From: ra-AT-alor.univ-montp3.fr (Ronald Creagh, Moderator, Research on Anarchism List)
Date: 29 Jan 1997 10:22:34 UTC   (06:22:34 AM in author's locale)
To: ra-l-AT-bred.univ-montp3.fr

X-Sender: che-AT-mail.cruzio.com (Unverified)
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 19:39:15 -0800
>>From: C.R.Gramaglia-AT-sussex.ac.uk (Christelle Gramaglia)
>Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 14:55:28 GMT
>Subject: Re: (F) Journaux recus
>
>Hello! I am actually starting a research on diet choices and
>political consciousness. I would be really grateful if anyone was
>interested to discuss this matter with me. I would like to know
>about your own experience, either if you are a vegetarian or
>campaign in favour of organic food, sustainable development and
>animal rights. Thanks. Xtelle.
>
>
.-I have been a vegetarian for over 15 years and only in these last few
years have I in certain instances eaten meat: I can cite the meals and
the occasions for them in order to explain why I at those times lapsed my
vegetarianism, but I am more interested in sharing with you observations
I've made in the course of 7 years as the manager of a popular coffee>house
in a rather small coastal California city. I often find myself
inclined to think that food choices bear a relationship to one's class if
one is vegan: almost all vegans I know carry a phat wallet; conversely,
it is very difficult for the poor or homeless individuals I know to
maintain their vegan diet becauses options to enter restaurants obviously
are not available to those with low incomes. Moreover, most all of the
poor or homeless I know crave to eat expensive meats. The lack of
vegetarian and/or vegan options in the settings and structures in which
the poor and homeless are limited and confined suggests that options are
only available to those with sufficient income.
Alongside vegetarianism/veganism is "organic": a loaded term where I
work:
most of the coffees we serve are "organic" (certified, of course) and we
are both praised and reviled for making this choice for reasons which seem
to cut across class divisions but, importantly, most of our customers have
not deigned to enter this controversy and appear to be complacent on this
issue. As well, we try to sell food which contains as many "organic"
ingredients as possible, given the struggling knowledge we small food
service businesses possess about how to stay in business and how to
serve/sell healthier options to consumers.
Most all the people I know are omnivores or carnivores.
And in addition to this experience in the coffee house, I am also not
unaware of some of the food practices and policies of the California
Corrections Department, under whose cruel aegis many of my brothers and
sisters have languished malnourished in body. I have been studying the US
prison system for a few years now and believe that it must be one of the
immediate necessary needs of the prison reform movement to focus on the
food served prisoners: I believe the weight of thought in contemporary
prison writings always directs us to focus on the everyday, day-to-day,
morning to night, most common, indivisibly human act and practice.
Therefore, we, from the outside, must conceive of ways to help prisoners
exercise more control about their food and medicinal choices based upon
what the prisoners tell us are their needs. There is no political support
for this position at al