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...

15 pages!

@Climbingallthetrees

Oats without milk is gruel. Fuck off advocating a return to Oliver Twist.

No, it's porridge. Proper porridge is oats, water, and a little salt.

God those poor people having a preference on carton of oatmilk how very dare they want a nice milk! Supporting food banks on your terms is not only showing how superior you think you are but its bloody condescending!

And you can pick out what, 4 or 5 people with more experience trying to explain what really happens.. and I don't hink one of us has had a drict repsonse... though the arguments about which oat milk, making it yourself, milk and fresh meat being needed at food banks continues!

What was that other thread, MN is resolutely middle class, NM much more working class? I think this thread would bear that out!

Supporting food banks on your terms is not only showing how superior you think you are but its bloody condescending!

Well not really, people can donate however they wish. It's not that unreasonable to donate generic oat milks instead of one that costs nearly double some places.

One of our local foodbank explicitly asked for branded products only, which led to very few donations, and a lot of bad blood.
If there is a reasonable brand preference (ASD, ingredients etc), they should flag the reason, and people will be happy to help. Just demanding a product that costs double the price isn’t going to do any good to anybody. (ours was quite aggressive, going into supermarkets and actively asked shoppers to buy overpriced brands). They website is gone, so they probably didn’t get enough donations...

Supporting food banks on your terms is not only showing how superior you think you are but its bloody condescending

Is it? or is it about expense and personal budget? Lots of people have been financially affected by covid. I'm not going to call them names and denigrate them because they cannot afford to donate top of the range oat milk to their local food bank. The fact they are donating at all makes them more selfless than a large percentage of the population who dont do anything at all.

I presume you regularly donate luxury food items to food banks then?

Xenia, your comment is shocking.
My preteen ds still drink a lot of non dairy milk. With his severe allergies and very restricted diet, it is very important part of his diet. Assume the same for vegan people. You can't just drop milk and drink water instead.

Yabu. Don't help out the food bank problem solved. Tut tut.
I help out when I can.
Are you against selection box requests at Christmas too? Maybe a piece of coal would help them more.

Asking for a specific (pricey) brand of oat milk sounds like a satire skit 😂 I’m lactose intolerant so don’t do dairy milk either but I go for the cheaper brands.. And if I was asking for someone to bu me stuff I certainly wouldn’t be specifying any brands!!!

One of our local foodbank explicitly asked for branded products only, which led to very few donations, and a lot of bad blood. Was that a Covid response one? We had one set up near us, they wanted to 'do it better' and were very disparaging about our cut price offerings, perceived shabbiness.

They lasted about a fortnight, we've been here for a very, very long time, started as a church based Christmas Cheer charity in the 70s and became a permanent community fixture in the 90s.

They did help quite a few people in their short time and raised awareness of need in the community. So, whilst I was gobsmacked at their lack of understanding and their rudeness, I can see they did some good, even if unintentionally! And they did raise enough money for the local youth kitchen to be refurbed!!

Of course it is condescending, if you can't afford the suggested food bank request for no dairy milk don't donate it donate something else and move on. Don't tut post on the Internet that people down on their luck should be grateful for lidls own and as for the tinned fish nonsense

@Mrsjayy

You didnt answer the query- do you regularly donate luxury food items to food banks? Because if you dont donate, you have some fcking nerve criticising someone who actually does! Your perceived moral superiority wont feed someone will it? but OP's donation (of albeit a non-luxury oat milk) will......

Yes i donate luxury items to food banks and elsewhere if I couldn't afford the requested oatmilk on the list I would choose something else, maybe the food bank support worker asked for a preference. I don't think I deserved sworn at kinda showing your self there Alexis but you keep donating your Aldi lentils and think well at least they won't starve,!

@AlexisCarringtonColbyDexter if you have a 1 year old with a dairy intolerance the dietician will advise you to use oatly barista over the other oat milks due to it having the highest fat content. It’s not as high in fat as full fat milk but better than the lower fat alternatives. My son used to get through the best part of a carton a day.

