It’s noon and you’re finally off for lunch break. Your stomach is rumbling. You cannot wait to take a bite of your favorite meal. It’s basically calling your name, and at this point your mouth is watering.
You go to your usual lunch spot when it hits you — they have stopped carrying that food item and they won’t be carrying it any longer. How does it make you feel knowing that you’ll have fewer choices of your preferred food option? Madison Weinhoffer knows this experience all too well. In fact, she deals with it almost everyday.
Weinhoffer, a junior double majoring in theater and anthropology, is the president of the Animal Rights Coalition at Tech, and she’s also a vegan. Recently she was granted a scholarship through People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals called ‘campus representatives.’ Weinhoffer said the money goes toward helping her push her initiative wherever she thinks it’s needed on campus.
“If you came to a university, like Texas Tech, all you really have are some salad places, a wok place, and sometimes there is veggie sushi, if you even like that,” she said. “For vegetarians, all you have is crap on campus. You’re just going to eat junk food that doesn’t have meat in it. If you’re vegan, it’s even harder -then you have salad and hummus cups.”
Weinhoffer said she is trying to get more vegetarian and vegan options available on Tech’s campus. She said not long ago PETA’s street team came on campus and for two days gave the option for students to sign electronic signatures to get more of those food options on campus. Weinhoffer said she spent all of last month collecting even more signatures outside of the SUB. She said overall she and PETA have collected more than 100 signatures from students at Tech.
Here is Weinhoffer spreading the word outside of the SUB.
Taylor Parham is a senior at Tech. She said she thinks the potential option of having more vegan and vegetarian choices would be beneficial. Parham said she has been a vegetarian for nine years and she is excited for this movement to take place. She said Tech hospitality services only has so many options and is very limited overall.
Weinhoffer said Tech participated in a grade-your-campus survey through PETA. This survey allows any university to grade themselves on their food choices. She said Tech gave themselves a very low score.
“Tech is saying there are not enough people showing interest — there’s your proof. Some of the people that were signing were not even vegetarian, but their friends were,” she said. “They said that their friends don’t eat on campus anymore because they don’t have any options.”
Weinhoffer said now that she has signatures, she wants to collaborate with SGA to make this vegan dream a reality.
“PETA is really helping by providing literature and getting them more recipes,” she said. “If it doesn’t happen within this next school year, that’s fine. I’m really hoping next year it will happen. A long term goal would be to get a vegetarian/vegan food place at the SUB that exclusively handles that.”
Weinhoffer said she understand that not everyone is going to give up meat on a whim or become a vegan overnight. She said she is simply trying to get a discussion going.
“I think it would be cool to make a liberal, friendly impact on this school,” she said.
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