The Humane Society International (HSI) is bringing its vegan and vegetarian food training program to universities across Canada. The University of Waterloo received training last Thursday and Friday.
The two-day program, called Forward Food, is meant to help institutions expand their plant-based food options, according to Riana Topan, campaign manager for HSI Canada.
First, the program gives chefs information about why people choose to eat plant-based, and then chefs are taught over 60 recipes including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, Topan said. Chefs can then take these recipes as they are, make them their own, or simply borrow the techniques.
According to Gordon Cooledge, executive chef at Waterloo, the university was already providing a variety of plant-based options, but wanted to expand even more.
“Our students are always looking for more plant-based options, for sustainability reasons, lifestyle choices, and animal welfare reasons,” Cooledge said. He added that it’s too soon to gauge students’ reactions.
However, Waterloo will not be the first to see the program’s results.
The program started in the United States in 2015—following Harvard University’s request for help with plant-based food options from HSI—and has been used in several American schools since.
In 2017, the University of British Columbia became the first Canadian university to receive training. Since then, the program has been to Queen’s University, the University of Guelph, McMaster University, the University of Ottawa, the University of Toronto’s St. George campus, the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology, and most recently, Waterloo.
According to Topan, universities across Canada have given the program excellent feedback.
“The only negative feedback I’ve heard is when [students] really don’t understand the program,” Topan said.
“They think that we’re trying to convert everybody to veganism and [that] we’re trying to say that they shouldn’t or can’t eat meat, or eggs, or dairy anymore. And that’s really not what we’re about,” she said.
Rather, Forward Food is about encouraging people to go as far as they want to when it comes to eating plant-based alternatives, Topan said.
Cooledge said some of the chefs started out shy about the idea of plant-based cooking.
“The chefs were a little bit standoffish at first,” Cooledge said, “But, a couple hours into the workshop they were like, ‘wow this is really good.’”
“My one chef who’s all in for meat . . . said at the end ‘wow I can’t believe how full I am from eating all this good food,’” Cooledge added.
When asked about the possibility of coming to Carleton University, Topan says it’s complicated compared to working with other universities in Canada.
HSI’s plant-based training program has mostly worked with universities who run their food services themselves. But, Carleton’s Dining Services is run by Aramark, a private company.
According to Topan, this means that Carleton’s Dining Services has to be relatively consistent with other Aramark accounts.
Despite the complications, Topan said she has been in touch with Carleton Dining Services, and she says she is working Aramark to rollout the training program with HSI in the near future.
Holly Sharpe, a registered dietitian with Carleton’s Dining Services, said in an email that Carleton’s services provide a wide variety of vegan and vegetarian options in the cafeteria.
“We change the station up between breakfast, lunch and dinner to keep things exciting,” she said. “For students living off-campus, we also make sure that there are plenty of vegan and vegetarian options available in our retail locations.”
Catherine Littlefield, a third-year global and international studies student at Carleton, said she has been vegan for a few months and vegetarian for about a year before that.
According to Littlefield, Carleton’s current vegan options are “pretty good as of this year.”
She says she credits the improvement to Carleton’s student-run convenience store The Wing, which sells a variety of snacks for different dietary needs.
However, Littlefield says she would still like to see HSI’s program come to Carleton.
“I’ve only really looked for lunch options (at Carleton)—almost more snack options really . . . As for full meals, I think breakfast would be one that we don’t have a lot of vegan options for,” Littlefield said.
In an email, Jane Skapinker, Dining Services’ registered dietician, confirmed that Dining Services has been in touch. However, she said “nothing is concrete.”
Meanwhile, according to Cooledge, students at Waterloo can expect to see campus chefs’ new plant-based food options starting next week.
Photo by Serena Halani
