letter to my school...no-no's?

[steinbock]

I'm currently working on a letter to my school, asking for a vegetarian or vegan option sold at lunch. any suggestions on no-no's i ought to include? like no-no's that the food coordinator might not know is unfriendly.

[misq17]

Just make sure you include what a vegetarian/vegan diet really means.

For example:

Vegetarian means no meat, poultry, or seafood, including chicken stock.

Make sure you point out that vegans don't eat dairy, eggs, whey, casein, or honey.

Good luck and congrats on trying to make a difference in your school.

[VegWithEdge]

1. Do not personally attack the person you are writing to. A negative letter will be tossed in the trash.

2. Make simple meal suggestions

3. Put in health benefits for example, Those who lead a vegetarian lifestyle live longer than omnivores.

I'm currently working on a paper for my school as well and so far its pretty good and long. I go into great detail about the health benefits and how my Catholic school should save animals. Just stay positive and dont stray from what you want. Good Luck!

[steinbock]

I strongly believe that it would greatly behoove the school if a vegetarian option were to be offered as a part of the daily school lunch menu, or a vegan option could be offered instead of a vegetarian meal. A vegan option would serve a larger number of students and faculty. This alternative ought to be more than the large salad currently offered. It should be a full meal like the meat inclusive meals the school presently sells.
What is a vegetarian meal? A vegetarian meal is one in which no meat or meat additives such as stock, fat, or flavoring is used. A vegan meal is one in which no meat, dairy, eggs, or otherwise animal derived product such as whey, casein, and honey is used to create the meal. Products that are not consumed by vegetarians or vegans include fish, seafood, gelatin (found in Jell-O and marshmallows), any source of meat (stock, flavoring, or derivatives), poultry, or other such foodstuffs.
So what can be served? Serving a vegetarian or vegan meal choice to the students and faculty of the school is not as difficult as it may seem at first. One easy choice is a veggie burger. Veggie burgers often come in frozen patties like the hamburgers. If veggie burgers were to be added to the daily lunch options, they could be served in the same line that sells hamburgers and chicken burgers for two dollars and twenty-five cents. With the veggie burger, a student will be offered the option to get a salad, soup, french fries, and two drink choices. The drink choices should include a milk carton and a juice (not the frozen pops). If a child is vegan, milk is not consumed.
How do veggie burgers need to be prepared? Veggie burgers are prepared the same way as any other frozen burger. They can be cooked on a typical heating surface. However, many vegetarians find it offensive to the food to be cooked using an animal based oil. For this reason, the veggie burgers should be cooked with a vegetable oil.
Would a vegetarian meal option provide the consumer with adequate nutrition? Yes! Veggie burgers provide the consumer with plenty of protein to be the sole source of protein in a meal. Also, the consumer would get his or her grain from the bun the veggie burger is served on, vegetable in the salad served with lunch, fruit in the fruit juice offered as a drink, and dairy in the milk drink a child could purchase.
Overall, serving veggie burgers as an option for a student or faculty member to purchase as a lunch is a very beneficial addition. A larger portion of the students and faculty will be able to purchase lunch at the school with the veggie burger being sold daily. Also, the vegetarian lifestyle is very beneficial to the body and has many proven benefits to abstaining from eating meat or animal derived products.
I appreciate your time and look forward to receiving feedback on this issue I feel is very important.

just an fyi of what my letter looks like :)
thanks you two for the ideas...i had forgotten whey and casein (forgive me, i'm not vegan...:sweat:)
as for staying positive, I do my best :)

[snownose]

thats good! Let us know if you get a reply.

[steinbock]

certainly will do :)
i'm having my one friend (poll-pescetarian...but she's trying :)) proofread it for me tomorrow during school, then i'll probably send it off. if i don't get a reply within a reasonable amount of time, i'm going to send the same email to the principal :)
and if that doesn't work, i plan on a petition, i plan on working hard to get this working :)

[snownose]

Good for you!
I was wondering where your username comes from. It sounds like Steinbeck the author!

