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...

@TheHappyHerbivore I can afford my food, always have done so you won’t see me at the food bank but if I ever did go to one I’d be happy to get any items Aslong as they were edible because beggars can’t be choosers 🤷🏼‍♀️

I buy supermarket own brand stuff for basics (tinned tomatoes, beans, pulses, pasta, all that kind of thing). It makes money stretch further.
I find it very hard to believe that anyone in a tight budget only ever buys premium brands. Unless they have very good reason to.

I can afford my food, always have done

And I hope you truly understand what a privilege that is.

The person who sent out the request probably has no idea what's in a vegan diet and might have just have asked the family what they usually have. Lots of people have gone from a good income to a very low income recently. There probably wasn't any cheeky intention, it's probably just what they usually eat.

It's just a request and if you don't want to help out then don't. I'm sure others will see the request and be willing to donate.

@SchadenfreudePersonified

I'm a vegan and Oatly Barista is my preferred brand of milk alternative.

It's delicious!

I've tried this and I loved it.

Really?

I thought they were all pretty awful. DH has cancer and was on a dairy free diet prior to treatment. We tried loads but couldn’t find 1 that resembled milk enough to bother

At the start of lockdown they went to a family with a child with allergies who requested them via next door as the shops were sold out and I can honestly say I hope I never have to drink them again

But you can make them yourself easily and they were probably the best.

You’re being v unreasonable
People with specific religious diets attend food bank. As do vegans
And it’s fair enough to accommodate those established dietary requirements

You lost the fighting foot on the tuna.
But you are right to say that economics of the donors affects the donations and they'll have to access that.

If a child has been brought up on Oatly Barista milk then either they go without or compromises are made. Just like when the adults of the family are buying the food and others aren't footing the bill.

I just looked it up, Oatly Barista is £1.80 per litre. Semi skimmed is 48p per litre. Alpro is £1 per litre.

I think someone needing a food bank should be able to have food they like. But within reason. Just like when I do my own shop and don't buy fillet steak to suit myself and leave the rest of my family eating beans on toast.

This kind of reminds me of a story about the apprentices in London in the 1500s, writing a collective letter to complain that they were fed up of being given salmon to eat.
Poor people are allowed preferences. Though I’d have thought that being vegan is pretty cheap compared to buying meat and dairy.

Damned if I'm donating high cost brands to the food bank when I dont buy them for my own family.

That's my thinking too. As has been said, they may just have given Oatly as a universally-available example of the kind of thing they require (i.e. look for Oatly in Asda and then buy the Asda own-brand alternative on the shelf below it), but they are BVU if they said it has to be a premium brand.

'Beggars can't be choosers' is a bit of a harsh way of putting it, but it's not unfair to say that you do have to cut your cloth according to your means. We're lucky enough not to need a food bank right now, but that doesn't mean we can afford to load our trolley with top expensive brands - if somebody buying their own has to make budgetary compromises, why is it unreasonable to ask food bank users to do the same?

There's nothing whatsoever wrong with a vegan family asking for vegan-appropriate foods, but that will include tins of Aldi beans and Savers Pasta and stuff like that - just like many families up and down the country buy every week.

It doesn't mean they'd have the right to ask for their favourite luxury vegan food, any more than a meat-eating food bank user would be justified in asking for/expecting Donald Russell sirloin steak (or probably any steak, to be honest).

Food bank resources are finite, so it makes much more sense to supply more families in need with good, standard nutritious staples rather than giving fewer families luxuries and expensive brands.

As an aside I used to help out at my local food bank. They stressed that it was far better to buy basic brands and get more of it. They would much rather receive three tins of Tesco brand beans than one Heinz. There is a lot of good intent from donors saying that they want to donate what they themselves would like to eat but, and I mean this kindly, I don’t think many of those donors have been on the breadline the way people using food banks are. The message I got from the managers was that bluntly, people needed food and as much of it as possible, the clients were grateful for what they got and a lot would never have had premium brands and were highly unlikely to have preferences. Most donors in supermarkets have an approximate amount they will spend so please buy as much with it as you can and don’t feel like you’re being unkind not to buy the best brands. Far better to help more people than ‘treat’ one person to high end brands!

some of the responses on here make me feel saddened. I truly hope some of you never find yourselves in hard times, the snobbery and down looking is unbelievable.

