Vegetarian Caterers Need Nutritionists & Training (press release)

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As The Vegetarian Society celebrate the 13th National Vegetarian week with aRude Food video, new recipes, new products and a early day motion for a legal definition of vegetarian in Parliament, questions are being asked about vegetarian catering, it's authenticity and it’s nutritional value.

Unfortunately chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and his public displays of ignorance about vegetarian diets are far too commonplace in the industry. He thinks it’s amusing to feed vegetarians meat but it’s not a joke. One day someone is going to get killed. Some people are allergic to these foods, which is why there is legislation going through the European Parliament to protect the consumer from this sort of ‘humour’.

McDonalds have just paid out $10 million to vegetarian and vegan groups in the USA after wrongly labelling fries and hash browns as vegetarian.

Gordon Ramsay needs to change his comic routine or he will find his jokes very expensive.

“It's not just authenticity. Caterers need to have basic training in nutrition and improve the standard of their so called healthy options. The good work in educating the public by UK Chef Jamie Oliver and TV evangelist nutritionists such as Gillian McKieth, Patrick Holford and Ian Marber The Food Doctor to encourage better diets needs to be replicated in the contract catering and foodservice sector” says London Nutritionist Yvonne Bishop-Weston, from Foods For Life.

As well as Nutritional Therapy Yvonne also provides catering consultancy services for some of the companies in the FT top 100, Worldwide investment banks in the City of London. “Even here, at some of the best companies to work for in the UK, the nutritional content of the vegetarian offer in the on-sight catering facilities is woeful” she says.

“Healthy eaters are choosing the vegetarian option thinking it’s healthier when quite often the dish is full of Supersize Me type white carbohydrate, sugar, salt, saturated fat, hydrogenated fat and seriously lacking in any worthwhile protein – from a health perspective they may as well not have bothered”

The availability of nutritious food from restaurants and caterers is a major problem for meat reducers – yes you can get a vegan all day breakfast in a Little Chef roadside cafe but it’s usually swimming in saturated fat and worse still full of dangerous hydrogenated trans fats.

Unlike meat reducers, 51% (vegsoc) of vegetarians are vegetarian mainly for ethical reasons and 62% of vegans hardly ever worry about their health (Imaner 2001) but most of the purchasers of meat free foods are meat reducers who do it for health reasons (FDF 2004)

Typical vegetarian dishes are:

- Stir fry – not too bad if it includes lots of brightly coloured vegetables, nuts and tofu but usually it’s just noodles in a sugary sauce and no quality protein.
- Cheese Sandwich – usually full of saturated animal fats and with processed white rather than real whole-meal bread.
- Veggie burger – often just a sad mix of potato and peas served with lashings of simple carbohydrates and saturated fat.

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