Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Occupy Wall Street, Vegans!

Okay, so I have made a commitment to preserve the rights of vegans and vegetarians everywhere to eat what they like, as I would hope they'd also allow me the right to eat bacon wrapped hot dogs on the 4th of July. Anyway, what I can't figure out is what all this Occupy Wall Street stuff is all about and how the vegans have mustered enough energy to participate.

So I'm with it enough to understand that meat is too inexpensive for the environmental costs, that its price is understated due to government corn subsidies, and that the entity benefitting from these subsidies is not the farmer or the consumer (or the government) but the industrial-scale food production machine. But I don't really pay attention to politics.

Anyway, the Occupy Wall Street general assembly is asking for donations. You can contribute money, showers and laundry services and of course, food. On their donation page, they identify eateries from which you can order food for occupants. You can order from Panini & Co. at 115 Broadway in Manhattan, but note: "Please try to focus on vegan and vegetarian options..." So I'm not exactly a puppet for big business nor do I stand with the 1%, but really? Order your own damn vegan panini.

All foods are not created equal, but it is a privilege to demand which foods you will and will not eat. But gosh darn it, I'm hungry for a vegan panini now!

As a post script, PETA has joined the fight, donating vegan pizzas. A person in a chicken suit is "representing the 100 percent of animals raised for food in the U.S."