"No more meat in the canteen!"

…demanded some in response to the question from the Montagsmail of the SSR. In reality, lunch there looks quite different: Monday pork schnitzel, Tuesday burger, Wednesday Pizza Speciale – greasy, unhealthy and above all very meat-heavy?! This debate about the proportion of meat-containing and vegetarian offerings in the canteen was sparked by the Montagsmail, but is actually always topical. Students are constantly bothered by what they see as a meagre selection of vegetarian and vegan dishes in the canteen. They wish for more variety, a different distribution of the ratio of vegetarian and meat dishes, and also often healthier dishes. Nevertheless, there are students who consider this debate pointless and do not want to forgo their daily meat during their lunch break. 

Did you know that there are even two canteens in Germany that are purely vegetarian or even vegan? The studierendenWERK Berlin with the "Mensa FU Veggie N° 1" and the Studentenwerk Erlangen-Nürnberg with the canteen "St. Paul VeggieZone". In Nuremberg, the meat-free canteen has even existed since 2012, and has been purely vegan since 2018. That is of course already a huge difference to our canteens in Würzburg. Here there are normally at least two vegetarian dishes, sometimes also a vegan alternative, but also three to five meat dishes. This means the ratio is already unevenly distributed at 1:2 or even 2:5.

What many perhaps don't know is that our canteens have been recognised by PETA Deutschland e.V. as vegan-friendly. A brief explanation: PETA is a partner organisation of PETA USA, the largest animal rights organisation, which also deals extensively with vegetarian and vegan nutrition. Between 2015-2017, the Mensa Studentenhaus, the Mensa Hubland Süd and the Mensateria at Campus Nord received the award "Vegan-friendly Canteen". In 2018, the Mensateria was awarded again. This small competition between canteens in Germany increases the commitment of student services to offer more meat-free dishes in order to get a good rating.

But: Our canteens here in Würzburg have so far received a maximum of three out of four possible stars. There is certainly still room for improvement. 

Why are there so many meat dishes? Of course because demand is very high! 

The most common reason students want to eat meat in the canteen is probably their own habit of seeing meat as something important and self-evident. If you have eaten meat every day at lunch your whole life, you cannot and do not want to simply forgo it. The views of your parents' home play a major role here, although some students also see their move away from home as an opportunity to consume less meat. Nevertheless, some believe that without a meat-containing meal at lunch they lack the energy for university. What is lacking here is probably more educational work.

Another perspective on this rather negative argument is that students buy and prepare less meat at home if they have already eaten their "ration" at lunch in the canteen. In the canteen, meat portions are also smaller than home-cooked meals, which usually last several days. If you then also buy less meat, demand in retail decreases and a rethink is also triggered here.

But the big question remains: Is the high demand for meat dishes due to the poor vegetarian selection in the canteen?

To answer this question and get an insight into the whole system, I arranged a conversation with Herr Zielke, the head of department for university catering at Studentenwerk Würzburg. Because it is not that simple to satisfy up to 2800 students daily during the lunch opening hours in the Mensateria alone. The entire kitchen team works under high pressure and wants to guarantee consistently good quality, which is why the best dishes are often sold out by 2 p.m. If you come at 11 a.m., you should get the same quality as someone who only makes it at 2 p.m. But once something is on the serving counter, it cannot be used again and has to be thrown away. And so they have to consider what can actually still be offered. The canteens certainly do not want to produce for the bin! Sustainability is close to the heart of the student services. The meat is largely purchased from the regional butcher Dees, the sausage in the cafeteria is deliberately chosen without flavour enhancers. But thought is also given to the other ingredients. If cucumbers in the vegetable delivery are wrapped in plastic film, the supplier can take them back straight away!

But you can never meet all demands anyway. Herr Zielke emphasises that there are different offerings in the different canteens, depending on the target group. For example, the food outlets at Röntgenring or Josef-Schneider-Straße, where medicine and psychology students eat, offer healthier lunch than the Mensateria or the canteen at Studentenwerk, where a large spectrum of students eat. Just like at the canteen at Studentenwerk. Many training courses and cooking classes keep the staff up to date. Here, or through various other cooperations, action weeks are created, during which there are always vegan dishes, because Herr Zielke sees potential in vegan food: "With those, everyone is satisfied", he says, "the vegans, the vegetarians and sometimes even the meat lovers." 

He also specifically calls on all students who have any problem with the taste, quality or generally with their lunch or dinner to go directly to the canteen staff and mention it. "It really matters to us that all students leave the canteen satisfied and full!", Herr Zielke emphasises often. Of course, the kitchen can make a mistake now and then, but as we all know, the canteen staff are the nicest people ever. Moreover, he says, you are welcome to make special requests to the staff, especially if it should be a vegetarian alternative.

Because even if you actually eat an omnivorous diet, there are plenty of reasons to reach for a vegetarian dish in the canteen. That the vegetarian alternative is always healthier is, however, just putting it out there. In any case, the dish often contains more vegetables than the typical meat dishes. But if you now compare the nutritional values of "Chicken Piccata on Courgette" or "Tomato Ragout with Spaghetti" with "Baked Tortellini in Cream Sauce", health-conscious students will certainly not choose the vegetarian alternative on that day. But what is probably one of the most decisive points for choosing a meat-free dish is the price. The vegetarian and vegan dishes are almost always up to one euro cheaper compared to the meat dishes. And that eating meat-free is a little bit better for our environment, I probably don't need to tell anyone. 

You don't always have to eat meat-free, but if someone still rushes straight past the vegetarian dishes to the meat dish of the day after these arguments, there is nothing you can do to stop them anyway. You have nothing to lose, even if in the end only the inner Swabian wins when you have saved 50 cents on lunch. 

I would like to thank Herr Zielke once again for the pleasant and very informative conversation!

Johanna Kreiter