FLEXITARIAN? It’s a new word for me and I like it!  So what is a flexitarian?  It’s someone who follows a vegetarian diet with occasional meat/chicken/fish consumption – nicely and concisely done.  “Hi!  My name is Carla, and I’m a flexitarian!!”  I love it!  It really doesn’t make much sense to me when I run into catering guests who say they are vegetarian, but they would like to have the “fish” option.  Outwardly I smile and comply, but inwardly I rhetorically ask “Is there a plant called fish?”  Now there’s a title for us all, and it isn’t as complicated as polpescetarian. No worries if you didn’t know that term before.  We’ll leave it to the word smiths and to those who just don’t eat red meat.

Although on the top of my list, this is just one of the things I learned at the National Association of College and University Food Service (NACUFS) conference.  I participated in a forum discussion – Celebrating a Vegetarian Future: sustainable, healthy, profitable.  On the panel were three foodservice professionals from elite schools AND me.  So what was I doing there? The outlier?  The caterer?  On college campuses or not, there is a growing number of vegetarians, vegans and flexitarians.  Gone are the days when you could give a vegetarian a plate of sides and expect them to be happy AND healthy.  Today I relish in the idea of producing memorable vegetarian dishes that a non-vegetarian would drool over.   Does it take more thought?  I think so, especially if the dish is vegan.

As our world gets smaller with the help of the internet and as what-used-to-be-exotic ingredients become readily available,  the vegetarian’s expectation rises – and rightfully so.  My panel colleagues and I are equally invested in producing exciting vegetarian options by cribbing from world cuisine, but we’re also interested in the meals being balanced and nutritious.  Some common staple ingredients used are beans, lentils, tempeh, tofu, seitan, and mushrooms.  Additionally, we discussed the benefits of using seasonal, local and sustainable produce.  Yes, these are all the politically correct buzz words, but the fact is IT ALL MAKES SENSE.  Produce picked when it’s ripe is more nutritious, and travelling a shorter distance to its destination uses less fuel.  Admittedly, I was a little jealous of my West coast panel colleagues talking about the abundant variety available to them most of the year.  I hear you.  It’s easier to eat seasonally and locally when you have beautiful weather 80% of the year, right?  Those of us on the East coast have the pleasure of pushing root vegetables and bitter greens in late Fall/Winter.   Thankfully, many of the mushrooms are cultivated inside, and I love beets.  …and potatoes!

Pound for pound, vegetables cost less than most meat/fish proteins.   That being said, however, all of us on the panel agreed that a vegetarian diet isn’t necessarily less expensive than a non-vegetarian diet.  Budgeting is required all the same by using less costly items, such as button mushrooms, with fewer  expensive and exotic mushrooms.  What my catering company may save in ingredients, we make up for in labor.  We work long and hard to transform everyday veggies into something special and memorable.  It is also true that many of the vegetarian proteins do not come in bulk, so imagine opening small packages of tempeh, or the like, for thousands of students or a catering job for a few hundred.  Not fun, but definitely worth it in the end.

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