Food orders for work related events are to be vegan and vegetarian only

[ValerieVomit]

We all received an email at work to say that when we order catering in future for work related events we can only order vegetarian and vegan food. The management team has imposed this. It's to reduce our carbon footprint. I don't think that this means there is to be no carnivorous food available for the rest of the organisation but our department won't allow us to order any.

Reasonable or not?

Your list looks a whole lot less like a buffet without the egg and dairy products though.

@Slanketblanket The OP's post was abut vegetarian and vegan food, not just exclusively vegan.

Yes, but the people wanting meat and fish are hardly likely to shun the dairy products are they? This thread is about meat-free lunches.

Anyway of that list:
cucumber sandwiches
pasta salad
pizza ( without cheese)
salad,
felafels
samosas
potato wedges/chips

are (or can easily be) vegan, and some hummus with crudites and spring rolls, a bowl of nuts, a bowl of vegetable crisps or whatever can easily be added. Even vegan sausage rolls!

Pretty normal work buffet lunch.

I'm questioning it as well. Fake meat and dairy is expensive apart from anything else.

I started restricting all catering to veg/vegan for my practice years ago. Makes catering simpler - just allergies to cater for on top of the standard orders - and everyone can eat, including the veggies and vegans who regularly missed out whilst the meat eaters helped themselves to the veggie options. Even increasing the veggie proportion to massively more than the proportion of veggies didn't work. Left overs were always the meat/fish varieties. So now its all veggie.

Try starting a thread on here "AIBU to ask the meat eaters to leave the veggie options for the veggies" - apparently it contravenes the human rights of some posters to ask them to leave the cheese and pickle for the veggies.

Anyways, at > 700 posts and no return from the OP with her new and so amusing name I'm sure the OP has achieved all they want.

Well, firstly, I suggest you go and check the carbon footprint of chicken vs avocado. Secondly, if I'm invited to a meeting and I'm told that lunch will be laid on, why shouldn't I be catered for also? Why should one group dictate what everyone else has?

Can’t you eat any vegetarian or vegan food? That would be unusual.

Do people really expect to get their food preferences met at work events? I thought they generally went for “give people at least something they can eat”

The wheat we produce is too poor a quality for anything other than animal feed.

Bollocks is it. I am literally just back from the supermarket where i bought plain and self-raising flour bags, both British.

My father farmed wheat (among other crops, beef and dairy cattle) and he was always keen on the Hagberg rating on wheat, because milling wheat sells for a higher price than feed wheat. It may be that some soils in the UK won't produce quality wheat (hill farmers are mostly into sheep and maybe some cattle, because it's difficult/impossible to grow crops there,) but it's certainly not true of the whole UK.

Not always - our caterers at work could tell you where their meat came from - I asked when they had Dorset beef on the menu, in case it was someone I knew, and they went to ask the chef and got back to me. (It wasn't - it was someone near Blandford.) I can't remember which company they were, though (the caterers - they were outsourced.)

You are catered for. You're perfectly able to eat vegetarian food. Are you really saying that you can only eat meat? Otherwise it's a preference. My preference is Thai. I don't expect work to facilitate it

In one of my past incarnations, when I worked in the corporate world, I was often asked to arrange working lunches and I did my best to ensure that everyone had not only what they could eat but what they wanted to eat. That meant that I would find out who was vegan/coeliac/had religious restrictions etc and cater accordingly - it's only courtesy.

So, no, I don't have to have meat or fish but it's my preference and easily satisfied by including some chicken or tuna or egg mayonnaise.

No thats fair, you are right the veggie burgers were more expensive, they were really nice though kind of a breaded potato patty with veg chunks inside rather than soya based.

I guess the majority of staff buffets I've had have been cheap beige type fair, buying veg may be cheaper but then you have the time and skill required to prepare that compared to putting frozen beige in a oven.

That's easy then! You can have egg mayonnaise at the vegetarian buffet.

I do indeed eat vegetables - quite a number of them as I largely follow the Mediterranean Diet - but I like them with meat/fish/eggs.

And yes, I really do expect to be catered for as well. Why should I not? How difficult is it to have a platter of sandwiches that includes a mixture of chicken/beef/tuna etc? It's basic courtesy, if nothing else.

They'll definitely save money!

Cucumber sandwiches 😂
I'm putting tinned pasta shapes and broccoli trees to go with this menu.

I love a good cucumber sandwich.

The argument about food mileage and water resources being used to grow certain staple vegan items is absolute nonsense. The carbon footprint produced by meat rearing (especially cows) absolutely dwarfs what's used for chickpeas and so on.

And I'm a meat eater!

Indeed.

Some of the arguments made against vegetarian and vegan food on thie thread are completely nonsensical and bordering on the downright batshit.

So many people seem to be convinced that vegan food = UPF, but that simply doesn't follow. There are plenty of vegan products that are upf, yes... just as there are umpteen upf products containing dairy, egg and other animal-derived ingredients! Animal ingredients are in the vast majority of UPFs, whereas vegan upf products have largely only entered the market in the past fifteen or so years. You are probably aware of them because they're a novelty to you, whereas animal-containing upf products are old hat and have become totally familiar.

Plenty of vegans eat little or no upf in their day to day life. Personally I only eat them when I'm desperately trying to up my calorie intake (due to medical issues) and want more "easy" calories. My standard diet is all whole foods based. By the by, I also have allergies to handle, including some to common vegan ingredients, yet amazingly I have not died and am managing very well on my lovely whole foods diet. Vegetables are actually very good for you, it turns out! I do get a little "hmm" when someone claims they could never possibly be vegan because they're allergic to [one random thing]. It's really not that hard. I promise you can have umpteen allergies, be extremely medically fragile, and still manage it if you are actually committed to it ethically. You just need to care and have ethical investment. If you don't have that, then of course you won't see it as worth it.

And "local" makes no difference, sorry! Lazy argument with no basis in fact. Wish people would stop rehashing it. Nothing can make meat a better option for the environment than veganism, because it just isn't. Them's the breaks.

(Also, should add that my medical problems are genetic, before someone jumps in and claims I'm obviously malnourished!)

And "local" makes no difference, sorry!

It does to the local producers.

My apologies. It was the result of a quick google. However, I doubt that we produce enough wheat to feed the entire population of the UK.

Does all your meat come from Scotland?! I also thought the conversation wasn't limited to Scotland 😅

Someone who makes a living raising livestock for slaughter obviously doesn't know or care about environmental issues. Wasting your breath!

Do you actually know any farmers? Your post would suggest not.

Are you a defensive livestock farmer? Your post would suggest so.