To think if you rely on a food bank you may need to compromise your vegan principles?

[LondonUnited]

I’m a supporter of our local food bank and am on their mailing list. I received an email earlier to say that they were supporting a vegan family and were therefore asking for specific food donations, including Oatly oat milk, various nuts and seeds, specific types of beans, etc etc.

I may get flamed for this but I couldn’t help thinking that - allergies aside (and I have a milk allergic child so I do get it) - if you need a food bank to feed your family, you might need to compromise on diet slightly? For a start, Oatly Barista is lovely and all that, but Aldi or Asda oat milk is also ok and half the price. And that the odd bit of tinned fish may be easier to access from a food bank than Brazil nuts and chia seeds...

I don't think there's anything wrong with the food bank putting out a drive for vegan food like this. People can choose whether to donate said vegan items, after all.

If the vegan person started complaining and criticising that the FB did not have enough vegan items, that would be a bit shit. However, there is no suggestion that this is the case.

Of course there are simple ways to give money to food bank... I stood in supermarket shaking donation pots for food bank (Xmas time). You can easily donate online.

tbh, that was only time I volunteered for FBk bec I hate that kind of fund raising. But I still donate £100 most years. I never chip in stuff to the basket. Too much headache to remember at each shop or look up what they want/need.

The list also included Shreddies and Weetabix, rather than own brand alternatives

Because those names are used to cover all non-brand alternatives. No one would list whatever the Sainsbury name fir Weetabux is, and if they did, no one would know what they meant. I say this with non brand Weetabix in my own cupboard!

But the fortified thing is important: lots of cheap own brand cereals are not fortified.

OP, you are doing a good thing by donating to the food bank, but you almost undo the gesture with your appalling attitude.

Expecting vegans to shovel tinned fish into them is breathtakingly ignorant. I'm not vegan myself, but I can't imagine I would suddenly be happy to eat mashed up dead animal just because I had fallen on hard times. Or are you one of those people who think fish as a species are closer to vegetables than cows or pigs?

I think the branded items are listed that way because everyone knows what Weetabix is and that very likely applies to the Oatly milk too, so I'm fairly sure the vegan family will bow their heads and perform their grovelling curtseys in the expected way, even if they, horror of horrors, are presented with Sainsbury's oat milk and Asda Wheat Briquettes or whatever the heck they're called.

Well no wonder they are poor if they have been buying expensive brands for say the last ten years.

Oatly is more expensive than dairy. Meat ( even tinned stew) is more expensive than chickpeas. I really can't see why vegans should be begrudged a little oat milk as a when their meals for the week overall will be so much cheaper. I'm basing this on standard FoodBank stock: tinned food, dried noodles and pasta etc. Based on the trussel emergency bag they'll just swap out the meat and fish for more pulses. No wonder they're asking for some particular vegan bits to dress it up a bit. I can't believe there are people on here who would begrudge someone that!

Give over - you know fine well its a just saying, figure of speech, when someone looks down their nose on something that is being offered for free!

The only people looking down their noses are those posters calling people who rely on food banks ‘beggars’ and deciding they don’t have a right to moral beliefs because they’re poor.

how does veganism work with a food bank in terms of how do they get enough nutrients and vitamins? Do the foodbank ask for donations of vitamins as well and how do they make sure its a balanced diet?

Food banks tend to provide food for three days in an emergency, rather than long term support, so it’s unlikely that a short period of time like that would require nutritional supplements; vitamin deficiencies generally take a long time to develop. But it’s worth noting that Oatly is fortified with B12 and iron, and this may be a reason why it has specifically been requested. I don’t know if that’s the case, however; other brands may have the same fortifications and therefore offer the same nutritional profile.

OP, you are doing a good thing by donating to the food bank, but you almost undo the gesture with your appalling attitude

Almost? Assuming the OP actually donates then starting threads bashiing foodbanks will outweigh the odd noname tin of bins by a country mile.

Every time these memes/stories go round our local foodbanks see drops in contributions.

Well no wonder they are poor if they have been buying expensive brands for say the last ten years.

Bloody hell everyone, @Fairyliz has cracked it. The Trussel Trust have it all wrong - food poverty is nothing to do with low wages, zero hour contracts or benefits fuck ups. It’s just all those stupid poor people frittering away their plentiful wealth on expensive brand names and leaving themselves destitute.

