Originally published in North Texas Daily
Ranked the “second-best college food in North Texas” by Niche.com, the university has offered on-campus food for students with dietary restrictions for years, but some still struggle to find adequate options.
Recent demand for more inclusive food for students’ dietary needs highlights where some feel the university can improve, specifically with calls to add halal meat options. This would provide students with meat allowed under Islamic dietary laws.
Currently, some dining halls have options for other specific dietary restrictions, including vegan and vegetarian food. Mean Greens Café has served students plant-based meals for over a decade since opening in 2011 and remains the only university dining hall in the country to do so. Located behind Maple Residence Hall, the menu is strictly vegan with no animal products.
“It’s definitely great to not have to worry,” said Kyra McNally Albers, a media arts junior and vegetarian. “At Eagle Landing or anywhere else it’s definitely more of an unsure situation.”
For students with allergies, Kitchen West, the dining hall inside West Residence Hall, serves meals free from the “Big 8” allergens — milk, eggs, fish, peanuts, shellfish, soy, tree nuts and wheat.
While not directly catering to students with food restrictions, other residence hall kitchens do have simple accommodations, such as almond milk for cereal, vegetable pizza or pasta with meatless sauce.
“A lot of those are just based on customer demand,” Senior Director of Dining Services Derrick Cripps said.
The Union overall does have limited vegan options but has been adding more, such as more non-dairy coffee creamer and labeling university food products with all ingredients and possible allergens, said Cripps.
Complaints from students still unable to find adequate dining on campus reached out to the Student Government Association, where College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences Senator Grant Johnson hopes to push university Dining Services to be better.
Johnson is one of three co-authors working on a piece of legislation titled “Food for All Students,” a proposal for the university to include specifically halal meat on campus. President of the Muslim Student Association Mustafa Syed is one of the co-authors and has attended SGA meetings with Johnson to explain the legislation to the senate.
“We originally wanted to also throw in Kosher foods,” Johnson said. “But for the time being, we want to make sure that we were addressing the immediate issue.”
The legislation addresses the university’s lack of on-campus halal options. As of March 4, the only place to find halal meat is in the Union, said Cripps.
“Krispy Krunchy Chicken is certified halal,” Cripps said. “It’s been [halal] for a while but we’ve only recently verified it because of more interest recently.”
While Syed believed the university is making progress, he said the meat has not yet been 100 percent certified halal.
“They can’t fully guarantee that one’s halal all because they do prepare it in a shared kitchen with a lot of UNT’s other dining services,” Syed said. “But I think that from what I understand is that they are working towards making that fully halal.”
The university hopes to obtain halal verification for other dining locations in response to growing requests from students, said Cripps.
“There’s some supply chain issues and some cost issues that we’ll need to figure out to be able to roll it out, now that there seems to be a driving interest to have it on campus on a regular basis,” Cripps said.
For Syed, the benefits outweigh the costs.
“Everyone here is paying tuition,” Syed said. “It doesn’t make sense that there shouldn’t be options in any of our dining halls where Muslims are not able to eat whatever they would want.”
Since non-Muslims can still eat halal meat, all dining halls should serve halal meat automatically, said Syed.
“UNT advertises that they have the second-best college food in the country,” Syed said. “If they are hoping to be the second-best, or even the best college food in the country, they should be able to provide halal meat.”