Union Council Sandwich Solution
While Don Foster MP has been in starring in Attack of the Urban Seagulls Bath Union Council has been debating about the sandwiches they have on offer in their meetings.
Students’ Union Policy Resolves:
1. All Students’ Union Meetings, where buffet food is provided, should have a 60% – 40% vegetarian – meat (and fish) offering.
I’m not sure where they got the 60:40 figure from, but even if it’s true that “Meat products have a significantly higher carbon footprint than vegetarian food” you will still have to raise cattle for things like cheese and even the milk that might go into bread, so they’ll still be producing methane. You’ll need eggs as well, and I don’t think they come from eggplants! The initiative is made in the name of the worthy cause of environmentalism, but I would be interested to find out what the ratio was before this vital policy was drafted, consulted, redrafted, debated and passed.
Though it looks like I’ll never know since, in a later meeting, they decided to get rid of sandwiches all together: (my emphasis added)
Student’s Union Council Notes:
That at present a number of internal meetings, including Academic Council and Union Council, are provided with sandwiches.
That these sandwiches have been a point of previous internal discussion regarding reducing costs and green issues.Student’s Union Council Believes:
That these sandwiches are provided both as an incentive to attend meetings otherwise held over lunch times, and as a reward to those who volunteer their time to participate in these meetings.
That such meetings should not need to be incentivised in such a way.Student’s Union Council Resolves:
To discontinue providing sandwiches or similar catering at all union meetings.
However, councillors need not fear. If they are REALLY hungry, “under certain circumstances it may be appropriate to provide sandwiches” so all the bases are covered. I can see why MPs’ expenses are so carefully discussed. Although it doesn’t state whether the options will be fairly balanced 60:40 meat:vegetarian, I’m not sure the original policy applies in said circumstances.
This is too funny to be an accident; we really are 40 years away from May 1968.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
yes, I can see how sandwiches are destroying the environment…
[Reply]
April 28th, 2009 at 7:10 pm
It sounds like the students union is in need of a proper cause. If these are the future political activists of our country then we really are in trouble.
[Reply]
May 1st, 2009 at 2:16 am
I did try to filibuster the 60:40 sandwich motion on the 23rd of March with some real hard figures on the comparative carbon footprints of egg, milk, beef, chicken and fish. But alas the Union Council is not the Houses of Common and time constraints to apply.
For information the grams of CO2 produced per kcal of some foodstuffs are the following:
Chicken: 1.7g
Milk: 2.8g
Eggs: 2.9g
Beef: 13.8g
Pork: 9.0g
Lamb: 26.0g
Tuna: 4.9g
Herring: 0.3g
Vegetables: 0.1g
Corn: 0.1g
Potatoes: 0.2g
In other words, chicken is more carbon efficient than cheese! And Herring is nearly as carbon efficient as potatoes …
[Reply]
May 2nd, 2009 at 9:05 pm
Fools! Isn't the SU a petty academic institution that's too caught up in its own beaurocracy to step back and see the bigger picture?
Do we care if our sandwiches are green? Do we care if our Cars our green? We care about our cars since when we top up our petrol tanks we don't want to get bankrupted by unjustified, illegal petrol taxes or unreasonably high petrol prices maintained by an illegal cartel of oil producing, women oppressing, democracy opposing, arabs.
I don't know about anyone else, but I couldn't give as flying you-know-what about our sandwiches.
The only crying shame is that the union council chamber should have better things to do, or, if it hasn't, have its meetings cut so it can save us all some much needed money.
Joe I-dislike-Socialism Bloggs.
[Reply]