Patriot Hall Expands Vegetarian and Vegan Options

EMMITSBURG – As a response to student requests, Mount St. Mary's Patriot Dining Hall debuted the "Favorites" section a designated location for vegetarian, vegan and overall lighter meals as of the start of the fall 2018 semester.

“We have seen a growth in students interested in these types of items through sales and surveys we’ve done,” says Mount St. Mary’s Director of Dining Services, Howard Williams. “Where we felt we had stuff, we still would often have people say that we didn’t. What we did this semester is say, ‘You know what? We’re going to have a dedicated location where people can know to go pretty much every meal period and they will find something that is either vegan, vegetarian or generally considered healthy.”

The dining services use a cycle menu, meaning that every four weeks the menu repeats with changes made depending on the success of the food items available. “We’ve had things that weren’t so popular, so we need to go back and find replacements for those” explains Williams.

According to Williams, students who eat at Patriot have had a positive response to the changes made. “Today’s lunch was great! We had a vegetarian taco and then we also had a chicken taco that was prepared lightly. If you were vegetarian, you had something, and if you just wanted something light, you could still go for the chicken. That was very popular.”

“I’ve been eating in Patriot a lot more since changes have been made,” vegan student, Elizabeth O’Hare says. The Mount senior expands on the subject by highlighting the importance of having multiple options for students; especially for freshmen and sophomore students. “It’s really important that they have other options because if not, they are very limited in what they can eat and they’re eating there as many as three times a day.”

Dining Services attempted to make these changes over a decade ago with little success. “The times are different now,” says Williams. “The students are genuinely more interested in eating healthier and are eating healthier, so that’s good! We did try this once before and it didn’t work, so we’re trying it again and so far, so good.”