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Brexit is front and center of everyone’s minds in the UK and EU right now. Veganism, however, in all its strangeness, is also at the forefront of political discussion. You’d think with Brexit being an extremely time-sensitive and messy situation that the debate over veggie burgers and their labels would take a back seat. You’d be wrong.
People in the UK were up in arms when Greggs vegan sausage rolls were introduced to supermarket shelves. The reason? The rolls didn’t contain any sausage and were therefore incorrectly labeled. Those in the UK will be happy to know that people in the EU share this sentiment about improper food labels. Finally, something about which we can all agree!
Recently, an EU agricultural committee meeting was held in Brussels, Belgium. During the meeting, the committee passed a law banning vegetarian/vegan food producers from using nomenclature that usually describes meat. For instance, vegan burgers or vegan steaks could not have “burger” or “steak” on the packaging.
Seems reasonable enough.
MEP Éric Andrieu oversaw the legislation and had the following to say:
“The meat lobby is not involved in this. It has generated a considerable debate among the political groups, and a large majority wanted to clarify things.
Particularly in the light of history, the history we share, you can have a steak or burger, you can’t call it something else.
We felt that steak should be kept for real steak with meat and come up with a new moniker for all these new products.
There is a lot to be done on this front, a lot of creativity will be needed.
People need to know what they are eating.
So people who want to eat less meat know what they are eating – people know what is on their plate.”
So what are the new meat monikers going to be, you ask? The committee was really creative with these: burgers will be discs, sausages will be tubes, escalope will be slices, and steaks will be slabs. Ah, we could go for a nice veggie slab, couldn’t you?
The new name measure won’t be voted on by full Parliament until after Theresa May’s European elections. The vote will then be kicked to member states of the EU. The entire ratification process could take years, but never fear…change is coming!
Check out other new stories making people angry lately – restaurants that price vegetables the same as meat.
