Month: May 2023

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What To Consider When Asking Institutions To Shift How They Serve Food

A guest blog from Greener By Default explores and explains the process of getting institutions to consider menu changes and plant-based defaults.

Sarah Thorson & Ilana Braverman , Faunalytics, May 10, 2023

 

Food choices are extremely personal. They’re informed by our culture, upbringing, education, ethics, and more. For some, food serves as a time capsule keeping familial and cultural history alive, while for others it’s an outward expression of morals and values. Food choices can also be restricted by bodily responses, religious affiliation, and financial realities. And when we work to shift food norms, all of these considerations have to be taken into account to realize widespread change.

For animal advocates working to shift food norms, it can be tempting to ask for the elimination of meat and dairy from menus and diets, since we want to improve the lives of all living beings. But human behavior is complex, and people may respond negatively to a drastic change which they feel is forced upon them. And, with meat consumption still on the rise in the US, psychological research shows that appeals to reduce meat consumption have stronger and longer lasting impacts on eating behaviors than appeals to eliminate meat consumption completely. Serving plant-based meals by default works to accomplish both: preserving freedom of choice, while nudging consumers towards sparing the lives of many animals and lessening food’s overall impact on the environment.

Fostering Inclusivity In Foodservice

Greener by Default (GBD) consults with institutions, including universities, conferences, hospitals, and corporate cafeterias, to serve plant-based meals by default. The default is the option an individual ends up with when they don’t make an active choice. For example, every iPhone user is familiar with the brand’s default ringtone, which most of us don’t bother to change. People tend to stick with defaults partly because it’s one less decision to make, and partly because defaults are often seen as the more socially acceptable option. Because of this tendency, defaults and other behavioral nudges can be used to encourage particular food choices; research shows that implementing plant-based defaults can decrease meat consumption by 53% to 87%, depending on the environment.

With help from GBD, LinkedIn San Francisco was able to switch their menus to serve 65% veg options in the cafeteria and make oat milk the default choice for milk-based drinks in their coffee bar. GBD was also instrumental in helping NYC Health and Hospitals transition their patient meals to serve plant-based meals by default, resulting in over half of eligible patients now choosing plant-based meals. This approach leads to more plant-based options being selected, thus saving many animal lives, while also shifting food paradigms by normalizing plant-based eating. Best of all, because freedom of choice is preserved and there are still meat options available for those who want or feel they need meat at every meal, this approach does not encounter the same type of pushback as fully meatless menus….

[… Read more at Faunalytics]

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Let’s make plant-based foods the default on campus

A ‘default veg’ position on campus food is one way that universities can respond to the climate crisis.

Kathleen Kevany, University Affairs, Oct. 13, 2022

What can universities do to respond to the climate crisis? Our most obvious contributions may come from research and teaching across a range of disciplines: from ecology to the environmental humanities, from engineering to economics and beyond, scholars working in labs and classrooms are trying to mitigate the complex, urgent issues we face.

Yet universities are also much more than engines of research and education. They are societies in themselves, as well as cultural and economic drivers for the broader communities in which they are embedded. The contributions that the students, staff, and faculty who are gathered in universities can offer – and the leadership they can provide – come from many directions.

One critical change that is relatively accessible and affordable and more importantly, more equitable, is to adopt a “default veg” practice. This means changing the current practice of emphasizing meat dishes, to placing the spotlight on plant-based foods on our campuses, while still enabling the full range of dietary choices to be met.

Fulfilling our responsibilities to lead change

We know we need more sustainable food habits. The famous EAT-Lancet report demonstrated that largely plant-based, sustainable diets protect human health and our environments. We are enjoined to “eat local,” to cut food waste, and perhaps above all, to reduce our consumption of meat. The most recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change offered yet more evidence that animal agriculture is among the top contributors to our environmental crisis. Deforestation, soil degradation, habitat and biodiversity loss, animal emissions and waste all compound to make animal agriculture a driving force in global warming, just behind fossil fuel consumption. Even as we seek to limit our use of environmentally destructive fuels to fight climate change, so too must we rebalance our diets.

We also know that universities can be leaders when it comes to sustainability. I teach at Dalhousie University, where signature research clusters are grounded in  the United Nation’s Sustainability Development Goals. Over 30 years ago, Dalhousie hosted a gathering of university leaders who committed to the Halifax Declaration. Echoing an earlier agreement signed in Talloires, France by university leaders from around the world, the agreement made at Dalhousie in 1991 espoused concrete goals and lofty aspirations to direct teaching, research, outreach, and operations toward an equitable and sustainable future. Both declarations affirmed not just the risks to our planet’s integrity but also the urgent responsibilities of universities to lead change….

