This is just the veganning

Students share their experiences on being vegan and eating clean at Liberty

 

ORANGE YOU GLAD — Dining options at Liberty have expanded to include healthy vegan meals and snacks around campus, such as menu items at Garbanzo and fresh fruit at Reber-Thomas. Photo Credit: Amber Tiller

ORANGE YOU GLAD — Dining options at Liberty have expanded to include healthy vegan meals and snacks around campus, such as menu items at Garbanzo and fresh fruit at Reber-Thomas.
Photo Credit: Amber Tiller

This semester, the dining options on Liberty University’s campus have begun offering more vegan options for both regular and Plus+ meal swipes.

But what is a vegan?

According to vegan.com, a vegan is a person who does not consume animals or animal products, such as milk or eggs.

It can be thought of as a stricter vegetarian diet, and originated in 1944 in Great Britain.

Since then, the diet has grown exponentially in popularity.

Individuals have varying reasons as to why they begin following a vegan diet.

For junior Christianne Gormley, she was persuaded to become a vegan after watching a documentary on Netflix that showed both the process of killing animals and the health benefits of a plant-based diet.

As for eating on campus, Gormley said there are many vegan alternatives for students to enjoy.

“Right now, you have more options (than before),” Gormley said.

“At Star Ginger, I can get some tofu and brown rice and salad, and then at Argo, they have vegan muffins — and those are really good — and they offer those instead of croissants (for a Plus+ swipe).”

Gormley has been a vegan for three years, and said the transition to a diet free of animals and animal byproducts does not have to be scary.

MUST-HAVE MUFFINS — Argo Tea provides two types of vegan muffins and two types of vegan cookies. Photo Credit: Joel Coleman

MUST-HAVE MUFFINS — Argo Tea provides two types of vegan muffins and two types of vegan cookies.
Photo Credit: Joel Coleman

“My family comes from a family that eats meat in all of their meals, so it can be kind of hard (to switch), but thankfully and gratefully my parents are really supportive of it,” Gormley said.

“It just depends on your surroundings … but it’s totally easy to be a vegan on Liberty’s campus.”

Additionally, the health benefits of a vegan diet have been shown in multiple studies.

According to Medical News Today, plant-based diets have been shown to greatly minimize the risk of developing a genetically-linked chronic disease like Type II diabetes or cancer.

Sophomore Maddie Barry began following a vegan diet after her brother passed away from undetected heart issues in August 2016.

Her family researched the best ways to prevent heart disease and found a plant-based, vegan diet to be the place to start.

“The next generation in my family is going to know what health is and what’s good to put in your body,” Barry said.

While a vegan diet is typically made up of various plants, it is not uncommon for vegans to need to take supplements.

“I supplement B12, because that’s a very common vitamin that vegans get deficient in,” Barry said.

“I also take Juice Plus, which supplements what you can’t always get.”

However, the need to take supplements is not unique to the vegan diet, as both individuals who follow a vegetarian diet or eat meat may take supplements for their health.

SMOOTH MOVES — The Tilley Center offers smoothies at Natural.  Photo Credit: Amber Tiller

SMOOTH MOVES — The Tilley Center offers smoothies at Natural.
Photo Credit: Amber Tiller

Junior Sarah Fleet also made the change to a vegan diet for health reasons, and has been a vegan on and off for about five years.

“I was supposed to do it for three months to clean out my body … but by the time it was over, I didn’t want to (stop),” Fleet said.

“It’s really easy to be vegan at home, because you can choose your groceries and you can choose what you do. It’s not super difficult. The hard part is not just eating French fries.”

Some food options available on Liberty’s campus — such as the waffle fries at Chick-fil-A — are, surprisingly, vegan.

Argo Tea Café carries vegan lemon poppy seed and matcha green tea muffins along with vegan chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin cookies.

While these treats are vegan, Fleet recommends that students looking to go vegan carry healthy snacks like dried mango strips to avoid temptations.

She also said that the transition to veganism made her eat intentionally.

“You can’t really get away with not eating enough, being vegan,” Fleet said.

“You really have to consciously make choices.”

Freshman Julianne Rodgers has been vegan for about two and a half years, and became vegan because a plant-based diet fixed one of her sister’s long-term health problems.

She said that while her diet at Liberty consists of the same vegan-friendly dining options available, it has been easy to find those options.

“They mark (food) well in the Rot — like almost everything is marked with a V or a green VG, which means vegan,” Rodgers said.

She said her favorite place to find vegan options is Garbanzo, located in Montview.

For students looking to become vegan, Rodgers said the transition is worth it.

“Be open to trying a lot of new things, because when you go vegan, you won’t have a lot of options,” Rodgers said.

“You’re gonna have to try new things that maybe you didn’t have before. Just stick through the hard times.”

Junior Shannon Lunz, who has been vegan for nine months, said that following a plant-based diet has definitely been worth any hassles.

“I think that it really helps if you just keep remembering why you did it in the first place,” Lunz said.

“I would say that it’s been the hardest thing that I’ve probably done in my life, but it’s been super rewarding, so I think it’s been super worth it.”

MOYER is the feature editor.

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