You don’t have to wave a banner to be an
activist, as Eddy Bikales explains.
I’m a vegetarian activist who doesn’t carry placards, appear
on radio talk shows, or even man streetcorner cardtables (though God
bless those who do!). No, I sit inconspicuously in my office, short
hair and tie, quietly wielding my weapons of a pen and a telephone.
But like the streetcorner activists, I’ve dealt the meat industry
a very satisfying blow.
I didn’t always believe it was possible. Soon after I gave up
meat — partly in objection to animal slaughter — I felt
disheartened to realize that my tiny refusal to eat the stuff probably
wouldn’t trickle back to the stockyards. In other words, no slaughterhouse
would butcher one less cow or 10 fewer chickens just because lil’
ol’ me had switched to tofu.
But then I learned we vegetarians can, in fact, be carnivorously powerful.
I’ve done it. I write this with bravado because I want you, my
vegetarian comrade, to understand that you too can rip the flesh out
of the meat industry.
Case #1
The ho-hum nature of how I discovered the vegetarian multiplier effect
is also its beauty. I began working for a large Church-related organization
last April. Nineteen floors, 2000 employees, one cafeteria in the basement.
I even tried eating there for the first week. Nice vegetables on the
salad bar, but — day after day — not a single meatless entrée.
And I’m a big eater.
So at the end of my three-month, new employee probation period, I put
together a polite, one-page letter to the food service manager noting
my unhappiness and afternoon hunger pangs — and suggesting a few
meatless entrée ideas. I "cc’d" the building
superintendent and a colleague whom I learned represents our unit on
issues dealing with food service.
Voilà —it took all of 10 minutes. When I placed a follow-up
call to the food service manager the next week, he actually thanked
me and said that on the basis of the letter he’d already devised
plans to offer a daily vegetarian entrée beginning the following
week. He even read me the menu. Learning that fish isn’t "vegetarian"
seemed to cause him a little befuddlement, though he promised our aquatic
friends wouldn’t count in the future.
So today when I strut into the cafeteria, I watch foodservice tray
after tray of meatless entrées dolloped onto waiting dishes. A hundred
or more people enjoying meat-free lunches — meals that wouldn’t
have been available otherwise. It happens every day, whether I’m
there or not: pound after pound, ton after ton, meat not consumed. The
vegetarian multiplier effect. (Sure, the vegetarian entrée is
sometimes quite eggy or cheesy, but on my moral scale that’s a
hell of a lot higher. And I know of at least one person in the building
who has since gone vegetarian in part because it’s now easier
to do so, given the availability at lunch.)
Case #2
Trapped for a week in one of those hotels-as-islands-amidst-honky-tonk-sprawl
in Stamford, Connecticut, I had no car. Afterward, I sent the Sheraton
management a little note decrying the fact that for those seven days
the hotel restaurant menu offered but one vegetarian item — and
it was out of stock all week! It didn’t hurt to mention that I
was conferencing there with a large organization, one whose business
the Sheraton surely appreciates. I was delighted to receive back quickly
a letter stating, "...We appreciate your comments and certainly
will make the necessary changes to accommodate yours and other vegetarian
needs in the future. We have expanded our menu to include grilled vegetables
with hummus and pita, a variety of soups, entrée salads, and
pastas."
Case #3
After facing a similar conundrum at the YMCA of the Rockies in Estes
Park, Colorado, and dealing with it in the same way, the management
wrote, "... The next time you visit our facility you will find
a better variety of vegetarian entrées." So now, long after
I’ve passed through those venerable institutions, never to return,
people order and eat vegetarian meals every day without seeing the
silent
hand that made it possible: a simple letter. Less meat used in these
large institutional kitchens means a lot less meat ordered: the vegetarian
multiplier effect in action.
Even if you don’t work for a big organization, you can influence
the restaurants you enter. Always, always make sure the staff waiting
on you knows you’re vegetarian. Even if it’s listed on the
menu, ask the maître d’, the waiter, the owner: "Got
anything good for vegetarians?" That way management is always aware
that we’re out there, and are far more likely to add more vegetarian
items when devising their menus.
Finally, be sure all of your friends know how important vegetarianism
is to you. Last year a dear carnivorous friend — without asking
me — planned a vegetarian menu for her wedding reception just
because I’d be there. Well, it turned out that I’d already
made unbreakable plans for that weekend, so 200 guests forfeited their
greasy steaks that night for some guy a thousand miles away. The multiplier
strikes again.
We can do it. We can create an environment where it’s simple and
safe to be vegetarian — where we have tempting choices wherever
we go. And when it’s easier to go without meat, millions more
may join our ranks.
Try it. Just pick up your pen and watch the amazing vegetarian multiplier
effect take charge.
Eddie Bikales is a video documentary producer and
ultimate frisbee player who lives in New York City.
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