“An act of rebellion” is how a director of Harvard University Dining Services described the student response to “less meat Mondays,” a short-lived initiative in the dining halls a few years ago. By serving only one meat-based entrée instead of the usual two or three, HUDS expected to see an obvious decrease in meat consumption across campus. But the experiment had the opposite effect according to Crista Martin, the director for strategic initiatives and communications at HUDS. “The student body ate more meat on that one night than they did on the others when they had choice,” Martin told the HPR. “The student response was, ‘You want to limit our choices, so we’ll eat more of it.’”
Martin admits that students’ dietary preferences have changed significantly in the years since then, but the school has yet to revisit the idea. Instead, as Harvard lauds itself for leading the campus sustainability movement by cutting energy consumption and composting food waste, it continues to serve large quantities of meat and animal products. This still harms the environment: Livestock raised for consumption account for nearly 15 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. While the University has recently launched initiatives and set ambitious targets to reduce the environmental impact of its campus food system, a real, effective transition to sustainable eating will necessitate further top-down efforts as well as a commitment among students to reduce meat consumption.
“We Are Not the Food Police”
There is little question that Harvard acknowledges the importance of sustainable eating in theory. In every dining hall, signs and pamphlets listing the health benefits of seafood and encouraging plant-based proteins are propped up by serving counters and plastered on napkin dispensers.
In April 2019, as part of its five-year University-wide Sustainability Plan, Harvard released its “sustainable and healthful food standards,” which listed objectives including limiting red and processed meats, prioritizing “the purchase of plant-based products and products from suppliers who implement more humane practices,” and serving more foods that have a “smaller emissions footprint and are less resource-intensive.”
If Harvard recognizes the importance of a plant-based diet, however, HUDS thus far has been reluctant to promote it at the expense of what it considers student choice and autonomy. Martin insisted, “We are not the food police. We cannot tell you what you can or cannot eat. We believe very much in your right to choose.” At HUDS, she explained, “we think it’s our responsibility to try to present a lot of varied options especially with an eye toward health and wellbeing and environmental sustainability.”
HUDS could not provide information on how much or what types of meat it serves to students. According to online menus, however, meat is typically available every day in at least two entrées per meal and at the salad and sandwich bars, and nearly every day in a soup, chili, and culinary display. Additionally, beef hot dogs and hamburgers — as well as other freshly made turkey and chicken dishes — can be ordered from dining hall grills at any time during lunch and dinner.
This protein-packed menu in part reflects HUDS’ laissez-faire attitude regarding student demand for meat. “Anything that students aren’t eating we don’t serve. So if students stopped eating hamburgers we would stop putting them on the menu,” Martin said. “We put a lot of emphasis on plant-based protein. But at every meal there will definitely be at least one, maybe multiple meat-based entrées.”
Harvard has increased the amount and variety of vegetarian and vegan options over the past few years in line with rising student demand and campus health and sustainability initiatives. If there is a line between telling students what they can eat and promoting foods that they should not eat, however, Harvard is unsure where it stands. Plant-based offerings like falafel sandwiches and tofu bowls appear to be supplementing, not replacing, the meat dishes that are centered at meals and celebrated at school events, such as the HUDS-sponsored back-to-school “Beach Bash” that appeared to serve enough lobsters to feed every undergraduate student.
The grill’s veggie burgers are likely a welcome sight to the school’s vegans and vegetarians. But are they winning over students who usually prefer Big Macs? Harvard cannot say, because it lacks any quantitative data on the dietary habits of its student body or the effects of its efforts to promote sustainable eating. David Havelick, a manager at Harvard’s Office for Sustainability, told the HPR that this is something the University is trying to address in its food standards. The standards, which were developed by a multi-disciplinary faculty committee with input from the OFS, include a goal to “develop a plan to track food purchases by category (e.g., red meat, cheese, beans)” to allow Harvard to better quantify the climate impact and greenhouse gas emissions associated with the food it buys.
Different Dining Halls, Different Options
Not all colleges across the country share Harvard’s approach to sustainable eating. At the University of North Texas, meat is alive and well. But the school is also one of a few nationwide to operate a 100 percent vegan dining hall. The aptly named Mean Greens Café, as well as other campus initiatives, have earned UNT an A+ grade and “Dean’s List” ranking from PETA, which publishes a vegan report card for over 1,500 colleges nationwide. Harvard, on the other hand, lands itself a mere B.
