The salad bar. - To the novice eye, it's just a row of vegetables, but for many Brandeis students, it forms the core of their Aramark dining experience. Some gravitate to the salad bar to avoid long lines at the other food stations. Other students are concerned with their health, and feel salad is the healthiest option. And a third group of significant size feels the salad bar is their only option.

Meet the vegetarian and vegan population of Brandeis: a group of students, who almost unanimously say they are disappointed with what they eat each day on campus. Brandeis vegetarians generally describe the non-meat options as bland, repetitive, unnutritious, and falsely advertised.



Pass the lettuce, please - again.

Sara Dushey '06 sat eating a salad at lunch in Usdan last week - her daily routine. After about ten minutes, she put her fork down and said, "There's always a point where I'm eating my salad when I'm like, I can't do this anymore."

"It's just gross," she said. "The lettuce is nasty - it's completely transparent iceberg lettuce." Iceberg lettuce, she said, is almost completely water, and has little nutritional value. Foodreference.com, a nutrition information Web site, supports Dushey's complaint: "Iceberg lettuce is 90 percent water and has very little flavor, and almost no nutrients."

Dushey said that the only vegetarian items she enjoys in Usdan are Boca Burgers (vegetable and soy patties resembling hamburgers). "But those get really boring after a while," she added.

She acknowledged that the Pan Geos station is vegetarian, but is also "basically just carbohydrates." "If you want to be healthy but also not eat meat, it's hard to do. I know a lot of people who don't eat meat end up eating shit at the Boulevard instead - stuff that's nonmeat, but that's bad for you."

"Unless you drink protein shakes," said Dena Leeman '06, "you won't get the right nutrition."

Dushey said the protein shortage could be remedied with tofu in the salad bar, more soy or fake meat items at the grill and in the freezer compartment at the Expressway Convenience store (C-store).

Dushey did praise the Vegan Verdict station at Sherman dining hall, which features daily cooked-to-order vegan entrees - not meat, eggs, or dairy products - and allows students to add in any vegetables from the salad bar. She said she wishes Usdan had a similar station.

Josh Russell '06 said since Brandeis is essentially a "closed campus," where most students are required to purchase a meal plan, the "limited number of non-meat options is disgusting."

Of course students can buy food off campus, he said, but this is a waste of money for someone who has already purchased a meal plan - any student without a kitchen in his or her dorm room.

This is especially aggravating, Russell added, since, "it's just so easy to provide good vegetarian options."

He began to list some of his favorite foods, each of which he said could be incorporated into Aramark's offerings. The salad bar, he feels, should have seitan-protein-rich wheat glutin-which Russell described as "soooo good" and "really versatile." He also mentioned tempeh, which he explained is "hardened chickpeas, compressed together." Tempeh, he said, is used as a meat substitute, but also tastes good by itself.

The sandwich station at the Boulevard should include spinach, he said. "They're really weird with mixing the stations," he continued, recalling multiple occasions when Boulevard workers have refused to put spinach (already purchased downstairs at the salad bar) into his sandwich.

"Oh, and they should have frozen stuff in the C-store," continued Russell, suddenly jumping up from his bed, where he had been sitting, and opening his refrigerator. "Like this," he said, as he pulled out "vegetarian Canadian bacon," manufactured by Yves.

On this point, Jeff Wood, manager of the C-Store, said that the "vegetarian deli meats are coming next week," as soon as "vendor issues" are resolved.



An Issue of Trust

In addition to scant options, Russell said he is upset that "Aramark misrepresents their options." Last year, he said, they constantly advertised "tofurkey" and "tofurella" cheese in the Boulevard, but only served it about twice a week. Leeman mentioned this same issue. "Sometimes they just didn't have tofurkey for three weeks," she said. "With real turkey, they'd never do that."

Sometimes, Russel said, stations are outright mislabeled. He recounted a time last year when Vegan Verdict had Pad Thai with eggs. "I don't think they're malicious, but they don't understand what vegan means," he said.

"Aramark has created an environment where I can't trust what they give me," Russell said.

