It has been over eight years since I stopped eating meat, so going out of my way to find good food is nothing new. During my time studying abroad, being a vegetarian in India came easily. There was no hesitation before going out of wondering if the restaurant we were going to had vegetarian options. Coming back to the U.S., I often cannot even eat the same food as my family.

Coming back to campus is even worse.

I do not mean to make it out to be terrible. I am not going to starve to death. The Connection has meatless Mondays, which never fails to be mac and cheese with fried green beans. Grille Works has veggie burgers. Which Wich offers vegetarian sandwiches. If I have to, if all else fails, I guess I can eat a salad.

However, if I was a freshman living on campus with dietary restrictions, I can imagine that the eating would be just short of miserable. I was lucky enough to have a small kitchen in my dorm room when I was a freshman, so I had a very small meal plan and then mostly just bought my own food and ate that.

Without that kitchen, I would have found myself eating the same maybe six or seven meals (and that’s being generous) over and over again. With other restrictions, especially religiously affiliated ones, it would be nearly impossible to eat on campus.

With a population that has ever-increasing dietary restrictions, universities, including but not limited to Grand Valley State University, may want to recognize that need and provide those students with food.

If you’re gluten-free, what are you going to eat? What about religions with dietary restrictions such as kosher and halal? Or if you have a severe food allergy? Campus food is simply not conducive to that kind of lifestyle.

If you are eating on campus, you are subject to whatever the university decides is fit for you to eat. Even if the university is not too concerned about what its students are eating, they’re going to lose money by not offering options for everyone. It can even be a factor for high school students deciding which college or university to attend. I had a small meal plan my freshman year and I haven’t had one since. I only eat at my apartment and I’ll pack my lunch on campus. It is rare that I find myself eating campus food.

The same goes for many people I know, here and at other universities. We hardly ever eat on campus because of some combination of it being expensive, unhealthy and not suiting the needs of our diets. It is just not reasonable to eat there.

If the university offered a better, more diverse selection of food that people on kosher, halal, vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free and other restricted diets can eat, I have a hunch that more people would be eating on campus. Even though we are a minority, the population of students on restricted diets is growing and we still need to eat.