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A&C editor shares a recipe for red pepper, cherry tomato and mushroom gnocchi
When I moved back to Hamilton earlier this year, I was really looking forward to cooking for myself again. This gnocchi recipe is one of my favourite things to make, because it’s full of vegetables, comes together quickly and also often makes more than enough leftovers for a busy week. It’s also the perfect recipe for students who have come back from reading week and are now busy with assignment deadlines and midterms to study for.
Like store-bought gnocchi, the recipe is also versatile and it’s easy to make adjustments depending on what other ingredients you have on hand or how much time you have. For example, if I’m in a rush or when they’re not in season, I substitute some tomato sauce for cherry tomatoes, adding it after the red pepper and gnocchi. Or if you want to add some leafy greens, you can omit the cherry tomatoes and add some chopped baby spinach after the mushrooms.
As it is, provided you can find vegan gnocchi, the recipe is also vegan, though if you like you’re welcome to add cheese or some chicken to it as well to suit your tastes. My sister loves this recipe and she’ll often add heaps of Parmesan to her servings, though, to be fair, she does that with just about every food she can. Feel free to make as many substitutions as you wish and to make the recipe aligned with your tastes.
The Chef: Arts & Culture Editor, Nisha Gill
Ingredients
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 20 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
Yield: 3 - 4 servings
Directions:
It’s important to take breaks from studying and engage in activities you enjoy and find fulfilling. For seasoned chefs as well as those looking to improve their culinary skills, this quick recipe is the perfect way to get busy in the kitchen in between studying and enjoy a great meal!
Please comment down below with your twists on the recipe or let us know what recipes you would like us to see featured next in our next issue of In the Kitchen with Arts & Culture.
If you have walked into TwelvEighty or Bridges Café since school started, you might have noticed some significant changes from last year. Both campus restaurants have introduced new menu items, seeking to expand the types of foods offered and introduce fresh takes on typical campus foods.
TwelvEighty, the bar and grill situated in the basement of the student centre, is known for its affordable restaurant-quality foods and campus nightlife events. TwelvEighty usually swaps six or seven menu items at the beginning of each year. This year, however, 16 items were added.
“This is the first time we have majorly renovated the menu for about five years,” said food and beverage manager Richard Haja. “So this year we did quite a large revamp.”
The restaurant held focus groups before the year began to test out new items on potential customers.
Haja is particularly excited about the addition of vegetarian bowls, which consist of a mix of vegetables to which a variety of protein options, such as chicken or tofu, can be added. According to Haja, these have garnered a very positive student response thus far.
“It’s kind of on trend right now,” said Haja. “The bowls themselves are all in the $6.99 range. That’s one of the cheapest values on campus because it alone as a vegetarian option in some cases is by far the cheapest you’ll find around.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnWnV-sn-2r/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
Other new items include various desserts, a jerk chicken club wrap and macaroni and cheese balls. TwelvEighty has been working to add more vegetarian, halal and gluten-free options. Haja says that the ethnic diversity of McMaster has inspired the chefs to appeal to a wider variety of tastes and cultures.
“It’s not just the individual’s ethnicity,” said Haja. “It’s that people are traveling and people are experiencing new tastes and new cultures, so they’re almost expecting those flavours to be in their everyday life now.”
Along with a culinary revamp, TwelvEighty has undergone a physical transformation. In addition to opening The Grind last year, TwelvEighty renovated its floor. It is also considering the addition of seating spaces.
Like TwelvEighty, Bridges Café has also recently redesigned its menu, adding ten new options for customers this year.
Currently, Bridges Café is the only campus restaurant that exclusively serves vegetarian and vegan options. The new items include vegan sloppy joes, vegan pad thai and crispy avocado halves.
Director of McMaster Hospitality Services Chris Roberts said that the menu changes were made with the growing diversity of McMaster in mind.
Bridges is also experiencing its fifteenth anniversary in Jan. 2019. To celebrate the milestone, the café is adding highlights from the past fifteen years back to its menu.
Ultimately, Roberts is pleased with the changes. Bridges had record sales during opening week and Roberts says that student feedback on the rebranding has been positive.
Bridges remains committed to providing quality vegetarian and vegan food for many on campus at the same standard prices. With these new changes, Roberts hopes that even more students, particularly non-vegetarians, will come in for a meal.
