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...

OP, you're awful. Just awful.

I wouldn’t donate halal. I do not agree with animals being slaughtered with no stunning first. If you are going to slit an animals throat then a prayer (or most likely not) is not going to help.
Otherwise, yes you can be vegan cheaply. If they are being that fussy over brand names then no, sorry.
I have to often go for non brands, and my family are surviving...

I have a family member with PKU. She is also quite poor and has used foodbanks before. PKU means you must adhere to a strict vegan diet. Not complying leaves her at risk of brain damage.

It's not always a choice. And even if it is, morals are not only for the rich.

I agree @Skyr2. Some comments on here are making me despair for the country we have become. All of us, yes even you @Potterpotterpotter are only a couple of missed pay checks away from being in need. I admit i rarely donate to the foodbanks but i make sure that i have a little stockpile of long- lasting food that would tide me and my family over if we ever needed it and that would, hopefully prevent us from ever needing to visit a foodbank.

I volunteer at a Foodbank and if we have a need for specific dietary items (gluten-free, vegan etc) we tend to buy them ourselves. This is simply because any specialist donated items may well go out of date before we can use them. I have yet to come across a client asking for specific brands of anything - they are usually so incredibly grateful for the help they receive.
Many people are only a pay check away from needing to use a Foodbank through no fault of their own. Some posters here could do with remembering that and perhaps being a little more kind.

Ime a lot of people who donate aren’t exactly living it up themselves (well not in my area). So asking for higher end goods that people wouldn’t buy for themselves is quite galling.

When I used to volunteer this was very much the case, most people who donated were living on shoestring themselves. I worked in a supermarket around the same time and many items that were dropped into the box were duplicates of something they were buying for themselves, ie grabbed 2 tins of unbranded beans and donated one, or 2 tins of branded beans and donated one- rather than buying a pricey one for themselves and a cheap one for the food bank (although no harm in that anyway). I don't volunteer anymore but I donate, quite often they are pretty desperate for stuff, so I do buy the cheaper stuff in order to be able to give them more and benefit more families. If that wasn't the case I'd happily buy specific stuff but spend the same amount overall.

I don't know what makes you think stunning an animal before slaughter is any more humane than halal or kosher.

We already eat halal but don't know it.

Even if the milk is more expensive, tins of pulses are way cheaper than tims of meat or fish, so the vegan family is likely to be less expensive to the food bank.

Perhaps food banks should become exclusively vegan?

@EdithWeston

Even if the milk is more expensive, tins of pulses are way cheaper than tims of meat or fish, so the vegan family is likely to be less expensive to the food bank.

Perhaps food banks should become exclusively vegan?

At the project I support many people don’t have Anything other than basic microwave cooking facilities.

Oh yes heaven forbid the poor people have principles! Next they’ll be wanting NICE things. They should be grateful for the scraps you toss them of course

So you believe children shouldn't follow their parents dietary choices?

So only eat halal / kosher / vegetarian at home then choose whatever or allow (younger non verbal children) to be served food that opposes their parents belief?

Not once they have the capacity to choose for themselves, no. My friend at 9 years old should've been allowed to choose the bloody sausages she wanted to eat rather than have her parents impose their dietary choices on her whilst she was in school and it had nothing to do with them. Young, non verbal children is trickier as they don't have the capacity to make a choice in the same way. However, once a child is old enough to choose their own food in situations like school canteens they should be allowed to make those choices for themselves.

In the same way as when I wanted to go veggie for a while as a teenager I ate veggie on every meal I had control over, my mum said I could eat what I liked but she was only cooking one meal so I eat it or sort something separately for myself.

Veggie parents are welcome to only cook veggie food at home and say like it or lump it but that control shouldn't extend to all food in a childs life where they have the capacity to make their own choices.

YANBU.

Barring allergies or medically restricted diets, I am of the opinion that if you're truly hungry, you'll eat what you're given.

If you have a moral belief that precludes you from eating certain things, you do the best you can. You don't want to eat meat? Then don't take meat. You don't want to drink milk? Then don't drink milk. But you also don't expect expensive specialty items that (strictly speaking) you don't require. Surely they can pick and choose enough "acceptable" foods from what they typically keep in stock to feed a vegan family without needing to request a specific (branded) non-dairy milk.

I always thought the goal of food banks was to feed as many people as possible, even though that means that the food provided won't always be exactly what everyone would've chosen to buy, themselves.

