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Adjusting to a college meal plan is never easy. You leave behind your mom’s cooking, your favorite takeout place, or, if you’re an international student, perhaps your culture’s entire cuisine. If you have dietary restrictions, however, that adjustment becomes all the more complicated. 

When cramming for midterms and starving, Late Night chicken tenders won’t save students who are gluten-free or vegan. Boston College Dining should be more accommodating of students with dietary restrictions, especially freshmen or sophomores who don’t have a kitchen in which to cook their meals and are required to dish out $3,372 for the meal plan.

Across BC dining halls, the vegetarian options are few and far between. And, if you’re a Newton resident? They’re practically obsolete. The dinner options at Stuart Dining Hall, consisting of various pasta dishes, soups, and a salad bar with few options, do not constitute a hearty and balanced diet. A soup and a side salad isn’t a filling meal and certainly not for dinner every night.

If you check the online dining menu, it’ll tell you where to find vegetarian options, but these aren’t always accurate—sometimes it’ll advertise an item that’s not actually there. This is just a minor inconvenience for most students, as they’ll just pivot to another option. But for a vegetarian, they may trek for a veggie burger just to find their only option is minestrone.

Also, we have more than one dining hall on the Chestnut Hill Campus so that students can eat close to their dorms. But students with dietary restrictions might make the 15-minute hike from CLXF to Lower to escape an endless loop of soup. Over the course of a semester, those journeys can get tiring.

Some might point to the many students who opt for a gluten- or lactose-free diet, then complain about the trade-offs. But if you have celiac disease or are lactose intolerant, that choice is forced upon you, and an already stressful college experience may be worsened by BC Dining’s limited choices.

Let’s say it’s not a medical problem. God forbid, your god forbids it. If you’re a Hindu student who doesn’t eat beef, or a Muslim who doesn’t eat pork, your dining options are also unduly restricted. 

Now, if you walk into Lower on any given night, you’ll find a dozen different styles of vegetables. But you might not be able to purchase said vegetables on their own as they’re part of a pre-fixed meal. And if you are allowed to purchase individual side dishes, that won’t save you from the astronomical price at checkout, as you’ll likely be charged the cost of several full meals.

Hi, yes, braised cabbage, a breadstick, some spinach, and pasta with marinara sauce—that’d be $26.50.

Mind you, the daily budget for students on the default plan is $33.

You’ll also notice gluten-free alternatives to standard meals. Even still, many gluten-free students opt out due to potential cross-contamination. I mean, if the GF pizza shares a pizza cutter with the regular pie, then someone with celiac disease might not want to risk it. 

It’s true the gluten-free fridges exist. But they’re not perfect either. What if you don’t like enchiladas? What if you get sick of the same three meal options on rotation? What if the brownies are sold out? 

We understand that it’s not easy to make a meal plan that accommodates the preferences and restrictions of 4,800 students. But if everyone has to pay for it, everyone should be able to eat it.