Showing posts with label legislation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legislation. Show all posts

Monday, 17 October 2011

French Ban Vegetarian and Vegan Meals

EVU! - Vegetarianism / Veganism now made illegal in France!

France's  Nick Sarkozy- Nil Point - Small Y Front Syndrome?
20 years ago we used to joke that it was considered high treason to be vegetarian in France with vegans facing the guillotine. If we met French Vegans we would joke that we didn't think there were any vegans in France, they would joke "that eez right, there eez not, I left!" . Guests at Taigh Na Mara Vegan Guest House in Scotland reported being thrown out of French hotels and pensions for cruelty to their children - (forcing their mad vegetarian beliefs on their sons and daughters)

It seems the nightmare stereotyping has become a gruesome reality in France with a new piece of legislation that makes meat eating law, forcing French meals in Schools, hospitals and old peoples homes to always contain meat and animal products.

If you needed any more proof that President of the Republic of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, is Totally Bonkers then here is the icing on the cake. The French President has made it effectively illegal to be vegetarian in France in a move to counteract Paul McCartney's Meat Free Monday initiative.

Following a law voted last year by the French Parliament(1), similar decrees will be taken shortly regarding almost all forms of catering from kindergarten to hospital, prisons and retirement homes. Vegetarianism will then have effectively been banned for a large part of the population.

A governmental order issued on October 2, 2011(2) has determined that all meals served in school canteens in France must contain animal products, and that meat and fish will be served at a certain minimum frequency. This implies that by law from now on no vegetarian can eat at any public or private school in France.

The European Vegetarian Union EVU say

The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which is binding on member states including France, holds that: Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change religion or belief and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or in private, to manifest religion or belief, in worship, teaching, practice and observance.(4)
The public debate regarding animal rights and the moral status of animals is active in France as in many other countries. Citizens are entitled to choose freely where they stand on these issues, and those who believe that they cannot, in conscience, accept to eat animals must not be discriminated against.
A government cannot settle a philosophical, ethical and political debate by restricting the rights of those who disagree with its own positions. For years, the official policy of the French government has been openly hostile to vegetarianism.(5) The French agriculture minister, Bruno Lemaire, declared in January 2010 that the government's aim in determining its public nutritional policy was to defend the French agricultural model and specifically to counter initiatives such as those of Paul McCartney calling for a reduced consumption of meat.(6)
Footnotes:
1. "Law for the modernization of agriculture and fisheries", published on July 27, 2010.

2. Décret n° 2011-1227 du 30 septembre 2011; arrêté du 30 septembre 2011.
3. Position statement of the American Dietetic Association
4. Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, article 10.1
5.An example is the site mangerbouger.fr, where the only nutritional advice given to a teenager contemplating becoming a vegan is "By all means, do not follow that diet!" (www.mangerbouger.fr/pro/IMG/pdf/guide_adolescents-2.pdf, page 11).
6. http://tinyurl.com/FlashLeFigaro

Perhaps now the public will take Veggie Pride a little more seriously as it seems French vegetarians and vegans really are an oppressed and persecuted minority in France.


www.1worldday.org www.tinyurl.com/oneworldday www.one-world-day.org

Saturday, 16 April 2011

Petition: Fund Research On Healthy Diets

Fund Ethical Research On Plantarian Food for Health Petition: "Due to a stranglehold on research funded by drug companies and lobbying from Food Manufacturing lobbyists it's relatively impossible to get funding for research on preventable nutritional medicine and health solutions from better diets as this can't be turned into a patentable drug.

Professor Smith from UK Oxford University, with help from Olso University in Sweden, recently published well publicised research on halting dementia and Alzhiemer's just with B Vitamins. Professor Smith admitted the problems of researching food and nutrients rather than drugs. He revealed “The dogma is strong and there is money involved. If it is not produced by the pharmaceutical companies, you have a hard time getting funded.”

Important scientific proof of the need for nutrition not drugs will struggle to surface whilst most research is funded by drug companies.

The only solution is for responsible governments and the World Health Organisation to commit to prove what professional Nutritional therapists demonstrate every day in their clinics, that food can heal. President Bill Clinton under Dr Esselstyne is using food to beat heart disease, PCRM has shown food can reverse Diabetes.

The British Medical Journal (BMJ) reveals 'When the report, Diet, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Chronic Diseases, was released (BMJ 2003;326: 515), American food manufacturers' groups began lobbying to prevent their government from accepting its proposals. The Sugar Association wrote to the director general of WHO, threatening to “exercise every avenue available to expose the dubious nature” of the report. Congressmen recruited by the food industry urged the secretary of health, Tommy Thompson, to cut off the $406m (£226m; €334m) annual US contribution to WHO (BMJ 2003;326: 948).

If we continue to ignore Hippocrates' ethos of “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food” there will be dire catastrophic consequences.


Please sign our Petition:
In the interests of optimal world health and sustainability we the undersigned urge world governments and the World Health Organisation, to stand up to pharmaceutical and manufactured food industry lobbyists, provide balance in the drugs vs diet debate and fill the funding gap to fund scientific research that proves better diets and fresh, complete, wholefoods and the nutrients they contain can prevent, halt and often reverse chronic disease.