Between classes, jobs and nights at the bar, finding the time to grab something other than a burger and fries is a luxury for most college students. To help improve students’ diets, a new vegan cooking workshop on campus attempts to teach students how to cook healthful and easy meals for themselves.

The workshop, held on Mondays from 7 to 9 p.m. through Dec. 1 in meeting room 1 at the Recreational and Physical Activity Center, teaches students how to prepare vegan cuisine.

All students are invited to take part in prepping and preparing the food in order to give them hands-on experience. Once the meal is complete, everyone can grab a plate and share in the meal together.

Veganism is both a lifestyle and diet in which the person chooses to avoid eating or using animal products, according to www.vegan.org. This includes meat, dairy products and eggs.

Cutting out these food groups from a diet can be difficult, but with instruction it can be achieved.

“Getting training on how to incorporate a balanced meal into your daily life … is important,” said cooking class facilitator Theresa Colson. “It’s really easy to neglect yourself from a health standpoint, so being a vegetarian or vegan just means you have to do a little additional planning.”

Colson said that with extra planning and effort, even college students can enjoy the advantages of veganism.

“It’s the kind of thing where you spend the weekend cooking a few large meals and reserve them to have a little bit each day,” Colson said. “It’s nice to have fast vegetarian food at your fingertips. You know it’s healthy because you made it, and you know what went into it.”

While some people choose a vegan lifestyle to protest animal cruelty or for spiritual or environmental reasons, it also has several health benefits.

Well-planned vegetarian and vegan diets, often with the use of nutrition-enriched foods or supplements, are associated with reduced risks of heart disease, colon and lung cancer, osteoporosis, diabetes, kidney disease, hypertension and obesity, according to the American Dietetic Association.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, ‘you are what you eat,'” Colson said. “When you’re a vegan or vegetarian, you are what you don’t eat. When you simplify what you put in your body, your body spends less time on digestion and elimination. That leaves more energy storage for you as a person to thrive.”

Like most lifestyles, veganism has its stereotypes.

“You’re so frequently stereotyped as a hippie, tree-hugger or drop-out,” Colson said. “There’s a difference between being a hippie and being environmentally responsible. This is a proactive, educational, environmentally-friendly organization that is trying to educate people on what they are really doing on a daily basis to contribute to the demise of this planet and their bodies.”

For students living on campus, being a vegan can seem impossible due to the lack of vegan-friendly foods at the dining halls, but there are alternatives.

“I like to get the tofu stir-fry at Market Place or a baked potato and broccoli at Buckeye Express,” said Angelica Sales, a junior in molecular genetics. “Salads are always an option too, you just have to get creative on campus.”

There are also many grocery stores and restaurants that cater to the veggie pallet within miles of campus.

Near the Short North is the North Market, the Greek restaurant Zetas and the farmers market, which runs from May through October on Saturdays, and offers deals on produce, Colson said. Other options include Dragonfly, off of King Avenue in the south campus area, as well as Café Bella, Aladdin’s and Crestview Market located in the north campus area.

For any college student on a tight budget, Colson also offers some advice on when to get the best deals at the grocery stores.

“If you shop on Tuesdays, that’s when grocery stores mark down their produce because they’ve got to move what they didn’t sell on the weekend,” Colson said. “Another way is to go to small mom and pop stores and ask if they have a bin of things that they are about to throw away.”

With busy schedules, eating well can be difficult, but learning how to prepare meals that are good for the body can make it easier.

“[Veganism] is physically rewarding, emotionally rewarding and spiritually rewarding all at the same time,” Colson said.

Megan Laney can be reached at [email protected]