5 things: Vegan offerings doubled on campus, survey finds

Each Friday I compile a list that highlights five things you probably missed in the news that week and why you should care about them.

1. Vegan offerings doubled on campus, survey finds
Vegan offerings on college campuses more than doubled in the past two years, according to a new study by peta2, PETA’s youth division. The advocacy group’s 2016 Vegan Report Card found that the number of colleges offering at least one daily vegan offering more than doubled since 2014, increasing from 28 percent to 62 percent. The study also found that 9 percent of universities have an all-vegan dining station. You can see the report card here (link here: http://www.peta2.com/feature/vegan-college-ranking/).

Read more: Popularity of Vegan Food More Than Doubles on College Campuses

2. Indiana University limits espresso shots
College students use caffeine to fuel late-night study sessions and cramming for tests. But it seems one student at Indiana University took it too far by asking for 20 shots of espresso in his Joe at a dining hall. That led to dining services getting involved and a dietitian stepping in to say that wasn’t necessarily the healthiest decision. Thus, a four-shot espresso limit was implemented, and signage providing facts about caffeine consumption can now be found in the dining halls. Talk about a buzz kill.

Read more: Campus dining locations limit espresso shots

3. College students push the limits of “unlimited” meal plans
Last year I was visiting a dining hall at the University of Michigan and saw a student take a gallon-sized bag to the self-dispensing cereal station and start filling up her bag. While many students don’t see this as stealing, citing their unlimited meal plans or all-you-care-to-eat dining halls, it is, in fact, stealing. Not surprisingly, many students don’t see it that way, including a student at the University of North Carolina, who took to Twitter to protest not being able to fill up a carton of milk to take back to his dorm. The student wrote: “We are paying 1-3,000 (sic) for a meal plan and theyre (sic) trying to tell me I cant (sic) take milk that my money is paying for.” Perhaps a little more education on the dining services budget—and punctuation—would help out the situation.

Read more: Student learns "unlimited" meal plan is actually limited

4. Facebook post of school lunch tray goes viral
Another Five Things column, another social media concern regarding school meals. This time it’s an elementary school in Alabama in which a mother joined her daughter for lunch and was not pleased at the amount of food her daughter had on her plate. The meal met reimbursable guidelines, but it did look sparse on the plate. The mother took a photo of the tray, posted it to Facebook, and the rest, as they say, is history. The post was shared more than 200 times. The mother is now encouraging other parents to join in a boycott of school meals.

Read more: District’s small school lunches have one mom seeing red

5. Church taking business from school meal program
On closed campuses it’s hard to keep students around and participating in the school meal program. But for one school in Texas, the students are flocking to a local church for lunch. And the reason is mainly because the students don’t have time to wait in line to get food. When the church saw hundreds of students walking past its doors last year to go in search of food, the church decided to do something about it and opened up shop for lunch. The church says it serves about 270 student lunches each day.

Read more: School lunch line leads to church

Bonus: Report claims nearly half of college students food insecure

Contact Becky Schilling at [email protected].
Follow her on Twitter: @bschilling_FM