When I asked my trip partner, Daily Wildcat photographer Andrew Russell, where he wanted to eat he let me know a surprising secret about himself: he doesn’t eat meat.
Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, except for the fact none of my friends really practice vegetarianism. That and the other Daily Wildcat photographer I’ve made a road trip with orders a hamburger at practically every restaurant we go to.
Surprisingly, Russell was still up for what I feel to be a must-eat on a short trip to California, In-N-Out Burger.
Russell ordered a lettuce burger without any meat on it, which is the last thing I would ever do when eating at In-N-Out.
“For me it’s not the meat I like, it’s the stuff they put on it,” Russell said about the burger chain.
For all subsequent meals we always had to factor in what a vegetarian could eat, a different experience for me because I typically only think about what place has a good meat entrée when choosing where to dine. Surprisingly, we never found much difficulty finding a place that suited both of us.
I was curious where a vegetarian like Russell eats on campus, short of going to a vegetarian restaurant like Oy Vey Café profiled in this blog last week.
Russell said he often eats lunch on campus, with veggie burgers at the Park Student Union being a favorite of his, and other times he opts for one of the sandwich joints on University Boulevard, such as Which Wich?, Silver Mine Subs and Jimmy John’s.
“Everywhere has at least one thing,” Russell said. “I’m not going to go to a steakhouse or something.”
Russell, who eats food some total vegetarians won’t like gelatin, started eating this way in the middle of last summer after seeing how the diet works for his girlfriend. He said if they had not started dating it likely would not have entered his mind as a life choice, but meeting her introduced him to the whole new world of vegetarianism.
“I like to think at times it can be healthier,” Russell said. “I went a couple weeks without eating meat and I ate meat again and it gave me a headache every day for the next week, so it’s not that right now I feel, ‘Oh, I feel so much better not eating meat,’ but I know if I eat meat I won’t feel (as well) as much.”
Russell said he does not personally know anybody else on campus who is a vegetarian but figures there must be a number of them in the Students Organized for Animal Rights (SOAR) group, which has put on meatouts the past few years to encourage students not to eat meat.
On the UA College of Agriculture & Life Sciences Web site, Dr. Scottie Misner – a nutrition specialist – writes about the different levels of vegetarianism.
Total vegetarians do not eat any animal products, like Russell’s girlfriend. Lacto-vegetarians eat dairy but no other animal products including eggs, ovo-vegetarians eat eggs but no other kinds of animal products, lacto-ovo-vegetarians eat just dairy, eggs and plant food but no kind of meat and semi-vegetarians avoid red meat but eat food like chicken and fish.
Russell falls into the category of being a lacto-ovo-vegetarian.
The site also goes through a sample daily food guide for vegetarians, which includes pasta, dark-green leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, nonfat dairy products and tofu.
Misner finishes with a final word on the importance of eating from each food group. In a vegetarian diet lacking meat it’s still essential to make sure you get enough protein.
That’s one problem I’ve never had to worry about.
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