"I have a proposition for Aramark," he said. "They should have a meeting to choose options." He said that he and other vegetarians would be glad to attend this meeting to give their feedback. This would build trust and "prove to students that they have some consideration for our feelings," he continued.



A mixed grill

Russell also expressed frustration at the fact that meat and non-meat items are often grilled side by side on the same grill, with the same utensils. "If a veggie burger is grilled in the blood and fat of an animal, it's not vegetarian," he said.

He said that some of the food workers are very accommodating and understanding, but "we shouldn't have to rely on someone being nice to get good food. It shouldn't have to depend on the person."

Addressing this concern over the grill, Richard Rubini, food service director at Usdan said, "I admit we could probably work on that a little better."

"The cooks try to move the line along," Rubini said, which sometimes means that they reach for the wrong spatula. He explained that a few years ago, in response to students' requests, the grill had a metal divider to separate the meat and vegetarian sections. "The divider didn't work," he continued. "Grease got underneath. It's hard to add pieces to a grill."

Do they plan to design a new divider? Currently, Rubini said, he and his staff are "working on it."

Down the hill at Sherman, the grill is, in fact, divided. The cooks on the Kosher and non-Kosher sides also use separate utensils and pans for meat and non-meat, said Aaron Bennos, food service director. "The grill and the divider are sanitized and cleaned each time," he said.

"We got the idea (for the divider) from Usdan," Bennos added. Even now, he said, "sometimes the cook is rushing and inadvertently uses the meat spatula for the veggie burger." But students are quick to alert the management of this mistake.



Laying out the choices

At both Usdan and Sherman, management seemed eager to describe their vegetarian options in great detail.

Rubini, along with Campus Executive Chef Michael LoRusso, conducted a verbal tour of their dining hall, extending far beyond the salad bar: "Split Personalities" has at least one vegetarian option each cycle; "Tortilla Fresca" includes roasted vegetable quesadillas, fajitas and burritos; "Pan Asia" is cooked to order, so meat can be eliminated upon request; the grill has Boca Burgers; the Home Zone always has at least one vegetarian entre and two vegetarian sides; Pan Geos is always completely vegetarian.

Upstairs in the Boulevard, the grill once again features veggie burgers and a new "Veggie riblet" sandwich. The sandwich station, Montigue's, will "probably have tofurkey available next week," LoRusso said. The Smoothie station is of course meat-free, and at a pasta station, such as Pan Asia, students can choose which ingredients to include. The pizza station consistently has cheese pizza, as well as vegetarian casseroles, said LoRusso, as he concluded the tour.

"We want kids to come to us," Rubini said. He explained that when students voice their concerns to the servers, the word often does not reach the management.

Rubini explained that officials at Aramark headquarters, located in Philadelphia, impose certain barriers. "Some stations are flexible. Some of the stuff we're stuck with," he said. Pan Geos, for example, uses fixed recipes. However, Rubini added that each day, students can ask for "more vegetables and less rice" if they want.

In general, he said, "We can add and subtract, but not to a great extent."

At Sherman, Bennos said that though the dining hall has a pre-planned menu cycle, there is room for student input. Last year, he said, some students approached him with recipes from home, a few of which were later adapted for the Sherman menu.

Bennos mentioned Vegan Verdict and pointed to a menu, a four-week cycle different for both lunch and dinner. Some dishes are "mushrooms and arugala over polenta," or "Szechuan beans and wasabi."

"We also encourage students to get tofu and beans from the salad bar and bring it to the vegan station," said Food Production Manager Misha Shtivelman. Bennos added that Center Stage, with 25 percent vegetarian entrees, moved this year; it is now located right next to the salad bar. The vision, said Bennos, "is almost like Fire and Ice."



Why can't we all be friends?

Russell stressed one other main point: nonmeat food does not have to be exclusively for vegetarians. He gave the example of Silk yogurt, made from soy instead of milk. Everyone can eat this, he said, not only vegetarians.

Aramark may keep from expanding vegetarian options because they feel not enough people would eat the food, Russell speculated. This is a false assumption, however, he said.

"I want to change the perception that meat and vegetarian foods are two diametrically opposed options," he said. "A lot of the stuff you eat, we eat too.