“We hope the new branding and menu will attract a new customer base, one that has not traditionally eaten plant-based foods,” said Roberts. “We want to encourage a healthier, more nutritious diet for students. You no longer have to be a vegetarian to enjoy plant-based foods. It’s a lifestyle choice now.”
As students have been getting settled in to the rhythm of classes, TwelvEighty and Bridges have been spicing things up by offering fresh foods and environments for Mac students.
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By: Prarthana Bhat
Every month of the academic year, I find myself attempting to create an ideal meal plan where my main focus would be cooking a wide spread of high nutritional value lunches and dinners. The reality is that convenience holds a higher priority than the quality of the meals consumed. Being a full-time student who is constantly aiming to achieve a balance amongst academics and dietary preferences, convenient food attractions such as La Piazza or Centro have resulted in a deficit in my health and my wallet.
The aforementioned eateries alongside other alternatives across the map provide appealing menus for their everyday meals in terms of convenience. However, as a concerned and motivated health activist, these food options do not fulfill the nutritional requirements for an average person.
La Piazza is a sustainable and inclusive food system with several booths that cater to the fast-paced lifestyle of students. Referring to the menu hoisted up at Creation X, I noticed a classic take on the “all-American diet,” which includes items such as hamburgers, grilled cheese sandwiches and chicken fingers. Most of these advertised items are mainly processed and contain a high volume of sodium, trans fats and calories. Students who prefer to indulge in a well-balanced diet are told that they would be accommodated for, but examples like these demonstrate that the food services on campus are not upholding their side of the deal.
While we have some access to fresh produce through Mac Farmstand, they are only present from June to October. A viable solution to this dilemma would be for the various cafeterias on campus to collaborate with Mac Farmstand more often to access fresh produce supplied by local farmers. Access to local vegetables would lead to fresh meals prepared daily, which are not preserved and served with accordance to Canada’s Food Guidelines.
Hopefully in the upcoming years, we will notice a positive change in the food options available on campus that will sponsor a hearty way of life and serve an end to our love affairs with fast foods.
At Trent University, a student-led non-profit vegetarian initiative called the Seasoned Spoon is a prime example of how we can promote and enforce a healthier lifestyle and environment on school grounds. Along with preparing fresh meals, the Seasoned Spoon hosts weekly culinary classes to guide students through a path of healthy eating and cooking. They also upload recipes of prepared dishes on their website, making it accessible to students who rely on independent cooking on day-to-day basis. A full café might be excessive budget-wise, but the other objectives of the initiative seem obtainable enough as part of a new or existing service.
The Good Food Box, initiated by McGill University and included in Chukky Ibe’s presidential platform, is another source of inspiration that McMaster should be paying attention to.
Ibe proposed cooperation between Mac Bread Bin and Mac Farmstand to hand deliver grocery boxes of various sizes to student households around McMaster in order to reduce the number of trips a regular off-campus student makes to the grocery store.
With so many opportunities and options available, the university and McMaster Students Union should push past the variety of content available on campus and aim to be a healthier and flourishing unit.
Hopefully in the upcoming years, we will notice a positive change in the food options available on campus that will sponsor a hearty way of life and serve an end to our love affairs with fast food.
By: Rachel Guitman - Women and Gender Equity Network
When you think about the Freshman 15, what comes to mind? For most people and for our culture at large, weight and food-related measurements carry heavy connotations.
While moving away from home to go to university, as I did when coming to McMaster, students undergo a huge life change that comes along with increased academic and personal responsibility. It is a difficult adjustment to make, and for some reason, we as a culture add the pressure of weight and eating control to the already challenging transition. Freshman 15 is a term laden with shame and negativity, and it paves the way to unhealthy, moral thinking about food. It implies that students have to watch what they eat for fear of gaining the dreaded Freshman 15.
I have often heard phrases such as, “It’s good that I’m going for a run to work that cake off.” Ingrained in that statement is the sentiment that dietary indulgence is somehow wrong, and therefore must be compensated for. The normalization of these statements is alarming, not least because it mimics the feelings involved in orthorexia and other eating disorders. On a larger scale, this sort of thinking reflects an intertwining of food and eating with morality in our culture. The life-sustaining act of eating should not have moral value. Why should certain foods be bad while certain are good? More importantly, why should we have to feel bad or good about eating certain things, when eating is a basic necessity?
