Status quo, defect description and rationale:
Animal-based products are the cause of unacceptibly high greenhouse gas emissions. Spending public money on products that harm the worldwide public by increasing climate is an abuse of public money. Countless animals also suffer cruel treatment when they are used as products.
Some minority of people have allergies and medical conditions that complicate nutrition and make vegan diets impractical or impossible. These people cannot be marginalised. For the purpose of supporting their human rights, animals shall be sourced from humane suppliers verified to a much higher standard than legal bare minimums for commercial farming.
Lab-grown meat still originates from an animal and also still has significant emissions. But for the purposes of this rule lab-grown meat is regarded as vegan enough (“legally vegan”).
Farmed insects have negligible emissions and negligible cruelty. Insect death is unavoidable in plant farming anyway. Thus insects are also considered “legally vegan” for the purposes of these new rules.
New rules:
- public schools, prisons, and government sanctioned workplace cafeterias shall not serve non-vegan food to people who do not have a medical exemption.
- military MREs (meals ready to eat) and military cafeterias shall not serve farmed meat to service people who do not have a medical exemption. Meat from legal fishing of non-overfished species and hunted wild game is tolerated.
- when government employees and contractors submit receipts for reimbursement (e.g. for travel or temporary duty), non-vegan items shall not be treated as tax-free or reimbursed to people who do not have a medical exemption. Receipts that do not indicate whether the food is vegan or not are unsubmittable.
- per diem allowances that do not require itemized receipts for costs below a threshold remain unaffected. But per diem rates should be adjusted for vegan food costs, which could be more or less than current per diem rates.
- suppliers of farmed animals for medically exempted people shall ahere to a high standard of humane cruelty-free farming and this shall be verified.
- farmed meat/cheese that reaches the day of expiry may pass for “legally vegan” for the purposes of these new rules if and only if the price is reduced by at least 60% (zero waste without incentivizing ecocide).