[steinbock]

oh, my username :)
well, it's the same one i use on the site where i post some poetry i write, but it actually didn't come from the author, though i have heard of him
actually, it means capricorn in german...or litereally it could mean rock horse...i just like it, and i'm a capricorn studying german, so it just flat out fits :)
it's pronounced like steinbeck (long I) but the o is short as in saw

[misq17]

Looks good :up: Tell us how it works out.

[bethany17]

Looks good! But are you sure that your school cooks its own food? A lot of school systems have a master school that delivers to other ones.

[steinbock]

:yes:

[VegWithEdge]

Nice letter! Its short and sweet :) My paper is for my writing class so its getting pretty long... Good luck and update us!

[steinbock]

thanks. yeah, i didn't want it to get too long else they'll look at it and say "i don't want to waste my time with this!" and of course i'll keep you updated!

[steinbock]

alright, just a quick update on the progress I've made after one day...I've had two friends proofread my letter. (the one i mentioned before, the pola-pesc, and another friend who's a carnivore (her words, not mine :))) well, the first friend (friend a) read it, made some edits, and gave me ideas on what i should add to it. then i made the additions and gave the new letter to carnivore friend (friend b) friend b got really excited about the idea and won't shut up about it :smitten:, she made a fw grammatical changes... then i editted it myself, and so i have the third copy. on monday, i'm going to take a fourth try (i plan on editting AT LEAST once more) to school and try to get my english teacher to proofread it. If she won't, then i'll go to my english teacher from last year, who taught me so much about grammar and vocab it isn't funny! but i think my teacher this year will happily proofread it. After that, i think i'll read over it once more then send it off to the food service director of our school :) i'm excited.
below, i'm going to paste my current letter...please comment and make suggestions! the more voices reflected, the better!

[steinbock]

Dear (her)
Subject: Vegetarian Food Options
I strongly believe that it would greatly behoove the school if a vegetarian option were to be offered as a part of the daily school lunch menu; or a vegan option could be offered instead of a vegetarian meal. A vegan option would serve a larger number of students and faculty. This alternative ought to be more than the large salad currently offered. It should be a full meal like the meat inclusive meals the school presently sells.
A vegetarian meal is one in which no meat or meat-based additives such as stock, fat, or flavoring is used. A vegan meal is one in which no meat, dairy, eggs, or otherwise animal derived product such as whey, casein, and honey is used to create the meal. Products that are not consumed by vegetarians or vegans include fish, seafood, gelatin, any source of meat (stock, flavoring, or derivatives), poultry, or other such foodstuffs.
Serving a vegetarian or vegan meal choice to the students and faculty of the school is not as difficult as it may seem. One easy choice is a veggie burger. Veggie burgers often come in frozen patties like hamburgers. If veggie burgers were to be added to the daily lunch options, they could be served in the same line that sells hamburgers and chicken burgers for the same price. With the veggie burger, a student will be offered the option to get a salad, soup, French fries, and two drink choices. The two drink choices should include a milk carton and a juice (not the frozen pops).
Veggie burgers provide the consumer with plenty of protein to be considered the sole source of protein in a meal. Also, the consumer would get his or her grain from the bun the veggie burger is served on, vegetable in the salad served with lunch, fruit in the fruit juice offered as a drink, and dairy in the milk drink a consumer could purchase. Veggie burgers are prepared the same way as any other frozen burger. They can be cooked on a typical heating surface. However, many vegetarians find it offensive for the food to be cooking using an animal based oil. For this reason, the veggie burgers should be cooked with a vegetable oil.
There are a plethora of other vegetarian and vegan options for lunch. A couple of these choices include a larger soup as a meal. With soup, the broth cannot be chicken, beef, or seafood flavored. Tomato soup and vegetarian vegetable soup are two common choices. Vegetarian vegetable soup does not contain chunks of beef and the broth is not beef based, rather it is typically tomato based. Another possibility could include a sandwich bar. This sandwich bar should include several bread choices such as wheat, rye, white, Italian, or others. In addition, several vegetables should be offered. A few of the many options include cucumber, lettuce, tomato, pepper (green, yellow, red, and jalapeno), olives, onions, hummus, bean spread, broccoli, etc. Just about anything one could think of can be used on a sandwich. Neither of these options take much preparation. The soup only means more and a greater variety needs to be made. For the sandwich bar, vegetables need to be cut and laid out.
Overall, serving vegetarian meals as an option for a student or faculty member to purchase as a lunch is a very beneficial addition. A larger portion of the students and faculty will be able to purchase lunch at the school with the meals being served daily. The options are not only for vegetarians and vegans, but other students as well. Many non-vegetarian students may be interested in the variety found for lunch as well, and enjoy the delicious new lunches. Also, the vegetarian and vegan lifestyles are very beneficial to the body and have many proven benefits to abstaining from eating meat or animal derived products.
I appreciate your time and look forward to receiving feedback on this issue that I feel is very important.
Sincerely,
sb

