Vegan menu leaves Cambridge council with leftovers : Low-Carb War Zone Forum : Active Low-Carber Forums

#1 ^

Mon, Jan-23-23, 15:15

Demi

Strong Girls Rock!

Posts: 26,727

Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160 Female 5'10"

BF:
Progress: 109%

Location: UK

Vegan menu leaves Cambridge council with leftovers

Quote:

Vegan menu leaves Cambridge council with leftovers

Last year, when Cambridge city council voted to phase out serving meat and dairy at events and provide vegan alternatives, it was praised for leading the way on climate action.

But the plan has hit a big problem at the first hurdle: people do not want the food.

At the first civic event since the vote, a council report has revealed the vegan menu went down so badly that almost all of the food remained uneaten and had to be thrown away causing “significant food waste”.

It noted that only one in ten attendees tried the vegan options and some guests were left hungry because there was “an insufficient amount of food available that people wanted to eat”.

Some said they felt “under pressure to eat what they wouldn’t normally choose” because of posters near the vegan food showing the amount of greenhouse gases in the production of beef and lamb.

Cambridge city council used a Remembrance Sunday event to launch the new menu. It paid more than £579 to provide 80 guests with sandwiches and cakes. Half of these were vegan; the other contained meat or dairy.

But the report, given to the council’s environment and scrutiny committee, said that despite the food looking “very fresh, good quality and visually appealing” almost all the vegan options were untouched. “There was extremely low uptake of plant-based food options: under 10 per cent of people tried these options whilst the vegetarian options and meat/dairy options were all eaten,” it said. “The low uptake of the plant-based options resulted in an insufficient amount of food available at the event that people wanted to eat.

“Unfortunately the leftover plant-based food had to be disposed of.”

The report recommended cutting the amount of vegan food served to only 25 per cent. However, the council announced that it wanted to offer 100 per cent vegan food by 2026.

At a meeting last week Hannah Copley, of the Green Party, said the council had set the vegan menu “up to fail” by “othering” it. She suggested mixing it in with the meat and dairy range to encourage people to try it but this was rejected over fears of allergies and cross contamination.

Richard Swift, of Labour, said: “We cannot force people to eat food they do not want to eat, the task [for] us is to make it so good people want to eat it without being told.”

A spokesman for the council said it was “committed to tackling the climate emergency”.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...overs-sdv87s9bv

Oh dear!

Sponsored Links

#2 ^

Mon, Jan-23-23, 17:35

WereBear

Senior Member

Posts: 14,674

Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/130/150 Female 67

BF:
Progress: 129%

Location: USA

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demi

But the plan has hit a big problem at the first hurdle: people do not want the food.

#3 ^

Tue, Jan-24-23, 07:42

WereBear

Senior Member

Posts: 14,674

Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/130/150 Female 67

BF:
Progress: 129%

Location: USA

My tablet bailed on me, and I had more thoughts.

This was something I'd been brooding about for a few days, seeing how the climate change issue is also about beating back the vegan propaganda that will literally kill us all. (And I'm not even being funny here!)

But I've never read anything that indicates veganism cracks more than 4-5% of the population. No matter how trendy it is. And for once, this is not only a accurate put-down, it's also a indicator of the dream world many of our systems are based on.

The only thing I know about restaurant economics is you don't design a menu for 5% of your potential population of customers.

There's plenty of outright scams about nutrition and eating going on everywhere. Science will (eventually) take the wheel back for a while. But in the meantime, we can't go over the cliff with unsustainable food supply decisions.

Maybe, after all, instincts will save us. Because the crisis with vegan dishes replacing vegetarian ones showed the motivations of the respective camps. I've always said I respect vegetarians because for some increasingly dicey months I was one of them.

Vegetarians and omnivores and even well-behaved carnivores can eat at the same table. But the vegans won't join us. That tablecloth has touched meat, in a seven degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of way.

And we won't eat their food. In the end, they will lose, but so much mayhem can still be avoided.

#4 ^

Tue, Jan-24-23, 10:08

GRB5111

Senior Member

Posts: 4,041

Plan: Very LC, Higher Protein
Stats: 227/186/185 Male 6' 0"

BF:
Progress: 98%

Location: Herndon, VA

Interesting article, Demi. I was out this past weekend for a family celebration at a restaurant local to me called Fogo de Chao. It's a Brazilian steakhouse with a very well-stocked salad bar with much diversity in that it has veggies and protein like salmon, cold cuts, cheeses, and other delicious stuff. But the main course, as anyone who has been to a Brazilian steakhouse knows, are the grilled meats that are paraded around on skewers to each table and carved for the diner who uses tongs to place the servings on the plate. It's all-you-can-eat protein for a fixed price, and it's delicious. One would think that with the crazy (and completely unfounded) claims of climate, health issues, and other silly stuff about meat, that these restaurants would be having a hard time attracting customers. No! It's quite the opposite, and to make a reservation, one has to book weeks in advance due to the popularity. The restaurant was packed, and we had a great time while I was able to never stray from my desired WOE.