Photo Courtesy: Grainne W. Envee

As a result of the lack of vegan options at the Handschumacher Dining Center, some Drexel University students have begun to harvest the bountiful produce of the Papadakis Integrated Sciences Building’s biowall.

Instead of eating at the Hans, dozens of vegetable-hungry students brought forks and knives to PISB to feast on the biowall’s 80-foot span of delectable plants, fungi and bacteria. Pete Abred, a chemistry junior as well as a long-term vegan, said that he dines at the biowall for the new flavor it provides.

“Since I came to Drexel, most of my diet consists of leaves I’ve plucked from all the greenery around campus, but those three shrubs and two trees are getting old. I’m fed up with the dining options here —pun not intended because I’m literally starving,” Abred said.

Health experts reported that the harvest may improve the nutrition of the community at Drexel University, as long as our community abandons all appreciation for things that taste good. For example, the bacterial growth within just a few square inches of biowall can provide more than 3000 percent of an individual’s recommended daily amount of gross and bitter food-like items.

Mike Krobial, a professor of biological sciences, is studying the biowall and the effects the harvest might have on it.

“Plants require a few primary things to survive: water, sunlight, carbon dioxide and for people not to eat them. So this could be an issue,” Krobial said.

However, there may be a few advantages of consuming the biowall. Researchers in the Drexel University School of Public Health reported that the harvest could solve a lot of our community’s problems, mainly the problem of vegans complaining about their lack of food options, which has taken a toll on the mental and emotional health of everyone in earshot. Public Safety also reported fewer acts of petty theft, with a decrease in the number of vegans stealing each other’s saltine packets and dry toast.

Rather than putting an end to this new use of the biowall, Drexel University’s President Juan Fry recognized the financially lucrative opportunities of the harvest. He recently signed a contract with GrubHub so that students can have a variety of small microbial communities delivered directly to their homes 24 hours a day. With no additional charge, vine roots and hibiscus leaves will be included in customers’ orders, but guacamole will be extra.

“I know the wall was originally built to filter and purify the indoor air, and that this new partnership with GrubHub will ultimately decrease the efficiency of that process, but what’s more important — air or profit?” Fry said.

Night-shift maintenance workers in PISB, who sometimes fertilize the biowall with bacon bits just to see what happens, concluded that they will continue to do so. They see no harm in this as long as no one tells the vegans.

Co-op positions will soon be available for engineering students interested in developing a levitating plow for sowing the wall’s crops. There will also be co-op positions available for psychology students interested in determining what the hell is going on in someone’s brain when they decide to eat a ficus.