Vegan, Vegetarian Students Find Berkeley Welcoming

When UC Berkeley alumna Dione Rossiter was 14, she read a book promoting animal rights and became a vegetarian the next day. But it wasn't until she came to UC Berkeley and became an environmental studies major that she took the last dietary leap and adopted the practice of veganism.

In Berkeley, Rossiter's lifestyle change is far from atypical. The city is a veritable haven for non-meat eaters, from restaurants offering plentiful vegetarian and vegan fare to a vegetarian student cooperative and an intellectual environment that lends itself to discussions about the environment and animal rights.

Junior Ajay Limaye became a vegetarian two years ago after he spoke to a friend enrolled in Environmental Science 10 and learned of the meat industry's heavy use of grain, energy and water. He stopped eating meat because he thought the resources could be better used to aid the poor.

"A lot of people talk about wanting to make the world a better place without realizing that the mundane habits are what make the biggest impact," he wrote in an email.

In an email, Rossiter said she became a vegan partly because she disapproved of the meat industry's wage and environmental policies.

Other vegan and vegetarian students like senior Steve Lopez are more concerned with the animal rights aspect of the meat industry.

"A lot of people are vegans for reasons of health or that kind of thing, but the reason I do it is for the suffering of the animals," Lopez said. "Obviously people are against people murdering other people, and that's what we're doing with animals."

While Berkeley's intellectual atmosphere at times seems to facilitate moral choices to not eat meat, some say the city's wide variety of vegetarian dining options is persuasive as well.

Berkeley's exclusively vegan restaurants like Smokey Joe's Cafe and Cha-Ya and the Berkeley Bowl Marketplace give vegetarians and vegans ample choices.

"After spending a month in Montana for a UCB geology field camp, where I got laughed out of the Hangin' Five (Family) Restaurant for even inquiring about a veggie burger, I feel very welcome in Berkeley," Limaye wrote.

However, local vegetarians and vegans say their comfort level in Berkeley is due to more than just the local vegetarian cafe. Limaye credits the University Students' Cooperative Association for fostering "a sense of community and solidarity among vegetarians and vegans." The Lothlorien Hall co-op is exclusively inhabited by vegetarians, vegans and those sympathetic to their tastes.

Yet vegetarians and vegans say there is still room for improvement. Many vegetarians and vegans are dissatisfied with Cal Dining's treatment of vegetarian options. Junior Kerry McNaughton, a vegetarian, said that at Unit 1's dining complex, Crossroads, her only options were soy meat and veggie burgers and the occasional bowl of cereal. She once picked up a hamburger that had been mistakenly placed among the veggie burgers, but stopped herself before she began to eat.

Overall, however, most vegetarians and vegans say they couldn't find a better place to eat the way they do than Berkeley.

"I was raised in San Diego, which is relatively friendly. But Berkeley has so many vegetarians and those sympathetic to the lifestyle that it isn't a close comparison at all," senior Kellie Geldreich wrote. "Hopefully I will be able to live here the rest of my life."

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