For a number of years, some college students at OU described discovering meals choices on campus that accommodate their diets, reminiscent of kosher, halal or tree nut allergy symptoms, as “fairly actually unimaginable,” which is a sentiment that has seen little change in recent years.
OU homes over 20 on-campus restaurants, starting from hen sandwiches at Chick-fil-A, burritos and bowls at Baja Recent and barbecue-style hamburgers and hotdogs on the Sooner Smokehouse. But, college students like Hannah Morris-Voth can not make the most of nearly all of on-campus choices attributable to her Kosher food regimen.
Kosher meals is meals that complies with Jewish dietary requirements, in accordance with Healthline. The legal guidelines embrace restrictions concerning preparation, processing and inspection of meals. Kosher meat have to be slaughtered by a shochet, or somebody educated and authorized to butcher animals in accordance with Jewish regulation, and soaked to take away traces of blood earlier than cooking.
OU Hillel estimates OU has 200-300 Jewish college students out of its 28,052 college students. In 2019, the Berman Jewish DataBank reported that Oklahoma had 4,425 Jewish residents, with Cleveland and Oklahoma Counties holding the biggest Jewish inhabitants in Oklahoma with 2,300 people.
OU Housing and Meals Companies’ Director of Advertising and Communications Amy Buchanan wrote in an e mail that OU Meals Companies doesn’t provide kosher menu gadgets. She wrote that the “rigorous requirements” for meals to be kosher-certified aren’t carried out in on-campus eating places.
Even OU’s Jewish cultural group, Hillel, can’t all the time present kosher choices in its eating room. In a press release on OU Hillel’s website, the Hillel wrote it can not present absolutely kosher choices repeatedly attributable to restricted entry to kosher meals gadgets.
Because of the lack of kosher choices at OU, English sophomore and on-campus resident Morris-Voth mentioned, although absolutely kosher earlier than attending OU, she needed to sacrifice her kosher food regimen to a level.
Morris-Voth mentioned she will be able to solely eat prepackaged, kosher-certified meals on campus. She’s unable to eat vegan choices like contemporary fruit served by OU eating halls as she would possibly danger it not being inspected for bugs or larvae earlier than sale or consumption, in accordance with kosher legal guidelines.
In accordance with the OU Housing and Food website, all college students residing in OU’s residence halls, residential faculties and Headington Corridor are required to buy a meal plan. When requested if college students who maintain kosher are required to buy a meal plan, Buchanan wrote whether it is decided that no lodging is obtainable primarily based on the coed’s dietary wants, OU Meals Companies would doc that, and the coed wouldn’t be required to buy a meal plan.
“As a result of every scholar’s dietary wants are distinctive, lodging are made to suit the person’s particular wants,” Buchanan wrote. “Lodging might embrace OU Meals Companies buying merchandise freed from an ingredient {that a} scholar is allergic to or accommodating particular dietary necessities. There are few wants that can not be accommodated.”
Earlier than coming to OU, Morris-Voth mentioned she emailed OU Meals Companies concerning kosher choices. Morris-Voth was not offered various meals choices or a decreased meal plan after studying OU didn’t carry kosher menu gadgets.
The regular meal plan rate at OU prices $2,466 a semester, or $5,532 a 12 months. Along with buying a full-priced meal plan, Morris-Voth spends about $400 a month for Kosher-certified meals.
“I maintain kosher as a result of I imagine that is what God needs me to do,” Morris-Voth mentioned. “I do not maintain absolutely kosher due to limitations, (and) as a result of I do hate losing cash on the meal plan and never utilizing it, I do use it in a really restricted capability. It is simply troublesome, and it implies that I can not observe my faith in the way in which that I wish to.”
Like Jewish college students looking for kosher choices, Muslim college students at OU battle to seek out halal choices on campus. The Islamic Council of Victoria defines halal meals as meals permitted below Islamic regulation. Halal meals have to be “processed, made, produced, manufactured and saved utilizing utensils, gear and equipment which were cleansed in accordance with Islamic regulation.” For instance, Muslims can not eat pork, alcohol or carnivorous animals.
In 2015, Adam Soltani, director of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, estimated that Oklahoma’s Muslim population was approximately 30,000.