Well done for this pioneering research.

Not to mention of course that if you really want to make foodbanks redundant then campaign for work to pay a living income - the families dependent on foodbanks are "hardworking families" by and large.

Oatly milk isn’t a dietary preference it is a Brand name item, lots of cheaper varieties available

I agree. Dietary preference is one thing and thats fine, but Oatly barista milk is the rolls royce of non dairy milks. Its the most expensive and luxurious. I know because I just switched to it and was shocked at the price. I wouldnt expect people getting food bank food to be requesting caviar, quails eggs and foil gras, so why is this any different?

I was going to say yanbu but then I read what other people have said I agree with them

However I think they should compromise and agree to have supermarket own brand vegan products instead of branded vegan products

The whole concept of veganism smacks of first world privilege to me.

Not really @Thecobwebsarewinning. Indian Jains are strictly vegan. And religion has been around for three thousand years.

And their religion.

@Thecobwebsarewinning

According to 2019 data, Greece is the leading vegan country, followed by India, China, Italy, Malaysia, and Turkey. You might want to reevaluate your assumptions.

The whole concept of veganism smacks of first world privilege to me.

Calling a country where 1.6 million people used a food bank last year first world is a bit of a stretch.

Btw, I think it’s a total nonissue. Don’t/can’t help this vegan family going through tough times? - fine. Just Move on. I expect the brand name was just off the top of the head.

@Fairyliz

Well no wonder they are poor if they have been buying expensive brands for say the last ten years.

Is that you Boris?

And obviously having that oaty coffee at costa on the way to work is also why they can only rent.

The whole concept of veganism smacks of first world privilege to me.

Veganism is for many the belief that Westerners need to wind necks in regarding consumption, as they consume several times per head more animal products than people in Asia or Africa, creating epic amounts of greenhouse gas which is slowly but surely making our planet unloveable. Livestock farming is responsible for almost the same emissions as the entirety of global transport.
That’s before you get onto the animal cruelty. If you treated dogs the way we treat other equally intelligent mammals in farming - cows, pigs - you’d get locked up.

I stand corrected and will do more research.

However @monkeyonthetable, my understanding of Jainism is that they are not vegan as we understand it in the West. Their rules are much more complicated than that - for instance they eat dairy but not potatoes or onions because milk is considered less potentially damaging to animal life than root veg.

Oatly is fortified with B12 and iron, and this may be a reason why it has specifically been requested. I don’t know if that’s the case, however; other brands may have the same fortifications and therefore offer the same nutritional profile

ALL other non dairy milks are fortified too. I checked before I switched. So you do not need the absolute most expensive barista brand to get your vitamins.

unliveable ^
I’m not even vegan btw. But it amuses me the mental gymnastics people go through in criticizing vegans. Intense animal cruelty, massive earth threatening greenhouse gas production from intensive livestock farming, animal originated viruses, known cause of cancer and particularly heart disease one of the biggest killers in the world? ... no YOU are the bad guy Mr/Mrs Vegan!

Foodbanks would rather have 10 tins of Asda baked Beans than 3 of Heinz. In my experience they dont ask for Weetabix theh for breakfast cereal. I think they should do the same here - just ask for oat milk, tinned pulses, fish etc. They tend to get this stuff anyway. I do think its a slipery slope if tbey start trying to meet all individual dietary needs. I would keep it generic - normal ir vegetarian. They do allow people to swap stuff out. The foodbank is not providing the whole food req so indvidual specific neds should be met by the person/family themselves.

@Potterpotterpotter

Have you inadvertently escaped from the pages of a Dickens novel

Nope but beggars can’t be choosers. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I really hope you don't think families that rely on food banks are 'beggars'. Fucks sake.

@Thecobwebsarewinning

The whole concept of veganism smacks of first world privilege to me.

Well, that’s just wrong. Meat is costly, both environmentally and at the point of sale. Raising cattle is costly, environmentally, financially and use of land. Dairy milk might be cheaper at point of sale than oat milk, but is that due to being heavily subsidised by the government? spoiler alert. It is Also many vegans make their own oat milk.

It costs the economy to make dairy the cheapest option at point of sale. Being able to subsidise the dairy industry in this way is most definitely a first world privilege.