Guiding young people

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Schools which provide food for students still provide the very worst foods, like meat dishes and sugary desserts, but there is a move towards healthier foods. Salads and fruit appear on the menu, but animal foods still make a strong showing whilst substantial plant-based dishes are rare; although in fairness a vegan meal can be ordered in advance at school canteens.

Young people are offered less unhealthy meat and dairy foods but generally not introduced to healthy eating, let alone avoiding ‘cruelty-foods’. They are not learning what they are putting into their bodies or the health-giving qualities of non-animal food. Teachers and parents take their lead from nutritionists who are not willing to speak out against animal foods, for fear of losing professional credibility or even losing their funding from animal-industry sources. They don’t want to offend tradition; and the thing with food and catering is that meat dishes are well known. They are popular. They are the default, because their ingredients are so readily available and volunteer canteen staff  may only know how to prepare meat-based meals. I imagine few would be familiar with making attractive, main course, plant-based dishes.

Ideally school teachers (whom students already trust) could be teaching about healthy foods, introducing children to plant-based foods and telling them about the horrors of farm-animal life; but they probably know little about either nutrition or animal husbandry, and don’t wish to promote vegetarian foods since they probably eat meat themselves. They can’t be impartial or encourage students to examine animal foods too closely. Therefore it’s down to those who have a ‘clean slate’ and the necessary information to inform kids about animal farming and the dangers associated with animal protein. But many of us are not teachers or don’t have access to young people. So until there are enough school teachers who are at least practising vegans, children are unlikely to find out what they need to know until they are old enough to discover things for themselves. By which time too many bad habits are entrenched.

For children and adults alike, there’s so much ground to cover and so much to learn. Being addicted, or at least craving certain foods, doesn’t help. Poor food habits hold most people back from contemplating the possibility of an ethically-based diet change. And apart from the animal population suffering, the young people are suffering for lack of responsible guidance.