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

945 replies

ValerieVomit · 01/03/2024 12:58

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?

OP posts:
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19
Geebray · 01/03/2024 14:05

ready vegan food on the hoof

Was that pun intended, @soupfiend 😂

Dottytea · 01/03/2024 14:06

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

MassageForLife · 01/03/2024 14:06

JaninaDuszejko · 01/03/2024 14:03

There are separate dairy and beef breeds of cattle.

Yes, I'm aware thanks. I grew up in a crofting community.

That doesn't make dairy beef inedible. Do you honestly think that farmers just waste it? They don't.

TedMullins · 01/03/2024 14:06

itsnotabouthepasta · 01/03/2024 13:06

That was exactly what I was going to say.

If you're using carbon footprint as a real argument, then, surely, any food items need to be locally sourced. Else its just virtue signalling.

In terms of vegan - it depends on what it is. Personally, i'm trying hard to cut back on UPF, so a lot of vegan food does seem to be quite high in processed stuff, but there are some absolutely delicious vegan and veggie options available. In fact, although I'm a meat eater, I reckon I've cut down meat consumption by about 50% in the last six months by focusing more on plant-based whole foods.

Yea this is very true - if they’re serious about reducing their footprint they need to be using locally sourced food only as the deforestation/air freight etc involved in importing non-native fruit and veg totally defeats the object.

Overall it’s completely reasonable and a good thing, but I’d want to know more about the carbon reductions. It is more inclusive as others have said, being a meat eater isn’t a protected characteristic so they’re not obliged to cater to that but religious/cultural reasons for not eating meat are. I hope they’ve taken allergies and intolerances into account as well though as many plant based foods are nut heavy.

soupfiend · 01/03/2024 14:06

Geebray · 01/03/2024 14:05

ready vegan food on the hoof

Was that pun intended, @soupfiend 😂

I did notice that didn't quite sound right!!!

Treesnbirds · 01/03/2024 14:07

Kill animals unnecessarily or not is the underlying reality, so personally I'd be in favour of this and choose not to, if you don't have to.

scorpiogirly · 01/03/2024 14:07

Ridiculous

pastypirate · 01/03/2024 14:08

We seldom get catered events at work but if they did this and didn't announce it I 100% wouldn't even notice. I don't eat very much meat but I don't label myself as anything much.

I would say though that when we do have catered events there is a lot of cold meat and sausage rolls type food which gets left out too long and then binned. In my company vegan would be less wasteful by a long way and surely that's better.

If my employer announced this I would think it was great!

Also you can be vegan and not eat mountains of avocados. Why is there so much hand wringing about this?

Pocketfullofdogtreats · 01/03/2024 14:09

Geebray · 01/03/2024 13:08

And no chickpeas for vegan hummus obviously - because carbon!

There's a British company called Hodmedod who grow chickpeas and other beans here, I believe.

JaninaDuszejko · 01/03/2024 14:09

I'd love to see someone grow vegetables or grains on the kind of hill farm that produces beef and lamb in Scotland and Wales.

pastypirate · 01/03/2024 14:11

WhyNotUsehis · 01/03/2024 13:58

Vegetarian fine andwoukdnt have a priblem with that

But a large amount of vegan food is either ultra processed or has travelled a good distance

Loooking up vegan essentials, inclydes

Tofu
Tempeh
Cashew Nuts
Babanas
Chick peas
Lemons
Sesame Seeds
Avocados

And similar

Seriously, they have smaller carbon foodprint than home produce?

According to some display at the Eden project the other day, carbon footprint of bananas isn't that bad.

needahouseindurham · 01/03/2024 14:11

Great idea yes. Why wouldn't reducing the carbon footprint be a good thing?

BoohooWoohoo · 01/03/2024 14:12

How often do you have events like that?

The company can pay for whatever food they like but if they said that you can’t bring in non-veggie/vegan food then they’d be very unreasonable.

Trufflump · 01/03/2024 14:13

WhyNotUsehis · 01/03/2024 13:58

Vegetarian fine andwoukdnt have a priblem with that

But a large amount of vegan food is either ultra processed or has travelled a good distance

Loooking up vegan essentials, inclydes

Tofu
Tempeh
Cashew Nuts
Babanas
Chick peas
Lemons
Sesame Seeds
Avocados

And similar

Seriously, they have smaller carbon foodprint than home produce?

Do you really think tofu and chickpeas have higher carbon footprint than beef and chicken? Do you know how much food an animal needs to eat ? Most soy is grown to be fed for animals.

Alaimo · 01/03/2024 14:13

We've been doing this at work quite a few years now. There are always (at least) two options provided, either a vegetarian (with dairy and/or egg) and fully vegan option, or two vegan options where one includes some kind of fake meat/dairy and the other doesn't. Within that range, other dietary requirements (e.g. gluten free) are still catered for as well.

It doesn't have to mean fake ham sandwiches. We get loads of lovely salads, with roast veg, falafel, beetroot hummus, etc.