One of five cafeterias at UNT, Mean Greens Café has served exclusively vegan cuisine since it opened in 2011. Yet the dining hall is a favorite among carnivores and herbivores alike according to Alyssa Torrance, the communications manager of UNT dining services. Mean Greens serves 1,500 to 2,000 meals per weekday to students and faculty from all over campus who enjoy its plant-based offerings — which include typical cafeteria-style hot and cold lines, a dessert bar, a panini station, and even a signature grilled peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Mean Greens also harvests many of its own salad greens and vegetables organically in a converted freight container behind the cafeteria.
Mean Greens has received overwhelmingly positive feedback from students, Torrance said in an interview with the HPR. However, she denied that UNT has an unusually large vegan or vegetarian population. Instead, she said that the cafeteria is simply a campus favorite, and one that she hopes could catch on at other schools too. “We have a pretty devoted following to Mean Greens, and many of those people are not full-time vegans or vegetarians,” Torrance said. “I think other schools probably just don’t realize that students nowadays are looking for really fresh and healthy flavorful options, and you don’t necessarily need animal products to achieve that.”
Around the Ivy League, initiatives to promote plant-based eating have been more modest than those at UNT, but no less successful. The main cafeteria at Dartmouth, which also received an A+ from PETA, has a dedicated vegan and vegetarian station, as well as make-your-own omelet and stir fry bars.
Meat Me Halfway
Philosophical arguments aside, noticeably reducing meat’s presence on Harvard’s campus could create a backlash among students accustomed to filling up on red spice chicken and fried broccoli-cheddar chicken, said Havelick. Any initiative targeting specific foods, such as red meat, could seem hypocritical while HUDS continues to serve other products from industries criticized for their environmental impact or ethical violations, like palm oil and poultry, he added.
The solution, according to Havelick, is to switch the focus from controlling what dining halls serve to reducing student demand for meat. Compared to banishing bacon and burgers, “what the science has shown is the more effective thing is to serve more delicious, exciting plant-based foods that have a lower impact on climate,” Havelick said. “And to use also behavioral insights — little nudges — to push people to choose healthier, more sustainable foods … That’s going to have a better impact than if we removed red meat and that became the big news article and everyone thought [Harvard was] controlling what people ate.”
These behavioral nudges are at the heart of campus initiatives that educate students about the health and environmental impacts of their food choices and promote more sustainable options. One program, VER-EAT!-AS, labels HUDS dishes as green, yellow, or red according to their carbon, nitrogen, and water “foodprints.” Another OFS effort led to the debut of the legendary vegan ‘Beyond Burger’ in dining halls last year.
Students are also stepping up to promote healthy and sustainable eating among their peers. The student-run Environmental Action Committee sponsors a “Veguary” campaign every February to encourage students to sign a pledge to reduce their meat consumption for the month however they see fit. This year, a record 161 students accepted the challenge.
Student representatives in the OFS-run Resource Efficiency Program and Council of Student Sustainability Leaders have also developed projects with similar goals. As a first-year college student and Resource Efficiency Program representative last year, Meaghan Townsend published a guide to plant-based eating at Harvard that quoted several student athletes who opt for plant-based diets.
For vegans and vegetarians at Harvard, however, the cafeteria may always be greener on the other side. While first-year students eat at Annenberg Hall, the upperclassmen dining experience is centered around the 12 residential Houses, which each have their own dining hall and serve the same selection of foods every day. Students must eat in their assigned houses on certain days and times, but they are mostly free to grab meals in whichever dining hall they prefer. Perhaps a rotating vegetarian or vegan dining hall — Lowell on Monday, Quincy on Tuesday, and so on — would be less disruptive to those with strong loyalties to their own House’s kitchen. It could also be the key to reaching students who are ambivalent about eating meat but will continue to do so as long as it remains a central part of each meal.
For some plant-based eaters at Harvard, though, sustainable eating does not require an overhaul of the entire dining system. Jacob Fortinsky, a sophomore who published an op-ed in The Crimson last January imploring Harvard to cut back on serving meat, said in an interview with the HPR, “If they just have an additional plant-based entrée, the result of that will be less meat consumption.” Fortinsky continued: “The low-hanging fruit is for them to have more alternatives. In an ideal world they’d be transitioning to a vegan diet. Obviously, that’s not possible now.”
Fortinsky is right: Non-vegan favorites like the ‘veritaffle’ will remain a steady part of student life for the foreseeable future. But Harvard is no longer content with maintaining the status quo, as its new and lofty food standards prove. “The student body changes all the time,” Havelick said. “What didn’t work three years ago might make a difference three years from now. At the same time as I’m wary of these simple solutions like Meatless Mondays or getting rid of red meat, I feel much more optimistic about the future than I am about the past.” Maybe it is time to give less meat Mondays another chance.
Image Credit: Unsplash/Jonathan Borba