Iowa State University Dining (ISU Dining) serves a wide range of food options around campus, ranging from chicken to pizza to baked goods. Despite this, gaps can be found in the types of food available to students, particularly when it comes to options for those with dietary restrictions.
Haley Roach, a senior majoring in microbiology, spoke about the decreasing vegetarian options on campus.
“I live over at Freddy Court, and over the years, they’ve decreased the vegetarian options there,” Roach said. “They used to have okay veggie burgers, but they switched to a vegan chicken thing that’s really gross. They used to have two options for veggie breakfast burritos, and now there’s none; there’s only meat burritos.”
Roach said she would prefer more vegetarian options, and vegetarian protein options specifically.
“Windows has a specific vegetarian area where there’s always some sort of protein. But when you’re vegetarian, you can’t get all you want from any salad bar,” Roach said.
Other students stated that they wished more cultures were represented with food options at Iowa State.
Phil Odhiambo, a freshman majoring in software engineering, believes that supplying more varied meal options can help international students adjust to food on campus.
“I think adding cuisines from places like Africa [and] Middle Eastern countries would be nice,” Odhiambo said. “I think having a bit more variety and having foods from different countries would make some students be able to adjust to the food here.”
Odhiambo suggested adding common drinks from other parts of the world to ISU Dining options.
“I think having drinks from different countries, for example, mango lassi, would be nice to see, too,” Odhiambo said.
Anthony Garcia, a junior in management information systems, believes that African food would serve as a good addition to options on campus.
“I would like to see African food, like Ghanaian or Nigerian food,” Garcia said. “There’s not that many options for that type of food in Ames in general. I’m from Des Moines, so I feel like there’s more options there. It’s just a cool, different flavor that isn’t really accessible here.”