Give us back our steak frites, Paris mayor is told in veggie row : Low-Carb War Zone Forum : Active Low-Carber Forums

#1 ^

Yesterday, 12:32

Demi

Choose Your Hard!

Posts: 27,295

Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/152/160 Female 5'10"

BF:
Progress: 110%

Location: UK

Give us back our steak frites, Paris mayor is told in veggie row

Quote:

Give us back our steak frites, Paris mayor is told in veggie row

Anne Hidalgo’s plan to feed the city’s council workers vegetarian meals in the name of ecology has split the French left

The vegetarian meals given to Paris’s 51,000 council workers are being touted as a victory in the fight against global warming.

Yet many of the workers do not see it that way. Gardeners, road sweepers and others with outdoor jobs are furious that municipal canteens serve dishes such as broccoli gratin, chilli with vegetables and bulgur wheat or pasta with beans, tomatoes, sweetcorn, onion and garlic. They are demanding a return of the meat dishes that have been removed from council canteen menus on Wednesday and Friday.

The row has highlighted a division in the French left. On one side are largely affluent urbanites keen to challenge France’s entrenched meat-eating tradition in the name of ecology. On the other are working-class employees who remain attached to such classic dishes as steak frites and cordon bleu.

The moderate French Confederation of Christian Workers union denounced the twice-weekly “100 per cent vegetarian days” as the fruit of political correctness and an abuse of power.

“What gives our employer the right to choose what we eat during our lunchtime?” it asked.

Patrick Auffret, a delegate of Force Ouvrière, a left-wing union, was equally upset, describing the vegetarian meals as a source of “irritation for a lot of staff, notably for the gardeners with physical, outside jobs”.

Auffret told Le Parisien that staff would abandon the council’s 15 canteens in favour of cafés and restaurants that served meat, even if they were more expensive.

Changer Paris, a centre-right opposition group in the capital, accused Anne Hidalgo, the city’s Socialist mayor, of an attack on the freedom to choose what to eat.

“What right does Anne Hidalgo have to decide upon the diets of Paris council staff?” it said.

Audrey Pulvar, the assistant mayor in charge of “sustainable food and agriculture”, said the new menus would reduce the city’s carbon footprint, ensure “a better respect of the diversity of diets” and enable canteen operators to save money.

Proponents of vegetarian diets point out that the livestock sector accounts for 14.5 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Pulvar said the needs of outdoor workers had been considered, and high protein meals were made available, even on vegetarian days. She said she had received only about 40 complaints from staff and denied that they were deserting the canteens in search of meat.

The average French person eats 120kg of meat a year, according to Our World in Data. This compares with an EU average of 104kg a year, and 100kg in the UK, although it is less than the Portuguese, who get through 154kg a year, or the Americans, on 149kg.

Yet meat consumption has fallen in France by 5.8 per cent over the past 20 years, according to the agriculture ministry.

The decline has split the left. In Paris, the mostly upper-middle-class, environmentally conscious voters who form the bedrock of Hidalgo’s support have welcomed the trend. Many expressed support for the MP Sandrine Rousseau when she denounced barbecues as an environmentally damaging tradition perpetuated by red-meat-eating men with sexist values. “They are symbols of virility,” she said, making it plain that virility was not a good quality in her eyes.

But the French Communist Party, which has its roots in working-class France, sprang to the defence of barbecues. It said French workers had the right to have “a good wine, a good meat [and] a good cheese”.

https://www.thetimes.com/world/euro...e-row-sxlmsc8fg

Sponsored Links

#2 ^

Yesterday, 17:40

Calianna

Senior Member

Posts: 2,177

Plan: Atkins-ish (hypoglycemia)
Stats: 000/000/000 Female 63

BF:
Progress: 50%

What the heck is happening to Paris? First the Olympics, and now their own employees aren't going to have ready access to meat a couple days a week?

I googled Broccoli gratin because I knew that meant it had cheese , so I was trying to find some recipes for it to see just how much protein those meals would provide.

This description accompanies one of the recipes:

Quote:

This broccoli au gratin is a bit like mac and cheese, with broccoli subbed in for the macaroni. Each bite has tender broccoli in a creamy, cheesy sauce with crunchy breadcrumbs, and it's hearty enough to be a vegetarian main dish or served as a side to your favorite protein.

The recipe itself has 1-1/2 lbs broccoli, 8 oz of cheddar, and 2 Tbsp of parmesan.

It makes 6 servings with a whopping 17 g protein per serving, which as it turns out is a fairly high amount of protein for broccoli gratin - but it would appear that less than 10 g of that protein is coming from the cheese.

As it turns out, that's a fairly high protein Broccoli gratin recipe though.

Another one has 2 lbs of broccoli (8 cups), with only 4 oz of cheese, although this recipe does have 1-1/2 cups milk.

This one also makes 6 servings, with only 11 g protein per serving, with less than 6 g animal protein

Yet another recipe only has 9 g protein per serving - about 4 g animal protein

The next recipe has even less protein: 6 g per serving. (about 3 grams animal protein/serving)

I'm sure the gardeners and road crews will feel like they're being starved to death on that - probably won't have the energy or stamina to work nearly as efficiently as normal.

And that's just the broccoli gratin - doesn't sound like the other meals they're offering have any animal protein at all.

#3 ^

Today, 04:33

WereBear

Senior Member

Posts: 14,961

Plan: Carnivore & LowOx
Stats: 220/130/150 Female 67

BF:
Progress: 129%

Location: USA

Corporate food is behind the "ecological concerns" which are FALSE.

We would be far better off with mixed farms, far less of the oil/fertilizers which ruin the soil, and people who are healthy.

The biggest health danger is lack of protein and corporations will happily keep it from us.

Not enough money in feeding people real food.