Leah Kelley smiles as she eats her vegetarian meal in Snyder-Phillips dining hall

TBG sat down with Environmental Studies and Agriscience freshman Leah Kelley to talk about the challenges and benefits of being a vegetarian.

Q: Why did you decide to become a vegetarian?
A: The initial reason was to lower my carbon footprint. Eating lower on the trophic level means that it takes less energy to produce the food that you’re making. If we were going to feed 1,000 people, you could feed them with grain or you could feed them with cow meat. It would take way more environmental detriment to feed them with beef because of the land that it takes and because of the greenhouse gases.

I do believe that the way we fill the animals that we serve as meals…chocking them full of different drugs to keep them from being sick. That can’t be beneficial to us and the hormones to make them grow faster…just the fact that cows are supposed to be grain-fed and they’re not.

Q: How long have you been a vegetarian?
A: For two years.

Q: Has being a vegetarian made any difference in the way you feel?
A: I think I generally feel healthier. I don’t know if that’s necessarily because I’m a vegetarian or because I eat a lot of vegetables.

Q: How hard is it to find something to eat at a restaurant?
A: It definitely depends on where I go. I feel like it tends to be that if I go to a restaurant that is ethnic, I can find something. But I think that in the American culture, meat is very prominent and so if I go to an American restaurant it’s usually pretty hard to find something to eat, which is unfortunate.

But it’s a good thing that I like ethnic food. I love Chipotle because I can just get the vegetarian burrito. And I also like the sandwiches at Potbelly’s. They have a vegetarian sandwich that’s got a lot of mushrooms on it and I’m a big mushroom fan.

I also am allergic to sesame seeds, which sometimes comes into factor from this because a lot of people [say], “Oh you’re vegetarian. You can have hummus and pita,” but tahini is sesame and that’s what’s in hummus. I would go to Woody’s because it usually is a good place for vegetarians, but I can’t have hummus and they put sesame on a lot of things.

Q: What challenges do you face when you eat in the cafeteria?
A: In Snyder- Phillips, in the Gallery, I can always find something. I try to make sure that I’m getting a complete protein. They always have black bean burgers, garden burgers and soy chicken at the grille. And there’s always salad, so I’m constantly able to get something if they don’t have another meal for it.

I lived in Hubbard Hall last semester and it was a little tougher there to get something that I wanted and that was vegetarian. I think you can always get something vegetarian but it’s just making sure you get the complete protein and that it’s something that you want to be eating.

I think I have more trouble with the combo exchange. I’m really busy a lot so I need to get combo exchange for a meal sometimes and the options that they have there for vegetarians are not very good. They have a vegetarian Mediterranean [wrap] that’s much less than delicious and the egg sandwiches are the same—really not good.

Q: Have you ever considered going vegan?
A: It was not my end goal when I started but I’m not opposed to the idea. We’ll see later in life if I’m in a position where I would be able to do that because it takes a lot of time and a lot of money to be vegan.

Q: How have you influenced others by going vegetarian?
A: My sister barely eats meat now. That could’ve been a choice she made on her own but she read a book about how humans weren’t designed to eat meat. She doesn’t eat red meat and she doesn’t make it. You eat meat and it stays in your system for about three days. Meat at that temperature for three days…that just doesn’t seem like a good thing.

Q: What’s your favorite vegetarian recipe?
A: My mom makes really great fajitas and we do home-make the salsa and it’s really delicious. I think my favorite part is the grilled vegetables. Grilled vegetables are amazing. The salsa is so full of flavor and the rice and black beans make a complete protein.

Q: Do you find it difficult to buy vegetarian items at the grocery store, like Boca Burgers, because they’re more expensive?
A: That is something that I would like to see change: the cost of vegetarian substitutes because I absolutely love Morning Star burgers. They’re delicious. It’s really frustrating how expensive they are. It’s nice that I can get them in the cafeteria because they are more expensive than some of the other things.