Healthy eating in itself is a good thing, but healthy habits are a lifestyle rather than an arbitrary distinction of foods to feel guilty about eating and foods to feel proud of eating. Ascribing moral values to different foods often breeds an emotional roller coaster of guilt and proud self-denial, which is hardly a peaceful state of mind.
Perhaps more importantly, the positive and negative morality we associate with foods trickle into the way we view body types. We generally, and quite wrongly, assume that if one eats healthy, they will be reasonably thin. As well, we assume that people who are not thin or who don’t fit conventional ideas of what a healthy body looks like do not lead healthy lifestyles. The same judgement comes into play for the Freshman 15.
Such a postulation paves the way for moral judgement when it comes to body types. A fat person, even someone who gained 15 pounds, must simply be lazy and just needs to lead a healthier lifestyle. There is a lot of evidence, however, to show that this is largely not the case. For instance, research from Dr. Richard Atkinson, the editor of the International Journal of Obesity, unveiled the importance of genes in determining body size. In certain cases, genetic mechanisms completely overrode dietary habits. Moreover, it is important to consider how harmful it is to make moral judgements about a person’s body, particularly when they are negative judgements.
A paper by Samantha Thomas, a health sociologist at Monash University, states that “People living with obesity have been 'socially conditioned' to turn to diets for a cure for their obesity, and to blame themselves when diets fail.” The social attitudes that our culture holds towards overweight and obese individuals, and really those who have gained any weight at all, only serve to create shame and self-blame in these individuals.
This is not a constructive path to a healthy lifestyle. On the contrary, it is a demoralizing, discouraging situation. This kind of social conditioning not only assumes that weight loss is a necessary solution, but also discourages anyone who may be trying to achieve long-term weight loss. Is that what we want for students who already have so much on their plate at school?
Mac Alliance for Body Peace is a great initiative at McMaster working to combat these social ideals and promote wellness in a more holistic way. It is important to acknowledge, as the Mac Alliance for Body Peace does, that a strong, supportive community paves the way for its members living healthy lifestyles. If McMaster as a community can be kinder and create a space where body types and weights are not judged, we can all ultimately be better off.
Survival of the fittest can be a skewed term. In apocalyptic scenarios, common methods of endurance tend to favour the idea of burly men cutting down trees, sowing and gathering seeds, and the inevitable hunting of animals. Although meat may seem like an element of a balanced diet and a necessity for survival, recent studies have proven that vegetarianism may be the way to go.
Research completed at Loma Linda University in California has proved that, on average, vegetarians had a 12 percent reduced risk of death from any possible health-related scenario as opposed to meat-eaters, who all appeared to be looking down the barrel of death.
In line with this research, five McMaster students share their veg*n stories and prove that following a meat-free diet can be a beneficial and accessible change.
Veg*ns on Campus
Second-year Electrical Engineering student Michael Podlovics chose to make the move to meatless when he started university. “When I was planning on living away from my parents, I realized that moving out was a chance to build my own lifestyle,” he explained. Podlovics has now transitioned to veganism and is still rooted in his initial cause for making the change. “The biggest concern I had, and still have, with the industry is the staggering environmental impacts and ethical issues associated with industrial production of livestock.”
A commonly overlooked trait of the food industry is that meat production doesn’t rely solely on animals that are born and raised naturally in farm settings. Livestock production and harvesting is a huge industry that uses valuable natural resources and fossil fuels to mass raise and transport animals that are born to be turned into meals. It’s both an environmental and ethical issue that resonates with many turned veg*ns.
“After opening up my eyes to the reality [of meat production], I knew that being vegan was the right choice for me,” explained Tori Jelilyan, a second-year Health Science student and a vegan since May 2013.
Both third-year Multimedia student Rebecca Annibale and fourth-year Philosophy and Multimedia student Mathew Towers made the transition to vegetarianism when they were in the tenth grade.
“The main reason I decided to become a vegetarian was the disdain I felt towards eating meat; not only did I find it not appetizing, but I found it unethical as well,” explained Towers.