@Potterpotterpotter you need to be taught some basic humanity asap

@TheHappyHerbivore it’s pretty standard to buy your own food. Hardly a privilege.

@LondonUnited to say compromising veganism is comparable to that time you ate some food that wasn’t really ‘to your taste’ is a bit hard of thinking. It’s not the same thing.

Basically, if you don’t agree with what the food bank is asking for - donate somewhere else. There are loads of charities that I don’t support because I agree with the mission statement of other charities more. Or, if your food bank accepts it - give cash. Unless you volunteer or work in a food bank you are unlikely to know better than the people who actually do work there what is appropriate for their user base.

I wish it were ethical... But I cannot regale you with tales of The Lockdown Food Bank.

But the parable of the zero hours mother and the redundant from an advertising agency mother would make you cry with anger as well as sorrow!

I'll just say one came back with her kids who had made us a card.

The other came back with her husband to ask if we had anything more suitable!

But lockdown has made everything weird!

WTF

Really?

I thought they were all pretty awful.

Yes - I thought it was lovely (got a free sample of a litre a while back). I was also given some almond milk and that was delicious, too.

Savers Pasta

Just thinking about that, actually - does all pasta include egg? If so, substitute 'rice' for that example.

I agree with you OP, I thought food banks were a true last resort. To request specific brands seems unreasonable to me.

A lot of people use the big brand names when referring to products but actually buy own brand.
Just because someone says products like Weetabix, Rice Crispies, Tampax, Calpol, etc doesn't mean they actually care what brand it is. It's often just names that have become common words for products regardless of the brand (Hoover for vacuum cleaner, Biro for plastic pen, Lego for any brand of brick).

It's a difficult one.

I agree RE branded products but it is likely that the foodbank themselves just suggested brands people would recognize the name of rather than the family actually being picky.

I am coeliac (slightly different as it is essentially an allergy) and I wouldn't take regular bread or pasta. However as GF bread and pasta is so much more expensive I don't think I'd expect them at all and would take rice and potatoes as an alternative carbohydrate.

So no, this family shouldn't have to compromise their beliefs (although I disagree with imposing your own dietary beliefs on your children but that an aside) however they can't expect like for like (vegan sausages to mean sausages, akin to GF pasta to regular pasta). They should be provided with vegan food, because that isn't too hard to do, but just can't expect perfect alternatives to what the non vegans would eat.

The food bank is probably just using a popular brand as an easy guide for people who might not be overly familiar with oat milk.

A vegan diet is cheaper anyway. Perhaps if 'beggars can't be choosers' then food banks shouldn't give out any meat products? Don't even think about donating cereal that costs more than porridge oats or any tin that isn't value brand, just encouraging damn choosiness. In fact milk is a luxury - noone needs tea and oats can be made with water! And why give them toiletries? Just go out in the rain and stop bothering those poor people having to splash out an extra 50p on your luxury oat milk lifestyle.

I luckily haven’t had to use a food bank
DP did a while ago and whilst he was very grateful for what he got n re donated what he couldn’t use I did notice I couldn’t have eaten much of it!
I’m gluten free with other allergies and eat very little tinned or processed food and understandably there was less fresh stuff in the food parcel

On a very blunt scale, if you're starving then yes your principles or religious beliefs about food go out the window (or at least mine would). I personally wouldn't kill myself or my children rather than eat certain foods.

And on the other hand, if you are giving to a food bank but aren't well off yourself, this sort of thing can feel like "what you're donating isn't good enough" - even though that's not how it's intended - and can very much lead to an attitude of "Well suit yourself then".

However, in this country we (the population we, not an individual we) have the choice and the means to afford to accommodate differing diets.

@Purpleice

This kind of reminds me of a story about the apprentices in London in the 1500s, writing a collective letter to complain that they were fed up of being given salmon to eat. Poor people are allowed preferences. Though I’d have thought that being vegan is pretty cheap compared to buying meat and dairy.

At one time prisoners in London jails were fed on lobsters, because they were so ugly they were cheap to buy. (The wealthy had not then tasted their delicious* flesh)

*So I am assured by those who eat them. I don't eat anything you cook alive.