InfoComet · 01/03/2024 14:13

I'm curious about the claim that it's more inclusive. Vegan and gluten free is quite difficult ime. In one of my work teams we had a person with a nut allergy as well so trying to make the things vegan, gluten free and nut free was really difficult.

Trufflump · 01/03/2024 14:14

JaninaDuszejko · 01/03/2024 14:09

I'd love to see someone grow vegetables or grains on the kind of hill farm that produces beef and lamb in Scotland and Wales.

Do you think those beef and lamb are totally grass fed with no other feed given to them? They’d be pretty scrawny if that were true.

MyGooseisTotallyLoose · 01/03/2024 14:15

JaninaDuszejko · 01/03/2024 14:00

I'm not convinced it's as inclusive as people are suggesting. Vegans and vegetarians are making a choice to restrict their diet, there are lots of people because of allergies or food intolerances or mental health issues are very restricted in their diet already and so really don't need another restriction arbitrarily placed on them in their workplace. This reminds me of my DS, who had a CMPA, not being allowed to have peanut butter sandwiches when the other DC had cheese sandwiches because another parent didn't want to introduce peanut into her child's diet yet because she was worried about allergies. So her putative allergy worry trumped by DS's actual allergy. See also: nut free schools that happily splash (the most common allergens milk and eggs) all over the place.

It would be more inclusive to have good quality catering that always provides a good range of foods including (naturally) vegan and vegetarian and the more common allergy options. But that wouldn't be as cost saving as cheap vegan pretend chicken nuggets so companies don't want to do that.

Yes, although I'm really finding 'inclusive' seems to mean 'inclusive to whom we want only..'

EBearhug · 01/03/2024 14:15

Mass catering can be hit or miss at the best of times.

Still, a load of crudités and veggie dips, falafels, crisps, vegetable samosas and spring rolls, cucumber sandwiches, vegetable kebabs, olives, pickled cocktail onions and so on - you might want to drop olives if you're going for low carbon, though. Like the sound of the mushroom vol au vents. Most buffets of any sort often don't include enough vol au vents (Ii.e. there are often none at all.)

Catered dessert options at my work were mostly sliced fruit buffet, and sometimes cake/biscuit options, so that wouldn't change.

Being in tech, there are some who would be horrified at any meal thst isn't mostly meat-based protein, but plenty are already vegetarian or vegan or at least do meat-free days a few times a week.

I've been taken out to a vegan restaurant with work colleagues before - it was excellent food and the world didn't stop turning. And I do eat quite a lot of meat, and grew up on a beef and dairy farm.

Eating one vegetarian/vegan buffet isn't going to kill anyone (unless they're severely allergic to a particular ingredient - and anyone who is is likely to be very careful about what food they're in contact with anyway.)

pickledandpuzzled · 01/03/2024 14:16

Rickrolypoly · 01/03/2024 13:54

Low carb doesn't mean Gluten free

No of course not, but removing bread as the base for everything makes it a lot easier to be both.

EBearhug · 01/03/2024 14:18

And it means you mostly don't have to think about no beef for Hindus, no pork for Jews or Muslims, etc - everyone does eat vegetables, even if they don't like the particular combination being catered.

Treesnbirds · 01/03/2024 14:18

PandaCwtch · 01/03/2024 13:29

For those people saying the reasoning isn't logical due to the impact of food miles to carbon footprints, I suggest reading the book "How bad are bananas?" by Mike Berners Lee. It's a complete fallacy that "all vegan foods have high food miles". It's also a fallacy that shipping food around the world is worse than eating locally sourced meat. Beef and lamb in particular have really high climate change impact because they are ruminants, so produce a lot of methane. 1kg of beef has a footprint of 99.5kg carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). 1kg eggs has a CO2e of 1.6 kg. Chickpeas is 0.4 kg CO2e.

If you aren't flying the food around, the added footprint of transport by boat is relatively small. Bear in mind that it's unlikely that the corporate lunch was previously organically grown meat from a farm literally down the road, so it's not as if the food miles would have been low anyway.

This - thank goodness for people like you who actually look into the facts, (rather than saying locally sourced meat is better than vegetables from abroad because, despite it being wrong it helps to justify their choice.) 👏

SoupDragon · 01/03/2024 14:21

Better to have vegan and low carb food for events, imo.

Covers dairy allergy and gluten free.

low carb vegan doesn't mean gluten free at all.

Coconutter24 · 01/03/2024 14:21

If it’s for work related events I’d just eat the vegan or vegetarian. If the company was to suggest people could have other options but would have to cover the costs themselves I’m very sure most people would just eat the free options offered

Hillarious · 01/03/2024 14:22

I get a free three course meal every day I'm in the office. Catering introduced meat free Tuesdays. The fuss was incredible, like suddenly there was nothing on the menu a number of people could eat, ie that a meal without meat just wasn't a meal and they would rather starve.

If it's a free meal, and not your only source of food. Not worth making a fuss about.