Meg Peters, a fourth-year English and Arts & Science student, is also one of the presidents of the McMaster Veggie Club. Peters became a vegetarian at age 12, and a vegan at age 13. For almost a decade now, she has been devoted to maintaining her diet and has used knowledge of the practice to spread its pros and cons with the McMaster community.
Accessibility at McMaster
“Bridges is a godsend for veg*ns trying to eat on campus,” added Peters.
The on-campus vegetarian and vegan-friendly restaurant has been run in collaboration with Diversity Services since 2005. The café also contributed to McMaster being ranked as a top veg*n friendly campus through the “peta2” list (a branch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) in 2006 and 2007.
Bistro, or East meets West, has also been noted as a great campus spot for veg*n friendly cuisine as it easily makes substitutes for ingredients.
“A nice new addition to campus has been the Mac Farmstand in the summer and fall, which has started serving up wonderful fresh and local salads,” said Jelilyan.
Although McMaster has definitely proved itself to be a veg*n friendly campus, there is room for improvement to make it more inclusive for all dietary concerns.
“One of the main problems that I have heard from a lot of veg*n students at Mac is the lack of transparency on campus with respect to ingredients,” said Peters.
As tasty as Mac’s vegetarian and vegan options are, many of the servers that deal directly with the students are not well informed on the contents of dishes being made and served. The Veggie Club is looking into fixing this problem by developing a sticker system that would involve labels being placed next to campus foods that are veg*n or can be modified.
Common Misconceptions about Meatless
“The biggest struggle of being a vegetarian is gaining understanding from others, and constantly having to justify our choices,” said Towers.
Identifying as veg*n often leads to associations with pushy beliefs and an otherwise “hipster” culture.
“Sometimes I feel when I tell someone I'm a vegetarian/vegan they instantly assume I'm the leader of an animal rights protest who is going to push my beliefs of vegan-ism on them and everyone I meet,” explained Annibale.
Veg*nism is a lifestyle choice that is often rooted in ethical beliefs and environmental and societal concerns. With negative ideas surrounding their choices, sometimes the true reasons for their beliefs can get clouded in misconceptions about neighboring cultural patterns.
Another common misunderstanding is that veg*nism does not provide enough nutrients to sustain an active lifestyle.
“I have noticed no visible hindrance in my athletic or academic performance. I have actually noticed improvement due to being overall more conscious of my diet and nutrient intake,” explained Podlovics, whose recent veganism and yearlong vegetarianism has yet to affect his athletic performance in recreational sports.
“After substituting plant-based foods for meat, I can honestly say that I feel healthier, more energetic, and I actually have been getting sick less often,” added Jelilyan.
If a veg*n diet is maintained thoughtfully, it can include the same amount of protein as a diet including meat.
Considering a variety of veg*n?
“Should students consider a meatless diet? I say yes! Meat causes more emissions than all transportation combined. But if you're not into binary solutions, just minimize the amount of meat you consume,” said Annibale.
“And as an added bonus for students, meat is expensive and I have found that going vegan has even left me with more money in the bank,” noted Jelilyan.
With a campus that has proved to work for other veg*ns and has been noted as a progressive school in terms of its food diversity, McMaster may be a great place to taste test veg*nism.
“There’s a strong community of veg*ns at Mac,” said Peters.
Keep in mind though that becoming veg*n isn’t a decision you should make overnight. It is a thoughtful diet that requires planning and understanding. The more restrictions you choose to make, the more difficult it will be to accommodate your diet. Look into the various types of veg*nism that exist and choose the right one for you and your lifestyle.
Going veg*n can have a positive impact on your health, the environment, and the ethical treatment of animals. And when it comes to the game of survival of the fittest, you may just come out on top.
Jason Woo
The Silhouette
Who do you think you are? Strutting all up in my face and telling me to change my diet. I know KFC’s Double Down is a death trap designed to put me to sleep. This doesn’t mean you need to tell me I should be munching on some celery instead.
Don’t confuse my hate for you as hate for your brother, real healthy food. I know he means well, which makes him hard to hate, at least until my mom gives me some Diet Coke to drink. The consolation is that bits of him are quite good – like baked fish, oatmeal and honey nut Cheerios. This doesn’t mean we are best friends, but we’re definitely pleasant acquaintances.