And to whoever claimed any milk needed is available on prescription, that’s not true once they hit one.

@TheHappyHerbivore I really want you to be the next Prime Minister.

@LondonUnited and @Potterpotterpotter - basic economics training and a huge injection of empathy for you two. Meat-based products far out-price every other food apart from alcohol. People in dire circumstances not of their doing should never be subject to the beggars can't be choosers brigade. Plenty of sound and reasonable explanations as to why a specific oat milk might be necessary. And it's still cheaper than meat. The irony.

On the fence here... Oatly Barista is the Oat Milk that is generally recommended for dairy free kids (Soya questionable for boys) once they move on from dairy free formula.

However it is about £1.80 (often £1.90) and basic Oatly is about £1.50 so it's much more expensive than other ambient stored milks.

Like many have said it is a request not a demand

True, but it causes a lot of bad feeling amongst those who might be wanting to give what they can, but are left feeling that what they can afford to give is not good enough. It is liable to backfire and then harm the whole operation of the FB for all families - as mentioned by the PP with the local FB only wanting top branded items.

FreeCycle removes posts from dreamers/CFs as soon as they're reported. If a poster says "Does anybody happen to have an old laptop they no longer need - don't care how old, how battered or what OS as long as it just about works, anything greatly appreciated", that's fine; but it's the entitled "My DD needs a new MacBook Air - it's for her school course, so no more than one year old and still in warranty".

'Beggars' is an emotive word, but the meaning behind it is simple and neutral enough: people who need/want something that they can't afford asking wealthier/more privileged people to give it to them. Nobody would deny that homeless folk sleeping in shop doorways and asking passers-by for spare change are begging - does the fact that they're even further down on their luck mean that they fully deserve what is alleged to be a nasty term, whereas for those slightly further up the ladder of need, it's grossly offensive? You can change it to "Those in need and seeking basic assistance can't be fussy about what they acept", but it still boils down to the same thing.

Of course, dietary requirements need to be respected, but if you can't afford to pay even for someting basic, you can't expect to get something premium - that's exactly the same for all shoppers buying for their own families. If I don't have enough money to buy luxury brands for my own family, what makes anybody think that I should nevertheless buy those same dear items (and cut back on my own family shopping) in order to give them away to strangers?

Are you for real?how do you know anything about this family yet you are judging them?
They have their own reasons for not eating animal derived products it is not for you to question this.
Buy the cheaper alternatives,I'm sure they will be very grateful to you.
Do you need a hand down or are you happy up there in your righteous pedestal?

They can absolutely request vegan options, but there shouldnt be a requests for branded items.

But this has been 1 request for 1 vegan family if you don't want to donate the superior oat milk somebody else will. I can't imagine they asked for the better milk for the fun of it and anyway poverty sucks s a nice thing thing makes a shitty day that tiny bit better,

Supporting food banks on your terms is not only showing how superior you think you are but its bloody condescending

I don't disagree, but the people running the food banks are "bloody condescending" too. There was a right to-do in my local Facebook group two or three years ago because they banned sugar and said poor people didn't need it in their tea. And then they banned chocolate advent calendars, too. They backed down on the latter but I don't know what happened about the sugar.

If you can't have sugar because you are poor, it follows that you can't have expensive non-dairy milks either.

they banned sugar and said poor people didn't need it in their tea

I wish I didn’t believe this.

Good grief. I don’t take sugar in my tea but I’d happily donate it so that someone on their uppers could at least have a nice cup of tea the way they like it. (It’s not even pricey anyway.)

But I suspect it’s not the money that concern them, and more that they want people to suffer.

Asking for a specific (pricey) brand of oat milk sounds like a satire skit

Oatly is the only one that tastes nice though (and even that has a bit of a greasy aftertaste).

I wish I didn’t believe this

I am glad that you do believe me, I am really not making it up. I was shocked.

Though I see that someone has posted a couple of pages back that they do include sugar in their food bank "care packets".