Say goodbye to Lipton cookies? NYU’s Animal Welfare Collective is petitioning for Lipton Dining Hall to become entirely plant-based. The club believes this initiative would allow NYU to both be more sustainable and accessible to students.

Stern senior and Animal Welfare Collective President Anami Nguyen said the initiative would help NYU be more inclusive of its students who are vegan, vegetarian, kosher or have other dietary restrictions.

“I think it’s really important to give a space to these students to go into a dining hall and enjoy almost everything or everything in there, just like everybody else who would walk into a dining hall,” Nguyen said. “Plant-based basically means that you substitute out all animal products, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll just be eating salads. We’re using it [Lipton] as a placeholder. I think any dining hall could go, but we think that Lipton is the most environmentally-friendly, green and, you know, kind of catering to that audience.”

Students at NYU had mixed reactions about the prospect of Lipton becoming entirely plant-based. Here are a few who shared their opinions.


“I think it’s great to have vegan/vegetarian options for people who want to follow those diets, but it’s entirely unnecessary to turn a whole dining hall vegan, because that would be severely limiting the meal options for those who are not vegan, which is a majority of people. I think it’s a change that would only benefit a very select group.” — Grace Meng, CAS freshman

“I personally don’t see the need to go entirely plant-based because Lipton is already pretty focused on providing vegetarian and vegan options, and I think that it currently has a good balance of varied options for people with different diets.” — Jenny Du, LSP freshman

“I’m a bit against it because I really enjoy their sandwiches and eggs with ham and bacon. I think that they already have a lot of options for people who are vegan and could expand the variety of what they have but shouldn’t go 100 percent plant-based.” — Nikki Glucksman, LSP freshman

“It wouldn’t really affect me, but I guess it would be good for vegetarians. They have a designated dining hall where they don’t have to worry about red meat and stuff.” — Nicole Mun, Steinhardt freshman

“I think that would be really awesome to have that option for people, and it would be interesting to see what vegetable dishes they would come up with because I personally don’t know a lot and it would be cool to try.” — Cameron Cooley, CAS freshman

“Lipton is my favorite dining hall and I’m a meat eater, so I wouldn’t like it to become vegan. I’m in favor of the idea, but I’d rather have Weinstein change their food selection.” — Alexia Salingaros, Tisch freshman

The petition presently has 781 supporters, and the Animal Welfare Committee plans to deliver the petition to NYU and Aramark, the university’s dining supplier, once it reaches 1,000 signatures.

A version of this article appeared in the Monday, Oct. 31 print edition. Additional reporting by Jemima McEvoy. Email Natasha Roy at [email protected]