My real gripe is with you, not-healthy-healthy-foods, or as I like to call you, two-faced healthy scumbag. It’s one thing for me to give up scrumptious sugary goodness for a little less flab on my tummy, but it’s another thing for me to give it up in exchange for the same amount of flab, but with no satisfaction from what I eat. You know what I’m talking about: cranberry juice, granola bars, premade salads. I should have smelled something fishy when it didn’t taste so different from what I usually consume, but I guess I simply thought you were a decent human being.
And how dare you trick me into paying more for ‘healthy’ foods? There are people out there, myself obviously not included, who genuinely want to get healthy, and instead are deluded by your shady marketing schemes. Thanks for letting me know that your smoothies are made with real fruit, while handily ignoring the boatload of syrups and dairy products you threw in as well.
Stop throwing words like ‘organic’ and ‘gluten-free’ at us too. They don’t always mean healthy and you know it. At least McDonald’s has the decency to tell me straight up that their fries are deep fried multiple times and with enough preservatives to last a couple months.
I hope you’re content knowing that a bunch of us are happily making PB&Js with reduced-fat peanut butter – blissfully unaware that you just replaced the fat with sugar, salt and empty calories.
Don’t let me see you on campus, because I am not afraid to throw you into my deep fryer.
Sincerely,
I-Love-Food
Johnny-Wei Bai / Meducator
It is a well-known fact that a healthy diet can lower the risk of various types of cardiovascular disease. How far can the benefits of healthy eating go, especially for someone who already has cardiovascular disease or other age-related pathologies such as diabetes mellitus?
Every year, more than 20 million people around the world survive a heart attack or stroke. Often, these patients are prescribed medications such as blood thinners or antiplatelet agents, which significantly decrease their risk of subsequent heart attacks, stroke and heart failure. However, Mahsid Dehghan, a nutritionist at McMaster University, says that "at times, patients don’t think they need to follow a healthy diet since their medications have already lowered their blood pressure and cholesterol – that is wrong." She goes on to say that "dietary modification has benefits in addition to those seen with Aspirin, angiotensin modulators, lipid-lowering agents and beta blockers."
To find an association between diet quality and cardiovascular disease, Dr. Dehghan recently led a 56-month study in 40 countries involving nearly 32,000 people over age 55, all with history of cardiovascular disease, stroke, or severe diabetes mellitus. The participants were given questionnaires to assess their dietary intake, alcohol and smoking habits, and exercise levels. This is one the few studies to explore the effect of diet on people who already have cardiovascular disease.
It was found that even after adjusting for potential confounders such as age, sex, geographical location and medications prescribed, a healthy diet consistently lowered risk for cardiovascular disease in patients with prior disease history, thereby greatly enhancing the benefits of their medication. This healthy diet would include items such as vegetables, fruits, fibres, nuts, and fish, and lower levels of saturated fats. The results of healthy eating included a reduction in risk of 38 per cent for cardiovascular death, 14 per cent for recurrent heart attack, 28 per cent for congestive heart failure and 19 per cent for stroke.
This study bears great implications in healthcare and patient education. Healthcare providers are encouraged to stress the importance of good eating as part of therapy for heart and stroke patients. By learning to not simply depend on medication, but also lifestyle choices, patients can reap the benefits of both their medication and healthy eating to avoid recurring heart disease.
Although the sample population consisted of older patients with cardiovascular disease, it certainly is very applicable to university students. Dr. Dehghan's results support the notion that it is never too late (or too early, for that matter) to start improving one's dietary habits – a new year's resolution that has been plaguing many of us for months now, I'm sure.
Foot traffic expected to increase significantly in already limited space
In mid-winter when there is a load of work and a lack of sunlight, students can always use a little vitamin boost. And come January, they’ll have the opportunity to get this from smoothies when a new location of Booster Juice is slated to come to the McMaster University Student Centre.
After the closing of Scoops, a smoothie and ice cream vendor that occupied a small kiosk next to Tim Hortons, McMaster Hospitality Services (MHS) explored different options for new businesses for the space. The deal between MHS and Booster Juice was announced in December of last year.
Lori Diamond, Director of MUSC, noted that students are happy with the deal.
“Feedback from students … was overwhelmingly positive when our proposal came forward,” she said.
Despite the anticipation from students and administrators, there has been no noticeable progress on a storefront in the student centre. And at this point, the construction details are still unclear.