Mainly, I just go for the sale items and once you do get the food that you need for getting the substitute of protein, just ration. There is a Foods For Living [store] in East Lansing. It’s a lot like Whole Foods…it is more expensive but it’s a good place to go. They’ve got a lot of vegetarian items. I go in there and it’s like [an] overload of excitement for food.

Q: How do you fulfill your daily food requirements?
A: I’ve started taking B-12 vitamins as a supplement because that’s the one vitamin that vegetarians can’t get it [in] any of their substitutes, at least not in a viable form. I know that sometimes supplements aren’t the viable form also, but I feel like it’s better to take that than to not.

Q: What keeps you motivated on a daily basis to continue being a vegetarian?
A: This isn’t the only thing that keeps me motivated, but one of things is that I do have a lot of vegetarian friends. My roommate is vegetarian. I’m really involved in Greenpeace and whenever we have events…where we’re going to need food, I know that there’s going to be vegetarians there. It seems to be that lots of environmental activists are vegetarians, probably because of the same reasoning of the lowering your carbon imprint.

Q: Do you miss or crave any food that you can’t have now that you’re a vegetarian?
A: Sometimes I babysit the kids next door when I visit home. They would have…chicken nuggets in the shape of dinosaurs and I tried so hard to find…them and they don’t make them. I think that’s the one thing I miss.

Q: Did becoming a vegetarian require you to learn much more about nutrition?
A: I was figuring I’d just make sure I ate beans and rice because that makes a complete protein. My mom was really encouraging me to find more things, so I would buy tofu. She would not make anything with it because she doesn’t like tofu, so I would have to make something with the tofu. I generally eat healthy, so other than the protein factor, a lot of vegetarians just end up eating carbohydrates all of the time. I’ve tried to stay away from that and just eat vegetables. ..that’s what I eat most of the time.

Q: What advice would you offer people who want to become vegetarians but haven’t made the transition yet?
A: Do your research. Make sure that you’re reasons are correct and that you’re not just going off what someone told you in passing one day. Also, you can just try it out for a week and just see how you like it.

Click here to see how to make Leah’s favorite vegetarian recipe.

See the video below for Leah’s three things everyone should know before becoming a vegetarian.

It’s college, right? When textbooks run $500 a semester and paying a parking meter is difficult, some students are looking for ways to eat for free. A growing number of MSU students are finding an alternative way of getting their groceries, and let’s just say this practice requires a strong stomach.

Dumpstering or dumpster diving is, well, exactly how it sounds. It has become a bi-monthly routine for some students. The downside is climbing into dumpsters and rifling through garbage to possibly find a couple of unharmed cans of soup or a bag of partially bruised apples.

“My experience was kind of a letdown,” said Katie Adams, a professional writing senior, of her first unsuccessful dumpster diving trip.

When the concept was explained to me, I imagined opening a dumpster to find bags of bagels, loaves of bread or boxes of unharmed rolls. I pictured them being available to reach from the bin and take home to toast for breakfast the next morning. This, however, was not the case when I — excuse the pun– dove into the challenge. After three dumpsters full of empty cups, plastic bags and coffee-stained boxes, I found the ends of a few bread loaves mixed in with other trash. I was an amateur, at best. I gave up my first attempt at freeganism after three hours and five dumpsters filled with nothing but garbage. 

The upside, however, is free groceries, and potentially a lot of them.

“The trick is to be systematic,” Adams said. “Some of my friends who do it all of the time get a whole trunk full of bread. I guess you just have to pick the right place and time of day and hopefully you’ll get lucky.”

Jessica Checkeroski, a studio art senior, is a bit more dedicated to the cause. She doesn’t consider herself a freegan, though she goes dumpstering about twice a month.

“I look for bread, fruit, and vegetables. Anything else like cereal or vegan hot dogs is just a nice surprise,” said Checkeroski.

Sticking mainly to grocery stores with compactors or bakeries, Checkeroski doesn’t feel nervous about the cleanliness of the food that she picks up because most of it is packaged or surrounded by other food.

“[It’s] like finding a garbage bag of just bagels or a box of just potatoes,” she said.

Checkeroski won’t just take anything, though.

