With antibiotics and hormones being injected into our beef supply, and YouTube videos showing us how chicken nuggets are really made, making the decision to live a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle comes with plenty of positive reinforcement. Jill Wenderott, Alma freshman, made the choice to drop meat from her diet as a Lenten sacrifice last year. After 40 days of going without it, meat had lost its appeal to her. “I noticed how much the change affected me and I just felt better, healthier,” Wenderott says. “So I decided to stick with it. It wasn’t hard.”

Wenderott’s decision was a personal choice. She’s not dead set against eating meat, but chooses not to because of the health benefits she feels she gains. “I just don’t feel like meat needs to be such a central part of every meal,” she says.

But finding meatless or non-animal-based dining options can be the tough. Fortunately, even in this agro-centric Midwestern state, vegetarians and vegans can find many accommodating options on KU’s campus.

KU Dining Services aims to be very sensitive to students with diet restrictions or alternatives, says Carlee John, assistant manager of the Market at the Kansas Union. Each concept, or mini-restaurant, within the Market has at least one vegetarian option. Brellas Sandwich Crafters has the popular Mega-Vega Delight Wrap, Fresco! Cuisine has a daily vegetarian special and Boulevard Grill now features a veggie burger from Local Burger, a Lawrence restaurant. The Market also offers organic soups and a salad bar daily, in addition to veggie or cheese pizza from Pizza Hut.

John says KU Dining is constantly looking for new ideas and options for vegetarian and vegan eaters, and encourages feedback and ideas from students, vegetarian or not. “We’re seeing more and more students today being drawn to organic, vegetarian, healthy diets,” John says. “It’s of utmost importance to us at KU Dining to cater to students and their needs and desires.”

Students interested in exploring a vegetarian diet or looking for a little variance in meat-free campus dining have another option once a week. Ecumenical Christian Ministries, or ECM, hosts a free-will donation, vegetarian lunch every Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. The meal is served in the main hall of ECM, located at 12th and Oread, across from the Oread Hotel. Different volunteer groups each week prepare the meal fresh. The meal is open to people of all dietary habits, religions and appetites. “Our purpose is hospitality,” ECM director Thad Holcombe says.

Veggie Lunch has been a weekly tradition at ECM since 1999, when a small group of around 20 PETA (Peope for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and Environs club members began meeting there weekly to share a vegetarian meal together. The group slowly began to grow, and eventually ECM took the reigns. Now, when at the height of its popularity in the spring semester, Veggie Lunch serves 200 to 250 students each week.

Each volunteer group prepares meals each week with a wide variety of vegetarian dishes, such as curry, chick pea salad, rice dishes and vegetarian soups. In addition to the prepared meal, every week a sprawling mountain of handmade bread sits on a table at the front of the dining hall. Several local bakeries donate their day-old bread “very generously,” Holcombe says.

Veggie Lunch has become increasingly popular, especially over the past two or three years, Veggie Lunch coordinator Miles Gray says. In previous years the event hosted about 100 students and since that time, Veggie Lunch’s average attendance has grown by more than 100 people. He doesn’t know whether that is a specific increase in vegetarian diets on campus, or if more students are exploring alternative diet options - probably both, he guesses. “Veggie lunch is a great option for people who don’t eat meat, or just as a social environment for anyone,” Gray says. “We get vegetarians, hippie kids… all kinds of people.”

Being aware of the food we eat and thinking critically about the food industry as a whole are other components of vegetarian and vegan eating. For Rachel Vaughn, Lawrence graduate student, being vegetarian or vegan isn’t about the rules of what you can and cannot eat, but thinking globally about what you’re eating and how that affects you and the world around you. Vaughn became a vegetarian as a teenager and remained one for 13 years until she became a vegan five years ago. “Being vegan isn’t difficult, but it means thinking about food in a different way - how we eat, the food industry and how it affects our land, our lives and other countries as well,” Vaughn says. “It’s definitely thinking globally.”

Connotations of a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle include limitations of food, bland flavors and hippie snobbery. But all facets of vegetarianism and veganism are matters of personal choice, Vaughn says.

“You need to be flexible, open minded, understanding and have a curiosity about food cultures, food preparation and techniques,” she says. “When people see how excited I am about [vegan] food, it’s an open door for people to explore food options, beyond the label ‘vegan.’”