“Nothing is confirmed,” explained Albert Ng, Director of MHS. The University held a meeting with the contractor and construction project team on Nov. 19 in order to work out these details, but Ng emphasized the fact that no strict timeline had been set.
“Three groups are trying to establish what would be a conservable and doable schedule,” he said, noting that the coordination between these groups was not always easy. MHS has some control over the construction, as the electrical work is run through McMaster, but the equipment for the store comes from Booster Juice, and the contractor is from an external company.
“From my understanding, most of the kiosk itself is constructed off-site, then put in place and hooked up with electrical, plumbing and equipment,” Diamond explained.
MUSC administration said that the proposal suggested construction would start the week of Nov. 26, with the opening scheduled for Jan. 2. And despite the lack of confirmation for the plans, Ng said, “we’re still hopeful that we can get it done for the New Year.”
The kiosk will occupy the same place as the previous smoothie bar, though it “will have a larger footprint.” The choice of location has raised some concerns about traffic flow and available space in the student centre, which is already often overcrowded. And MUSC, which replaced Hamilton Hall as the student centre when it opened in 2002, was built at a time when the student population was approximately 14,000 full-time students.
Diamond noted, “we did … consider [the impact on space], as did Hospitality Services in bringing forward the proposal.”
She said that the addition of the kiosk would not require a removal of seating, but that the existing food court area will be reconfigured to accommodate it.
MUSC added 48 seats to the area last year in order to accommodate the “rising demand,” but during the day the space is almost always full.
And the new storefront could pose more of a problem than rearranged seating; like the Tim Horton’s, Booster Juice will have to have a lineup for its customers.
Diamond claimed that “it will be configured to corral the line-up away from the main traffic corridor.”
But it remains to be seen whether the convenience of campus smoothies will come at the cost of a busier student centre.
Before the plan for a campus location, the nearest Booster Juice was a few minutes from campus, located at Main Street and Thorndale. It has since been closed.
Booster Juice was unavailable for comment on whether or not this is related to McMaster’s new store.
By: Palika Kohli
I have been a vegetarian for the past five years of my life. Despite the increasing popularity of the vegetarian diet, I still constantly get hit with the question: why?
It’s possible I get asked a little less than some people. After all, the Indian-vegetarian-girl fits a certain stereotype, and for many, my religious background is sufficient explanation.
Except that it’s not. I may have been raised in a Hindu household, but growing up, there was nothing - no food, no pet, no person – that I loved more than chicken. It was only as I got older that I began to learn about the environmental consequences of eating meat products and by-products. This awareness eventually caught up with me, striking a particular chord. So I finally removed meat - that is, all products that I describe as being “once alive” – from my diet.
I learned afterwards that this personal choice and description had a name: ovo-lacto-vegeterian. There are many varieties of vegetarians to describe almost any combination of dietary restrictions. Here are some of the specific labels for various degrees of vegeterianism:
Semi-Vegetarians: basically these people don’t eat red meat, but eat just about everything else.
Ovo-Lacto-Vegetarians: people who consume both eggs and dairy products, but no fish, meat or poultry.
Ovo-Vegetarians: people who eat eggs, but no other meat or dairy products.
Lacto-Vegetarians: people who consume dairy products, but no other meat or egg products/by-products.
Vegans: people who don’t any animal products or by-products whatsoever. Instead, they opt for meat “alternatives” – food that is high in protein, like tofu, soy, lentils, peanut butter, etc.
Raw Vegans: raw vegans don’t eat any meat or meat-related products, nor do they eat food cooked over 480C (1180 Fahrenheit). They tend to limit themselves to fruits, vegetables, roots, fresh juices, nuts and the like.
When considering vegetarian diets, most people are concerned about a decrease in protein intake. No need to worry though - most vegetarian foods contain at least a little protein, from nuts (which are high in protein), to soy, wheat, and even dairy products. What vegetarians can also do is something known as ‘protein-complementing’. Protein complementing is when two different foods containing higher amounts of certain amino acids are paired up. This compensates for the other food’s lack of the amino acid and ensures that people are still obtaining their necessary amino acids.
