Is Big Vegan Alive and Well?

As of 2018 it was still only whispered around the D.C. corridors of power (while the meat and dairy lobbyists were out having steak & eggs!)

The idea that there’s a powerful vegan lobby has caught on with vegans and non-vegans alike. Unfortunately the only organization capable of claiming that title IMO is the Vegan Trade Council.

There is no organized vegan lobby,” said Alan Nemeth, the executive director of VTC, the first and only trade organization for vegan companies in Washington, D.C. “What makes a lobby powerful is money. And there’s no money behind this operation.”

Not all Vegans are crazy protesters, animal kidnappers, cage sitting kids with nothing better to do. How many of them are paid to do these things? Us real Vegans let our food preferences speak for themselves. The only way for Vegan to succeed as a movement is to make their food taste good! Cooks everywhere are coming up with killer vegan recipes every day. Make it taste good and everything else will follow.

We go about our lives quietly and with dignity, we do not need or want the quest for publicity to get in the way of what is good for the human race and our planet. We certainly support our friends at PETA but some of those guys, whooeee!

Big Broccoli, Big Soy, Big Corn, etc etc Need To Step Up To the Plate!

Why can’t a coalition of vegetable farmers get together and fund the VTA for a vegetable lobby in D.C.? Just one or two full-time vegan attorney’s would do it.

I know most know this already but for those that don’t: A lobby is a group of people (lobbyists) who are paid to persuade lawmakers to enact policy on behalf of an interest group. Against us Vegans in Congress are these guys;

The International Dairy Foods Association, The Beef and Chicken folks who are all paid by trade associations and they number in the HUNDREDS!

The Vegan Trade Council, by contrast, has NO lobbyists. It’s not a fair game.

“Frankly, we don’t have the money,” Nemeth said. A law professor at American University who works with one part timer doing work that consists mostly of working with a small group of member companies. Their website is not even secure!

If the Vegan Trade Council had a lobbyist, Nemeth said, the group would add a few more policy goals to its plate. One would be phasing out subsidies for the meat and dairy industries. “The government is tipping the market in favor of animal-based diets,” he said. The Vegan Trade Council would also advocate for policies requiring public institutions, like prisons, to offer vegan meals. “So everything is not chicken and beef and fish,” he said. They would also lobby against the dairy industry’s attempts to prohibit soy milk from being labeled as “milk.”

Americans Love Underdogs

As of this writing it was estimated only 5% of us is vegan!

All of that is changing, we are in the middle of a Vegan Revolution!

While the vegan lobby doesn’t really exist, that may change soon as the market for packaged vegan food in the U.S. grows. Growth in interest, cooking and vegan is at a steady 10% per year.

Nemeth is pessimistic that the vegan industry will ever influence U.S. policy in a meaningful way. The meat and dairy industries are just too powerful, he said. That’s what they said about Big Tobacco!