A new club at Bakersfield College is hoping to make some changes to the way food service centers on campus select items for their menus.
The BC Vegetarian Club became a legitimate entity in the club circuit after it was approved on Sept. 28.
The club’s faculty adviser, Barbara Braid, said that the first thing the club hopes to do is to bring vegetarian and vegan-friendly foods to the BC cafeteria.
“We plan to be very active,” Braid said.
The club is in the process of gathering signatures for a petition that they plan to submit to BC food services that would propose more vegetarian and vegan items on the menus. Once the signatures are gathered, Braid said that the club plans to “respectfully request vegan and vegetarian food in the cafeteria.”
The club’s representative, Louis Chavez, said that as of Sept. 28, the club had acquired about 60 signatures for the petition.
Chavez, who is a vegan, said that though one of the goals of the club is to bring vegan and vegetarian items to the campus menus he said that the club is also trying to promote, in general, a healthier menu so that students and staff can “eat healthy products.” He added that he would like to see “better hours and more selection” at the campus food centers.
Cooked vegetables, whole-grain products and entrees, such as vegan enchiladas and chili, are some of the items that Chavez said he would like to see made available on campus.
Some of the items that Braid said she would like to see on the menu include, but are not limited to, garden burgers, brown rice, refried beans that have been prepared without lard and other varieties of lettuce that aren’t the iceberg variety, a type that Braid says has very little nutritional value.
Braid said things that she thinks can be done in the meantime are considering how the cafeteria prepares salads.
Currently most salads include meat or cheese and are packaged all together.
Baird proposed having the lettuce and toppings served separately so that vegetarian and vegan patrons could select the desired toppings without worrying about whether or not the lettuce was contaminated with animal products.
“It will be interesting to see how this goes…being in cow country,” Braid said.
Food Service Manager Alex Gomez sounded optimistic about serving vegan and vegetarian products in the cafeteria but added that his staffing is short and that makes it difficult for him to plan out a menu for vegetarian and vegan diets.
“I’m doing this right now instead of what I normally do because a worker didn’t show up today,” Gomez said while he cleaned a section of the food preparation area. “We try to accommodate. We’re trying our best.”
Gomez, who is not a vegetarian, has family members who are, and he said that he understands the ingredient specifics for the particular diets.
According to Gomez, the cafeteria currently offers a variety of fruits, as well as carrots, jicama sticks, celery sticks and starting Oct. 3, vegan and vegetarian soups will be offered on a limited basis.
Gomez also said that he has veggie-burgers in stock right now but has been unable to price them due to a short staff.
He said that the veggie-burgers would run about the same price as a chicken sandwich.