While it is possible that for some people, becoming a vegetarian means that their choice in food is limited – it doesn’t have to be! Starting here at Mac, there is the wonderful Bridges café, which is great for those who are going to miss eating meat-like food. There is also Creation X within La Piazza at the Student Centre, where you can get the vegan version of all their wraps.
For off-campus, here’s a list of fantastic vegetarian/vegan restaurants in Hamilton.
August 8: 1 Wilson Street. Of the many local sushi places, this is definitely one of the best in Hamilton.
Bangkok Spoon: 57 King St. West, Dundas. This restaurant serves some of the most delicious Thai food in the area. You can order just about everything and ask for it to be made “without the meat”!
Basilique: 1065 King Street West. Right around the corner from campus in Westdale village, Basilique has amazing pizza and Mediterranean food options.
Earth to Table Bread Bar: 258 Locke St South. Lots of options and some of the best specialty pizza out there!
The Himalaya: 160 Centennial Parkway North. A small restaurant with a more specialized selection of vegetarian Indian food.
Mex-I-Can: 107 James Street North. Right on bustling James Street, this is a super cute Mexican restaurant that offers amazing vegan options (like cooked cactus!).
Vegetarian food isn’t just for vegetarians: a varied diet is important whether you eat meat or not. If you’re interested, want to know the names of more restaurants or cook yummy vegetarian recipes on your own, contact the Mac Veggie Club at macveggieclub@gmail.com.
By: Miranda Babbitt
Currently slouched in my dorm’s wannabe rocking chair, I see the remnants of a KitKat bar and bag of chips while a bowl of fruit sits abandoned behind my laptop’s screen. Let’s be honest, nobody eats like a normal human being during Frosh Week. This is the essence of what every girl or boy fears when entering university. Even with the mere word, “freshman”, a certain number slyly creeps next to it, waiting on the tip of your tongue. “Fifteen, fifteen, fifteen.” As soon as I utter these two words, “Freshman Fifteen,” the eyes of adolescents nearby darken in sheer, unadulterated dread and horror.
Especially us girls do not take these apparently inevitable extra pounds lightly (pardon the pun). It often seems a pact to try and avoid it. Plastered across some of the athletic clubs posters in the booths during Mac Clubsfest was one of their most powerful incentives: “Avoid the Freshman Fifteen!” Just down my hall, one of my friends has devoted herself entirely to rowing, a sport she hasn’t ever dabbled in until she saw those words, her savior, to avoiding the terror of gaining fifteen extra pounds.
Others yet, (maybe including myself, maybe not) have adopted a sort of “YOLO” or should I say, “YOFO”, attitude towards it all. The rows upon aisles of not-exactly-the-healthiest options conveniently placed by the cashiers are a source of my quick surrender into Freshman Fifteen’s rich, salty goodness. Clever move, Centro, clever move.
However, my fellow Mac Students, I believe the Freshman Fifteen is a myth. Now you may have heard this before, and brushed it aside in favour of the worry-induced adrenaline. But it is imperative to know that honestly, you can escape it pretty easily because the Freshman Fifteen is in fact the Freshman Five.
There. Breathe. Put down those running shoes you had for the third workout of the day. Finish that bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios. Pat your wheezing friend on the back. We’re not joining the army, folks. We are not actually in a metaphorical war with our raging hormones and metabolisms in the face of our freshman year. We’re exploring the next stage of our lives where every meal hasn’t been planned and made by mummy for when you get home from school.
And how do I know this is so? Science. Studies galore. If you even type freshman fifteen into the all-knowing mother of technology known as Google, you will find “myth” and “exaggeration,” belittling those menacing words.
Despite its apparent exaggerations, I took it upon myself to scour the Internet for some tips to avoid the said Freshman Five all together. And no, it’s not going to be as mind-numbingly simple as saying, “Well, just eat a salad,” because hey, smartass, sometimes I’m going to want a burger. Maybe even a double bacon cheeseburger. You can glare at me all you want, eyes throwing daggers over that bowl of cottage cheese and celery, but I’m not going to adopt the diet of a bunny rabbit to keep off extra weight (as cute as bunnies are). Here are some reasonable, achievable tips:
To get down to the gritty, the freshman fifteen really is just psychological. The campus is not forcing food down your throat, nor is the gym glaring at you every time you walk by it. And hey, bikini season’s over. It’s sexy winter parka time.
