Non-vegetarian yogurt shocks pupils

Aditya Udaygiri ’26 employed to try to eat yogurt with just about each food in Stanford’s dining hall. Like clockwork, he would fill a bowl with yogurt – ideally strawberry flavored – and prime it with granola. 

Then a person working day, he observed the orange V label, which suggests that the foods product is vegetarian, was lacking. As an individual who follows a vegetarian food plan for moral motives, Udaygiri remembers remaining a “little disappointed” when he discovered this change, marking the stop of his every day yogurt program. 

In dining halls across campus, the entire-fat, non-excess fat and Greek yogurt alternatives all keep the vegetarian label. Nonetheless, the recent very low-body fat solutions, including the vanilla, peach and strawberry flavors, all include Kosher gelatin, which is normally built from fish bones or bovine hides. Frequently, in particular at more compact dining halls, only one particular sort of yogurt is offered at a time.

According to Jocelyn Breeland, Resident and Eating Enterprises (R&DE) spokesperson, post-pandemic offer chain challenges have continued to influence the availability of vegetarian yogurt. “Some vendors are unable to supply the portions we need to have. Others involve even larger sized orders that exceed what we can serve or retail outlet,” she wrote.

Caeley Woo ’26 wrote that she didn’t know that the small-unwanted fat yogurt wasn’t vegetarian until chatting with The Daily. Although the non-vegetarian yogurt has been labeled appropriately, many pupils assume that yogurt is a vegetarian solution.

Woo wrote that, while she’s not vegetarian, she attempts to try to eat pescatarian and mastering that the lower-fat yogurt options weren’t vegetarian was “a very little unfortunate.” 

Though distinct diet details further than component lists are not obtainable for most Stanford Eating alternatives, yogurt ordinarily is made up of a significant total of protein, averaging 9 to 20 grams of protein for every cup depending on type and brand. Considering that vegetarians do not take in meat or fish, yogurt is generally noticed as a practical, better-protein alternate. 

For Udaygiri, the thwarted expectation that yogurt would be a consistently vegetarian alternative was equally saddening. 

“When you already have a restrictive food plan and you go into a eating hall and you just cannot take in the items you predicted to eat, it’s just a little unhappy,” he stated. “I just want there were much more options for me.” 

Even college students who rarely touch the yogurt are let down, like Sofia Vera Verduzco ’25, who attempts to keep away from dairy as a self-proclaimed “aspiring vegan.” 

“I was rather stunned,” she wrote, “It just would seem pointless to place gelatin in yogurt.” 

Though vegetarian and vegan pupils like Verduzco have recognized improvement in the eating hall’s plant-centered alternatives around the past couple decades, qualms regarding constrained possibilities stay. 

Verduzco writes that there are some foods when she feels “beans and hot vegetables” are her only possibilities. Although most eating halls are inclined to provide at minimum one particular plant-based protein solution for each meal, absence of choice can deter potential plant-based eaters. “It’s especially challenging for persons who are wanting to make the transition to [becoming] vegetarian or vegan to see that the tastefulness and top quality of vegetarian/vegan alternatives are so substantially worse than animal-dependent alternatives,” she wrote.

Breeland wrote that Stanford Eating is “working to identify suppliers who can make [vegetarian yogurt] available, yet again, in the eating halls.” 

For now, on the other hand, pupils subsequent a vegetarian diet program will have to skip the minimal-excess fat yogurt.