With Thanksgiving around the corner, many students are preparing for turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing.
However, some students have strict dietary restrictions that limit what they can eat during the holidays. For some, it’s a simple matter of cutting out meats. For others, finding what they can and cannot eat is tricky.
Ali Biroschak, a freshman studying psychology pre-med, is severely lactose intolerant. She cannot eat anything containing dairy, which she says is sometimes hard. Milk can be found in many forms and in many foods that people wouldn’t typically expect.
“Butter, sour cream, cream cheese,” she said. “It’s snuck in a lot of stuff you wouldn’t think about.”
She said she is restricted when it comes to the desserts she can eat because most desserts contain either butter or milk, so her family goes about making special ones for her.
“My mom is really understanding about it,” Biroschak said.
Biroschak said she discovered her intolerance recently, so this Thanksgiving will be the first where her family will accommodate it. They are planning to make special dishes for her using lactose-free milk.
“They make this thing called Lactaid,” she said. “It tastes just like regular milk but without the lactose.”
Liza Boyd, a freshman studying international business, has an easier time knowing what she can and can’t eat. Boyd is a vegetarian, so she has fewer restrictions for her Thanksgiving meal.
Boyd has been a vegetarian for three and a half years, so this is not her first meat-free Thanksgiving. She said not eating meat was strange at first, but she has since then gotten used to it. The only common Thanksgiving food she can’t eat is turkey, and she said that isn’t much of a loss for her.
“We usually do some quinoa salad … or some tofu, and it’s really good,” she said. “Turkey, I don’t miss.”
Food allergies can also restrict student’s Thanksgiving dinners.
Alex Penrose, a freshman studying media arts and studies, has a severe nut allergy that he has dealt with it since he was young. He’s celebrated many nut-free Thanksgivings and is used to eating dishes not containing any nuts.
He said he can eat almost all the traditional Thanksgiving foods people enjoy.
“Mostly, normal Thanksgiving foods are fine (to eat),” Penrose said. “Really the only one that (is a problem) is pecan pie.”
Many students with dietary restrictions have adapted to celebrate the holidays with foods that accommodate to them and are still able to enjoy their holiday meals.
“It’s more of an inconvenience than anything,” Biroschak said. “I come from a super Italian family, and they make pasta no matter what holiday it is, so I’ll probably just eat some spaghetti.”
