introduced entire cafeterias that only serve fresh vegetarian dishes
Except that humans didn't evolve to eat a vegetarian diet and it isn't healthy for us.
Except that humans didn't evolve to eat a vegetarian diet and it isn't healthy for us.
The one vegetarian cafeteria is about making the option available to those whom desire it. The food quality is also much higher.
It always amuses me to see "vegetarian" used as a Pavlovian trigger to subconsciously suggest healthfulness. In fact, vegetarian food is often just as laden with starch, sugar, and trans fats as any Wendy's bacon burger.
There's a very similar phenomenon with "organic" - it automatically suggests "healthier", when in fact the pesticides used on organic crops may be even more harmful. More corporate green-washing.
I'll give the benefit of the doubt to your Florida cafeteria until I have a chance to try it, though.
Of course it's possible to make and sell bad vegetarian food, but suggesting that it's "often" just as bad as non-vegetarian food is simply nonsense.
People become vegetarians for all kinds of reasons. I became vegetarian when I learned enough about industrial meat processing to decide that I had absolutely no interest in eating anything that came out of it.
It's much harder to fuck up a salad or a grain/rice/nut thing than it is to disguise the presence of pink slime or some other random body part slurry that most people wouldn't touch if they saw it being made.
I suggest that the ideas of salad and grain have become normalized in our culture, and have taken a sheen of healthfulness beyond their nutritional efficacy. Some greens with a little oil and vinegar: sure. But I see people buy pre-packaged salads from Trader Joe's full of fried noodles, corn, croutons and sweet creamy dressing quite commmonly, apparently under the illusion this is more healthy than meat. And any kind of refined starch (wheat, rice) plays a huge role in diabetes and other modern diseases.