“If something looks gross, it probably is. I used to think the idea of taking food out of a dumpster seemed unsafe but once I went, I realized that the food isn’t in that bad of shape at all. Especially now that it is winter, my logic is that if it is frozen its shelf life is longer.”

Checkeroski has never known anyone to get sick from the food they’ve found on a dumpster dive but understands why it won’t sell in stores.

“I get why the food can’t be sold – bruises, freshness, too ripe – but [for it] not to be used is wasteful,” said Checkeroski.

In regards to issues of legality, Checkeroski has never experienced any problems, though she has heard of others who have.

Hannah Nowicki, an employee at Great Harvest Bread Company in Okemos, had never heard the term freegan before, but she has heard stories of college students rummaging through their dumpster after hours.

“About 2 to 3 months ago we were taking out the garbage while closing down for the night, and the girls found some students digging through the dumpster,” said Nowicki.

Since Great Harvest Bread Company gives their extra bread to soup kitchens in the area, the students could not have been finding much more than a few loaf ends.

“My friends who were working told them that they wouldn’t find anything, but the students refused to leave. The police were called because they were trespassing,” said Nowicki.

Checkeroski feels that the food she finds in dumpsters is fair game.

“Once something is in the trash, let me decide if the risk is worth taking or not,” she said.

Freeganism isn’t just about dumpster diving. It is an entire lifestyle based off of surplus food and materials that are put to waste daily by consumers and manufacturers. The freegan movement was started in the 1990s as part of the environmentalist and anti-globalization trends happening at the time and has grown quite large in New York, Los Angeles and London — where foraging waste is called bin-diving or skipping.

According to freegan.info, those who first practiced freeganism still purchased items. They tried to boycott major companies that tested products on animals, violated human rights or abused the environment, qualities that didn’t set them apart from most activist groups of their kind. After realizing that every purchase they made was still “supporting something deplorable,” freegans took on a new, unique set of principles. By almost fully rejecting the entire economic system, freegans maintain the concept of boycotting all things mass-produced, animal tested or environmentally unfriendly.

Although dumpster diving is the most common practice, many freegans are also vegans. Vegans chose a diet that consists of only animal-free foods for political and health reasons. Freegans often adopt this lifestyle for the same reasons but also because a cruelty-free diet is more economical than one that includes animal products.

Freegans aren’t alone in their quest for free food. Some students who do not wish to dig through garbage have applied for bridge cards as a way of avoiding the cost of groceries. Bridge cards are like electronic food stamps and are offered by the federal government to anyone who qualifies (qualifications vary from state to state).

“I would say most of the people who have it need it. It’s hard to say exactly who does,” said Alan O’Donnell, a human biology senior. “Technically, I’d probably survive without it, but it definitely helps.”

Applications can be filled out online, and they ask questions about personal income but not about parents’ income or whether the applicant is claimed as a dependant. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is an entitlement program, meaning anyone who applies and meets the requirements will automatically be given a bridge card. The idea is that the card will help facilitate the costs of monthly spending on groceries and not be the sole means for providing food.

The card is issued by household, so everyone who applies is given a different amount to spend each month depending on his or her income. Bridge card owners cannot purchase alcohol, cigarettes or household items (including toothpaste), and are limited by the amount they are given by the government.

According to Marie Boyle and David Holben in their book, Community Nutrition in Action, one of the drawbacks of the card is that it does not necessarily allot enough money to buy nutritional items, so the USDA and the DHHS are concerned that bridge card users cannot afford to follow the dietary guidelines that they set for Americans. Because of this, these organizations are rallying to give more money to people with bridge cards, which could mean a lot to students who struggle to make ends meet.

Though my first experience with freeganism didn’t yield anything but a few photos of garbage, I feel like the dumpster divers are on to something. If you can stomach the idea of getting into a pile of trash, you can walk away from the experience with food for the week or at least a story to tell friends. Then again, not everyone is cut out for the freegan lifestyle – I stopped trying after a few hours and ended up at Noodles & Company. Inside, that is.