By Taylor Gale

Note: (v) = vegan and (vg) = vegetarian items

I am currently a senior and have been vegetarian and now vegan throughout my entire career at Loyola University of Maryland. Being vegan on campus has been very difficult to navigate, but do not fret if you are vegan or vegetarian at Loyola because I have outlined all of the items that are easily accessible and veg-friendly! Cold Spring Sushi is an Asian cuisine take-out style vendor located near the Starbucks common area in the Andrew White Student center. Similarly, Taqueria is a Mexican-style food vendor located outside of the main dining halls within the student center. Loyola’s Starbucks is located between Cold Spring Sushi and Taqueria, offering a wide variety of drink and food options for all people with dietary restrictions. Our Starbucks is very popular, which at one point was the most profitable Starbucks in all of Maryland! Loyola students go to Starbucks to do their homework hyped up on a refreshing and typically caffeinated drink to get them through the extensive work ahead of them. From my experiences of asking the workers, dining management, and researching the food ingredients, the following items are available to vegetarians, but particularly vegans on campus!

Cold Spring Sushi: Open Monday- Thursday 11am-7pm, Friday 11am-4pm

Cold Spring Sushi offers a vegan appetizer—edamame. For sushi options, Cold Spring sushi offers a vegetable roll (v) and sweet potato roll (vg), which can be made vegan if you ask the servers to make a fresh sweet potato roll without the spicy mayo on top. The same can be said for their delicious vegetarian poke bowl. The poke bowl is a filling and delicious meal to have! The bowl is layered with rice, seaweed salad, carrots, lettuce, fresh edamame, ginger, wasabi, and siracha mayo, which again can be requested to leave out the mayo in order to make the dish vegan!

Taqueria: Monday-Thursday 11am-6pm, Friday 11am-3pm

Taqueria offers up a wide selection of veg options for students and faculty. You have the choice of creating a bowl, burrito or tacos. Although the pinto beans are prepared in pig fat, students have the option of choosing black beans and their vegetarian medley, which is fully vegan. They used to offer tofu, but they recently took it off of their menu. For toppings, Taqueria offers, shredded romaine lettuce, pico de gallo, salsa, sautéed peppers and onions, black bean and corn salsa, jalapeños, and avocado. For an added cost, you can order a side of: cilantro lime rice, brown rice, black beans, chips and salsa, or chips and guacamole.

Starbucks: Monday- Thursday 7:30am-9pm, Friday 7:30am-6pm, Saturday 9am-6pm, Sunday 9am-9pm

Fortunately, it is easy to make many of Starbucks drinks non-dairy! They offer traditional milk substitutes, such as almond milk, soy milk, and coconut milk. Whenever you are ordering, always specify that you do not want whipped cream, because sometimes the server will not ask and just assume that you want the whipped cream, which is not vegan. The following items are what Starbucks and its workers say are vegan.

• Non-dairy Syrups: The non-dairy syrups offered at Starbuck include, Caramel flavored syrup/ Sugar Free Caramel (NOT the dairy-based caramel drizzle), Toffee Nut syrup, mocha syrup, Vanilla/ Sugar Free Vanilla, Hazelnut /Sugar Free Hazelnut, Almond, Macadamia, and Gingerbread.

• Holiday Featured Drinks: Oftentimes, their featured holiday drinks can be easily made vegan, or at least one of the options are already vegan. My personal favorite is the Chestnut Praline Latte with coconut milk without the added whipped cream topping. Other options include, Toffee Coconut Hot Chocolate (you can make this by ordering a classic Hot Chocolate made with coconut milk with added pumps of toffee nut syrup), Holiday Spice Flat White, Cinnamon Latte, Peppermint Mocha, Apple Cider, and Gingerbread Latte.

• Refreshers: Strawberry Açai (add coconut milk to make it creamy!), Very Berry Hibiscus, Pink Drink, and Mango Dragonfruit.

• Vegan or Available as Vegan Starbucks Drinks and Coffees: Café Americano, Latte, Mocha Frappuccino, Café Misto (nix the dairy-based milk), Cappuccino, Hazelnut Latte, Green Tea Crème Frappuccino (minus the whipped cream), Green Tea Latte, Peppermint Mocha Latte, Vanilla Latte, Chocolate and Strawberry Smoothie (if you nix the regular protein powder and substitute their Almond or Cacao protein powder), Strawberries and Crème Frappuccino (no whipped cream), Teavana Iced Oprah Cinnamon Chai Tea Latte, Classic Hot Chocolate (made with mocha syrup instead of real chocolate, but again nix the whipped cream), Latte Macchiato, Caramel Frappuccino, Caramel Macchiato, London Fog Latte, Flat White, Java Chip Frappuccino (minus the Java chips).

Always make sure to add one of the vegan milk substitutes, which are listed above, but you have to specify to the server the type of milk that you would like or else these drinks will not be vegan. The rule of thumb for ordering drinks at Starbucks is always assume that the drinks need to be substituted with a non-dairy milk alternative and to specify no whipped cream.

• Vegan Foods: Classic Oatmeal (which comes with mixed fruit, mixed nuts, and brown sugar (I am not positive if their sugar is vegan so to be safe ask for the oatmeal without the brown sugar), Emmy’s coconut cookies, Hippeas snacks, Barbeque potato chips, avocado spread, sprouted grain bagel, and their plain bagel.

To learn more about other vegan and vegetarian options on Loyola’s campus, check out my fellow intern Emma’s article: https://www.vrg.org/blog/2019/03/11/vegan-foods-at-loyola-university-in-maryland/

The contents of this posting, our website, and our other publications, including Vegetarian Journal, are not intended to provide personal medical advice. Medical advice should be obtained from a qualified health professional. We often depend on product and ingredient information from company statements. It is impossible to be 100% sure about a statement, info can change, people have different views, and mistakes can be made. Please use your best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. To be sure, do further research or confirmation on your own