So why would we object to buying food that people in dire straits actually enjoy? Why would we actively want to punish them for being in poverty by making sure they get the cheapest version available.

I get that some own-brands taste different - sometimes better, sometimes worse - than the big brands, but with an awful lot of foods, there's no discernible difference. Most big brands are primarily selling an image and aspirational lifestyle rather than just a tin of beans. Their whole MO depends on heavy advertising, sponsorship and insisting that they are the best, hence the higher price; but it's frequently not the case at all. The higher price you pay in no way goes towards better ingredients or more careful production methods but to the extremely expensive adverts that tried to convince you they were the best in the first place.

I don't think it's good stewardship of available resources to waste them on supplying FB users with an advertised image or aspiration rather than concentrating them on actually supplying food to those in desperate need of it.

I realise it's entirely subjective, but I don't much like the taste of Heinz Beans and McCain chips, to give just two, and I much prefer cheaper own-brands. I don't buy Lidl's own oven chips because I can't afford McCain; I buy them because I like them much better and do not want McCain, even if they were on offer and cheaper than the (IMO) much nicer ones.

I agree with the poster who said this whole thread is missing the point. It's appalling that we have normalised foodbank use in this country in the last 15 years or so. It's appalling that many feel people should be grateful for this and not have any choice about what they eat.

Maybe instead of criticising a family going through hard times, we should be criticising the government that has put them there.

I’m sure vegans on the mailing list will be happy to help a vegan family stay vegan. I do see what you mean but food from a food bank is more than just about hunger. On a side note some people I know who went vegan on ethical grounds now get a really upset stomach if they accidentally eat dairy

Omg, quite shocked about expecting a vegan to eat fish tbh. I'm vegetarian and would be horrified if someone suggested I eat fish.
Not unreasonable about the rest in terms of cheaper brands, you can eat vegan on a budget, so yes they should be more flexible about that.
Thank you for supporting your food bank.

1940s they are unsure why she is still showing vitamin deficiencies, but possibly that there is a delayed puberty aspect. TBH I could imagine a lot of people have vitamin deficiency if they had there bloods done.

Floralbean Will look her up, thank you for the recommendation.

Fine to ask for vegan food from a food bank, but definitely unreasonable to specify premium brands.

At the project I support many people don’t have Anything other than basic microwave cooking facilities

Same here. And of course you can cook vegan food in a microwave

@ohreallythen I agree with you. I'm raising my daughter as a Vegan. However if at 6/7/8/9 she can coherently tell me that she wants to eat meat then I'm happy for her too.

I'd hope she won't as obviously we as a family have made this decision to raise her as Vegan but if she changes her mind and wants to eat meat / dairy outside of the house then she will be free to do so.

@ohreallythen I just hate hearing the 'imposing dietary values' as every parent who feeds a child imposes their dietary choices onto their child. Apologies if I misinterpreted your full message re older children making choices outside of the home

@Tana433 - I would need to miss a lot more then a couple of pay checks before I would need to use a food bank. I also have family that would fill my cupboards if I was on my knees and I would do the same for them.
I keep a stock of about a months worth of food at any one time as I’m shit at meal planning so just buy lots of stuff and make whatever I fancy on the day.

1940s

Thank you for getting it.

And for the record, if you were still cooking for her at that age I wouldn't expect you to compromise your principles or even just give yourself the extra work of cooking a non-vegan meal for her. I'd just expect you to let her eat what she wants when she has the choice like a school canteen and if she spends her pocket money on haribos to accept that's her choice.

@BinkyandBunty

It's possible they have a fussy child who has grown up on Oatly and won't touch anything else.

Also possible that the food bank was just giving examples, and the family haven't requested specific brands or foods at all.

Either way, hardly worth you getting upset about and using it to have a go at all vegans.

Basic vegan food is cheap, way cheaper than a diet based on meat at every meal and therefore would cost charities less. Maybe it should be the other way round, and people relying on food banks should be forced to go vegan? No, didn't think you'd like that one.

I agree with this actually. I always think when catering for many people, the food should be vegan.

I hate it when 21st century peasants don't act like 15th century ones. Loved this.

@EdithWeston

At the project I support many people don’t have Anything other than basic microwave cooking facilities

Same here. And of course you can cook vegan food in a microwave

Not quickly or easily. The project I support says to think of cooking in a cup

Lots of clients are older or are you get and are drug or alcohol dependent and are already very underweight.

I don’t think food banks should all be vegan.