Opinion: Please stop burning my vegan bean burger

Every single time I have gotten the Vegan Bean Burger this semester, it has been incinerated. I ate one while writing this, and it looks like the waste you find at the bottom of one of those outside park grills. Not being able to eat meat is an incredibly common dietary restriction, and yet, it feels impossible to get a nutritious and proper meal at Grinnell College. Cold tofu, burnt burgers, soggy vegetables, dried pita bread, the list goes on and on. Even after years of complaining to Grinnell College Dining, there has been almost no improvement, and with the minimum $1,900 mandatory semester meal plan, along with the small, old kitchens in on campus housing, it is disheartening to have any dietary restriction at this school at all.

I would say that one of the best options on campus has been the Spencer Grill vegan bean burger meal replacement. I would go to the extent of calling it my rock, my stable footing on the Grinnell College campus. Unfortunately, this semester, every single time I have fought with GET Mobile and slugged over to the Spencer Grill, I have been greeted with a disappointing charred brick of a burger. This is heartbreaking to me, as I feel I have lost my only consistently okay meal option on this campus.

While the list of meal replacement vegan meals has certainly gotten longer than it was my first year, college dining seems to have forgotten that quality cannot be cast aside in the name of quantity. I genuinely cannot think of a vegan Spencer Grill meal replacement that has felt worth the cost of a meal swipe, and I still think the bean burger is the best of the small set of options.

The Dining Hall isn’t much better, as it seems most vegan options here can be explained with just cubes and cold noodles. There is a large variety of fantastic vegan versions of dishes in the year 2025. However, instead of any creativity or care, we get lukewarm tofu with the sauce of the week. The selection of good vegan meals at this college (avocado tacos, sunflower noodles and I am quite fond of the beans and rice) are so few and far between that it feels like I am only getting a meal once a week. Personally, I have become quite familiar with the delicacy that is the bagel and cream cheese.

For a school that advertises on being inclusive and welcoming, the lack of a robust vegan station feels like a massive oversight. A substantial portion of the student body voices complaints over this, and yet it feels like we are continually walking backwards with food options on this campus. I fear the fall of my beloved bean burger is only a warning bell.