Vegan Cafeterias
29 October 2011
Not in France. Recent French government legislation effectively bans vegan meals from school cafeterias. It doesn't officially condemn vegan food, but it does require that the cafeteria provides one third of the daily protein requirement. That's the same here in the US. However, the French government goes on to define protein choices: meat, fish and cheese.
That's according to this article at the Examiner. They're the ones who say "meat, fish and cheese." In my book that's redundant because fish is meat.
Also, the Examiner has a creepy thing at the top of the page that says, "We think you're near Minneapolis," and then it tells you the current temperature. Except that it's of by about 35 degrees. So they know where I live, but at least they aren't anywhere near me. Otherwise they'd know the difference between 30 and 65 degrees. It's vast.
So anyway, no vegan meals in the cafeteria. My first thought was that vegan parents can send their children to school with a packed lunch. That's way better anyway, and probably better for you. As I recall, school cafeteria food is greasy.
But then I remembered that schools are meant to educate, and then I got a little bit angry. So what they're teaching children is that you have to eat cheese or meat to get your protein.
To be fair, it's not just protein. School lunches (I'm just talking about the US now; not sure about France) are required to provide one third of the daily requirement of Vitamin A & C, iron, calcium and calories. Also, it requires that no more than 30% of calories come from fat and less than 10% from saturated fat.
How awesome would it be if the school system could demonstrate to children that those requirements can be met on a vegan diet? A diet that also cuts our cholesterol and contains way less fat.
Well maybe it isn't all that bad. According to Bon Appetit magazine, the number of vegetarians in colleges has doubled in the last six years, and the same is true of the number of vegans. Doubled.
Colleges and Universities are doing a pretty good job of offering vegan options for students. In fact, there's a competition set up by PETA (I know, I hate PETA too, but they aren't all bad) to be the most vegan friendly. Georgetown University is in the running. And the very first all vegan dining hall is not in San Francisco. No, it's in Texas. The University of North Texas. If Texas can do it, then anyone can do it.
So the moral of this story is that once you get to college you can eat vegan, but not before. It's a step.