[… Read more at University Affairs ]

 

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Universities should lead on the plant-based dietary transition

Jochen Krattenmacher, Paula Casal, Jan Dutkiewicz, Elise Huchard, Edel Sanders, Nicolas Treich, et al., The Lancet, May 2023

As the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the EAT–Lancet Commission have pointed out in recent reports, substantial reductions in demand for animal-based foods are vital for achieving climate targets and for keeping food production within planetary limits. One might expect universities to heed such findings and adjust their food procurement accordingly, especially since they contributed to the research on which these reports are based. However, one only needs to visit a typical university canteen to find that this is not the case. This routine observation is confirmed by studies that have found animal-based food to contribute disproportionately to the environmental footprint of universities compared with plant-based food, and substantially so.
Even when leaving aside the contribution of animal-based food production to climate change, the case for shifting to alternatives, mostly plant-based foods, remains strong. Although impacts differ between different animal products, most economically significant animal-based food production contributes disproportionately to multiple, often all, of the following predicaments: the degradation and overexploitation of ecosystems, misallocation of water and land, risk of pandemics, air and water pollution, and animal suffering. These are all issues that, we the authors assume, most academics and students do not want to contribute to unnecessarily. By procuring different kinds of foods, universities could achieve reductions in many of these negative effects. By doing so, universities could even save money. They also might promote healthier diets among their students and personnel, especially if they emphasise the healthiest kinds of plant-based foods….
[… Read more at The Lancet]

 

 

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How Campus Cafeterias Became Hotspots for Climate Action

Jack McGovan, Sentient Media, May 2, 2023

When Guherbar Gorgulu arrived to study at Erasmus University Rotterdam, she was surprised by the many plant-based options.

“In Turkey, you don’t really have a lot of vegan options,” she says, not to mention many people interested in talking about the impact of what they eat. “I really didn’t have a community of people who also cared about animal rights and the environment.”

That all changed when Gorgulu started attending weekly vegan cooking workshops hosted by the Erasmus Sustainability Hub — a student-led organization encouraging students to lead more sustainable lifestyles. Inspired to join the Hub as Food and Agriculture Manager, Gorgulu, along with her colleagues, have been active in fighting for climate action on campus. Initiatives include workshops, discussions and petitions to demand fully plant-based cafeterias.

The work seems to be paying off. In February, the university announced that they are aiming to make plant-based foods the norm on campus by 2030. The goal is part of the university’s climate commitments; animal agriculture is responsible for around 20 percent of global emissions, and is also a leading cause of habitat loss.

Change is happening beyond Rotterdam. A dozen universities across the U.S. joined an incubator program this year to provide more plant-based foods on their campuses, and across the UK, student unions in Cambridge, Stirling, Birmingham and London voted in support of vegan menus this academic year. In 2021, universities across the entire city of Berlin went predominantly meat-free….

[… Read more at Sentient Media]

 

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Chefs from Ontario universities train to cater to student demands for plant-based foods

At Western in London, for instance, 40% of student residence menus will be plant based by January

Michelle Both, CBC News, May 4, 2023

That’s what chefs from Ontario universities did when they gathered at Western’s Saugeen-Maitland residence this week in London for a culinary training program aimed at ramping up plant-based choices at student residences.

Instead of the standard pulled pork, for instance, sandwiches with shreds of soy-ginger jackfruit — a tropical tree fruit that, if prepared just right, tastes like pulled pork — were among the menu offerings as the get-together wrapped up with a catered lunch.

Twenty-four chefs took part in Humane Society International’s Food Forward program, to explore and experiment with vegan cooking, on Tuesday and Wednesday. Other participating schools included the University of Guelph, University of Windsor and Hamilton’s McMaster University.

The food is getting rave reviews.

Glenn Dupont, a chef at Western’s Elgin Hall residence, said he was never a big fan of chickpeas, but that all changed when he made chickpea and walnut sliders during the training.

“I really would actually make this for myself and my family,” said Dupont, who typically sticks to meat and potatoes at home. “It tastes absolutely excellent.”…

[… Read more at CBC News]

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Vegan Ultra-Runner Wins Zion 100KM Desert Trail Race

Austin Meyer has been vegan for five years

Amy Buxton, PlantBased News, April 28, 2023

Vegan ultra-runner Austin Meyer took first place at the Zion Ultra 100km (62 mile) race on April 15, finishing in just over 10 hours (10:07:53).

The ultramarathon saw athletes racing around the Zion National Park in Utah, in the shadows of towering sandstone cliffs. Considered a difficult route, only experienced ultra-runners with a half-ultramarathon already under their belt were eligible to compete.

Meyer – a documentary filmmaker and photographer – completed the run with support from both his partner and coach. Upon finishing the race, he took to social media to thank event organizers, and express gratitude for the opportunity to learn more about himself during the run.

Ultra-running as a vegan

Discussing his five years as a vegan, Meyer notes that it is now fundamental to his training. Moreover, it plays a crucial part in everything he does before, during, and after a race.

“On the physical side, ultrarunning is a very demanding sport. Training becomes a cycle of physical stress and recovery, the quality of which are the variables that determine how much I can grow and improve as an athlete,” Meyer told Plant Based News.

“Eating a plant-based whole foods diet has allowed me to increase physical stress in training, and simultaneously, recover faster. This is due in part to the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of the food, which lead to reduced muscle damage.”

In recent years, the fitness and health benefits of plant-based nutrition have become more widely understood. If animal protein was once considered the only option for serious contenders, a slew of vegan athletes now challenge the misconception, many of whom seek to crush outmoded stereotypes….

[… Read more at PlantBased News ]

 

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