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TagsBY REBECCA SHEEHAN
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
Rutgers University is getting a food makeover in its dining halls come time for the 2013-2014 school year – and we are not talking about a better and more tastier pizza.
Joining a slew of other schools, Rutgers will being serving cage-free eggs, eventhough in the long run they will end up being more costlier for the university and its students. According to the Associated Press, students will now be paying $10 to $15 more for
their meal plans, regardless of whether they eat eggs or not. So including the egg increase, students living on campus will pay between $3,686 and $4,976 for their meal plans this year.
"There are a lot of things you can do with your life to help animals — volunteering or adopting a pet from a shelter,” said Constance Li to the Star-Ledger. Li is a member of Rutgers United for the Welfare of Animals, which is a student group that helped organize the campaign. “But not too many people are working on welfare for farm animals. They are the largest population of animals currently in need of help in the U.S."
Trying to get the university to switch over to cage-free eggs was a three year struggle which began with 3,000 signatures on a petition and getting an egg question on the ballot during a student government election. Later the referendum was approved by 60 percent of voters and since originally it didn’t target the group it would mostly impact, another egg referendum went on the next ballot that only surveyed meal-plan holders. That time the question passed with 99 percent of voters with meal plans saying they were willing to pay more for cage-free eggs.
"The students involved worked diligently to document the benefits of the cage-free option and to demonstrate that their fellow students supported this choice, so we were pleased to support that plan," said Nancy Winterbauer, Rutgers’ vice president for university budgeting.
According to officials, Rutgers buys more than 1 million eggs and 150,000 pounds of liquid eggs each year and 17,800 of Rutgers’ 65,000 students live on campus. However, not all have meal plans.
