By DANIEL PETERSON
Rip staff writer
Last fall, vegetarian students from Bakersfield College founded the BC Vegetarian Club, which was approved and made official on Sept. 28. The club was founded in order to place vegetarian meals and food items in BC’s cafeteria menu. The students were concerned that BC did not accommodate the needs of students who were on strictly vegetarian diets.
As of last fall, Alex Gomez, the food service manager of BC, said he understood about the students and faculty aiming toward a broader variety of healthy vegetarian meals on the BC campus, but said that he was unable to accommodate their demands because he did not have enough staff on board working at the cafeteria, and he did not have the time or resources in order to make the items available.
Barbara Braid, who was the club’s advisor, said that the club had disbanded because not enough members remained as BC students. She said that last semester things were looking promising for the club, but no one mentioned that they would not be attending BC for the spring semester.
There’s no word on whether the club is gone for good, or if it’s merely on hiatus, or if people who were members last year will come back for the fall semester and try to re-establish it. “I can’t say we went out with a bang,” Braid said. “It was more like a whimper.”
According to Gomez, many items have been put on the menu since he had heard from the club last year.
The cafeteria now offers garden burgers, vegetable sticks, yogurt with granola on top, and daily soups, with a featured vegetarian soup.
He also said that he was still low on staff members as he had been for the past couple of years, which makes it difficult to have everything customers want. He said the cafeteria can’t provide what it can’t afford, and it still focuses on making sure that hot-selling meals like burgers are kept in stock.
Gomez studied vegetarian cooking when he attended culinary art school, and he is aware of what a vegetarian diet consists of.
However, he said that the items aren’t very popular, and he and his staff can’t spend time and effort on food that very few people eat.
One strategy he has established is that he has put some of the vegetarian meals as “specials” in order to create an interest in the items because the items were available for a limited time. Gomez said he is pretty much set with the expanded, healthier menu, and he hasn’t heard any complaints.