get vegetable sushi rolls! I usually make my own at the ordering kiosk and get carrots, cucumber, sweet tofu, lettuce, and avocado. I get this pretty often for lunch.

There are some things about being vegan in college that are hard, and it's the 2 AM diet. For those of you that don't know what this is, it's the greasy, unhealthy, fast food you eat after a long, fun night during the weekend. Now, yes, while reading this you are probably wondering why in the world I would want to eat greasy, unhealthy food at 2 AM especially since I promote healthy living (and I'm wondering the same thing while sitting here writing this), but why do we do half the things we do at 2 AM. So, while my friends eat fast food pizza or chicken fingers from the shop next door I usually eat my vegan brownie from whole foods. It's the best that I can do given the circumstances. I'm still waiting for dominos to get vegan cheese, but until then I'm sticking to my brownies.

Overall, being vegan in a city school isn't much of a struggle at all. I can always find food options while eating on campus that I genuinely enjoy and don't just order because it's the only vegan option. There's so much variety in the types of food that are offered so I'm never bored. If you're thinking about going vegan in college or are just starting out, I would say find what works for you and what's good in your area. The options are always out there, and sometimes it's just a matter of finding them.