The Rainbow Vegetarian Café in Cambridge, England, has announced that it will not accept the new £5 polymer notes, introduced by the Bank of England in September. Last week the British vegan community discovered that the notes contain trace amounts of beef tallow, which is animal fat, and are therefore unacceptable by their cruelty-free standards. A heated online controversy has resulted, including a petition asking the Bank to remove tallow from the polymer.
The Rainbow Café's owner, Sharon Meijland, told The Telegraph that her stance was announced last Wednesday, at the end of a BBC radio interview on the unrelated topic of Christmas food.
"We sponsor the Vegan Fair and announced on Wednesday we would not be accepting the £5 notes because they are dubious ethically. We have been providing food for vegans for 30 years and have tried to be as ethical as we possibly can...This is not just a restaurant, it's a restaurant where tiny details like this are really important."
Is any of our money cruelty-free?
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:58PM
Yeah, it's stuff like Boca and gardein's fake chicken and beef. Costs about as much for half the volume of food.
10.8 oz of gardein chicken is about $6 and some change. Meanwhile chicken breast fillets are $1.99/lb here ATM.
Yeah, telling her that she's gotta get her own processed crap if she wants it is the next step.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Tuesday December 06 2016, @10:26PM
Also on the topic, vegan butter is 5.58 / lb*. Real butter is $2.99 / lb.
A gallon of almond milk is about 20 bucks (!). It's about 2.50 for a gallon of milk here.
If you're trying to make the same type of food you did before, you're paying a crazy amount of money to do it.
* I am genuinely not sure how this differs from margarine. She says it tastes like butter. I can tell the difference, but I have never compared it to margarine.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 07 2016, @03:57AM
Around here the almond milk often goes on sale. I wouldn't pay full price for it anyways. I'm not a vegan, I just avoid it because I no longer have the necessary bacteria to digest lactose properly. It's one of the downsides of not consuming dairy for such a long time, now the bacteria that were doing that aren't there any more.
If you're really cheap, you can always grow your own almonds and turn them into almond milk, or just eat them as almonds. One of the nice things about that is that the almond flowers are relatively nice to look at.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:47AM
Almond milk doesn't really go on sale, but there's a discount food store (similar to an ALDI) that frequently stocks it at a reasonable price that we usually get some from when it's there.
I'm not sure it would work with our space constraints, but growing almonds is a VERY interesting idea.
I actually like the taste of almond milk, but because it's slightly sweet, you have to do some really strange things to get it to taste like real milk in things. I figured out I could make a white gravy out of it that actually tastes like gravy by adding just enough paprika to kill the sweet flavor without being noticeable on it's own. You can also almost curdle it like real milk to make buttermilk. It doesn't taste the same, but it comes out close enough when you bake it.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Wednesday December 07 2016, @12:40PM
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