We tested how accommodating Warwick is to vegetarians

Switching to a vegetarian lifestyle is the best decision that I have ever made. I feel lighter, healthier and decongested; and that’s just my conscience. I am already making plans for how I’m going to spend my 4.42 years life-span increase. Which by the way, is a supposed 7.28 years if you’re a man (no female equality aye?).

However, vegetarianism does have its challenging aspects. You spend your time justifying your eating habits,  and it’s also quite expensive.

As societal attitudes are adapting to vegetarianism, are Warwick’s changing too? I did some research to find out just how much the university caters for us. The first thing that I came across was the SU’s Ethical Eats Ethos policy, that requires the university to “ensure that at least one in three of the starters and one in three of the main courses available at Xananas and the Dirty Duck is vegetarian or vegan”.

The Dirty Duck

The Dirty Duck is probably where I go to the most, and I really like their vegetable stir fry, it’s delicious! Although, the veggie burger is a little dry. This time though, with the help of some friends, I tried some new dishes (below) which were actually quite nice; especially the falafel wrap. These meals were really cheap also, so you get a lot of bang for your buck. Out of the main dishes; 11 of 27 were vegetarian, with seven of them vegan. I thought that there was a lot of choice here, as sometimes I feel that I end up having ‘the veggie option’ elsewhere, which is usually a burger.

Le Gusta

Me, in my happy ‘Le Gusta veggie burger induced’ state.

Speaking of veggie burgers; Le Gusta has the tastiest one ever. Not just on campus, but anywhere. It’s just a shame that the chips didn’t really match up.

The Varsity

This is another place where I often eat and I usually have the veggie burger, which is really tasty. However one of the other options is a cheese and leek tart, which is basically a pretentious quiche that costs a whopping £9.92. Just because I’m vegetarian does not mean that I’m inherently pretentious and/or a millionaire! Or healthy for that matter, I find a lot of veggie options are vegetable based. I know that the clue’s in the vegetarian title, but sometimes I just want loaded carbs.

Rootes Grocery Store

At lunch, I scarcely visit the RGS, although it’s a great shop for everything else and I buy quite a bit from there in general, vegetarian lunches are certainly not on the menu. The sandwich choice is really drab, it consists mainly of egg or heavily loaded mayonnaise options. The best sandwiches on campus I think are in the cafes; the vegan sausage sandwich and the bhaji crumble are really nice.

The Bread Oven

Their falafel was really tasty also, they do seem to have a great range for veggies, however it is mostly cheese based, so not so great for vegans.

They have a Subway-esque sandwich conveyor belt set up, and whenever I see this, I always ask that they use fresh gloves when preparing my food. In some establishments they seem to overlook this completely, and proceed to contaminate the vegetarian food with meat-laden gloves. Having to request special treatment as a vegetarian can make you feel quite socially segregated, whereas there should be provisions in place that mean that this is normal practice.

Aldi

Aldi offer a fantastic service and their vegetarian options can be found here. They have the same service for veganism, gluten free diets and several other dietary requirements too. As you may know there’s a newly built store at Cannon Park, I was so excited when I heard that it was being built!

Conclusions

The general consensus seems to be that vegetarianism is catered for, however it’s often a box ticking exercise and a vegetarian’s taste buds are but an afterthought, this pretty much corroborates my own experience.

From the feedback that I got, veganism appears to be neglected far more. I think that establishments often perceive the two diets as interchangeable, which they certainly are not. And, if like me, you don’t like cheese or dairy, you’ll often find yourself completely scuppered. Recently I travelled to France where I was asked by the waiter, in all seriousness; “If you don’t eat cheese, or meat, why are you in France?” He was right. Cheese appears to be a common substitute for meat, which can be really problematic if your vegetarianism transcends into veganism as well.

If you compare campus establishments to external ones, there is certainly a drive to accommodate vegetarianism, and I can only foresee this evolving in the future. Warwick Vegan & Vegetarian Society (check them out on Facebook) are this year; introducing a Meat-free Mondays Campaign; such initiatives, along with SU policies and are paving the way for vegetarianism and I hope that veganism will fall into place too.