OU presents halal meals choices at Athens Café, Sooner Smokehouse and the grill station on the residential faculties, Buchanan wrote. Vegan and vegetarian choices additionally can be found at each eating halls. Halal meat choices aren’t obtainable in eating places within the Oklahoma Memorial Union.
Halal sandwich choices are additionally offered by OU’s grab-and-go model Cow on the Fly which may be discovered at Union Market, Acre Provisions, Xcetera, Crossroads, Flying Cow Café, The Hive, Amicus, The Bookmark and Café 201.
The dearth of halal meat choices obtainable within the Oklahoma Memorial Union poses an inconvenience to commuters like Sarah Altamimi, the OU Shia Pupil Affiliation president and a psychology junior.
Altamimi typically settles for a tuna sandwich from the Union Market or finds halal meals off campus. She mentioned this would possibly current points for Muslim college students who don’t have automobiles.
“There are worldwide college students who got here from Arab international locations (or) Center Japanese international locations they usually cannot discover entry to halal meat on campus,” Altamimi mentioned. “They principally have disadvantaged themselves of consuming meat, or they should exit of the way in which to a different place to get that supply of halal meat.”
In response, Altamimi and former SSA president and OU graduate Zille Huma started conversations with OU Pupil Life and OU Meals Companies final semester to extend the provision of halal meat on campus.
Although these initiatives haven’t progressed, Altamimi mentioned she plans to proceed pushing for extra halal choices, as rising the provision of halal meals choices ought to be a precedence.
Difficulties discovering on-campus meals choices to cater to dietary wants prolonged past spiritual obligations when biomedical engineering sophomore Katelyn Maier needed to keep away from the dessert part.
Maier’s nut allergy means risking a restricted throat and going into anaphylactic shock if uncovered to nuts. The danger means Maier should keep away from sure on-campus eating places and menu gadgets to stop a possible allergic response and even dying.
OU Meals Companies doesn’t have any peanut-free eating areas, Buchanan wrote. Nonetheless, they provide menu gadgets which are freed from peanuts and tree nuts. Buchanan wrote that when a person self-identifies with an allergy, the eating workers follows all meals allergy procedures for meals preparation.
In accordance with the OU Housing Food Services website, OU Meals workers is educated to take “each precaution in stopping cross-contact amongst meals” by utilizing separate serving utensils and gear amongst numerous meals gadgets. There are nonetheless cases when cross-contact happens, the web site reads, so it’s “in the end the duty of the client to guage whether or not to query substances or eat chosen meals.”
An article from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York defines peanut and tree nut allergy symptoms as a “vital well being concern,” affecting roughly 1.1 % of the overall inhabitants, or about 3 million Individuals.
When Maier was deciding the place to attend school, Maier met with an OU dietician who offered spreadsheets to Maier entailing which gadgets could be served on the Sofa Cafe and residential eating halls every day. The spreadsheet particulars every menu merchandise and what substances they comprise.
Nonetheless, Maier nonetheless faces the danger of cross-contamination. Maier described an occasion wherein the Sofa Cafeteria was serving pecan-crusted salmon subsequent to a nut-free dish. Because of the danger of the tongs touching each gadgets, Maier requested the worker serving the dishes if the tongs crossed meals gadgets. Maier mentioned the worker had “completely no concept” and retrieved their supervisor to deal with Maier’s issues.
“It was good that they went and located any person who knew it,” Maier mentioned. “It was simply upsetting that I needed to go up the chain.”
Like Morris-Voth, Maier wasn’t supplied an exemption from buying a meal plan regardless of Maier’s restricted on-campus choices.
For Maier, the danger of cross-contamination means life or dying, a danger that lingers behind Maier’s thoughts.
“It is terrifying. I imply, I do not need to die,” Maier mentioned. “I actually do not need to die over one thing so silly as somebody by chance cross-contaminating my meals. … That simply sucks.”
As on-campus college students battle to seek out meals choices that cater to their diets, Buchanan wrote that OU Meals Companies “regularly evaluates meals and repair choices for all visitors, together with these with specialty food regimen wants.” She wrote the division makes “each effort to accommodate all visitors that go to any of our eating places.”