[VegWithEdge]

It sort of sounds like you grabbed a thesaurus and put in random words that dont quite belong such as behoove and plethora. The sandwhich bar is a great idea but having that many fresh ingredients that go bad fast would cost the school/lunch provider big cash. Overall i think the letter is really good, awesome job! Good luck with the final edits and turning in the letter!

[Schoska]

Hey, I thought I might add one point, although it may not apply to your school.
Having a vegetarian, and particularly vegan option would mean that Muslims, Jews and Hindus would have an option where they wouldn't have to worry about it being kosher or halal etc.
My school always had a veggie option and a great many of my Muslim friends opted for this, partly due to taste, and partly due to the fact that there was no concern then over traces of pork/slaughter practices etc.

[snownose]

Maybe you should get lots of students and staff to sign it. That way they'll know more than 1 person wants veg*n meals. One sentence I don't understand. ''Veggie burgers provide the consumer with plenty of protein to be considered the sole source of protein in a meal."

Shouldn't you say "Veggie burgers provide the consumer with enough protein to be considered the sole source of protein in a meal.''

Just MHO.

[steinbock]

It sort of sounds like you grabbed a thesaurus and put in random words that dont quite belong such as behoove and plethora. The sandwhich bar is a great idea but having that many fresh ingredients that go bad fast would cost the school/lunch provider big cash. Overall i think the letter is really good, awesome job! Good luck with the final edits and turning in the letter!
oh...oops, well, i didn't grab a thesaurus, i just use the words :) they are used in the correct context, but do they stick out too much for this usage? yeah, i thought it'd be hard for them, but it's one of those things where i'll suggest it and let them decide...besides, i go to a big school, so it'll get eaten, and they re-use veggies that aren't eaten one day. they'll wrap them up and put them in a fridge somewhere...i don't really want to know what the exact practise is...

[steinbock]

Hey, I thought I might add one point, although it may not apply to your school.
Having a vegetarian, and particularly vegan option would mean that Muslims, Jews and Hindus would have an option where they wouldn't have to worry about it being kosher or halal etc.
My school always had a veggie option and a great many of my Muslim friends opted for this, partly due to taste, and partly due to the fact that there was no concern then over traces of pork/slaughter practices etc.
there are one or two kids in my school that that would apply to, but it's pretty homogeneous....pretty boring

[steinbock]

Maybe you should get lots of students and staff to sign it. That way they'll know more than 1 person wants veg*n meals. One sentence I don't understand. ''Veggie burgers provide the consumer with plenty of protein to be considered the sole source of protein in a meal."

Shouldn't you say "Veggie burgers provide the consumer with enough protein to be considered the sole source of protein in a meal.''

Just MHO.
well, i'm going to send this in an email, so signatures wouldn't work very well. if this doesn't work, then i'm going to email the principal, and if the principal doesn't respond, then i'll react by getting lots of people to sign a petition (basically the letter above but with more we's and lots of signatures), that is unless someone tells me (like the food service director) that i need __ signatures, in which case i'll get __ + a bunch :)

as for that sentence...i had it written differently before i editted, then when i typed up my edits (i wrote the letter by hand first), i forgot to edit half of the sentence...ADD, what can i say, lol. but thank you for pointing that out :)

[steinbock]

okay, so this is taking me a little longer than i expected...but i'm still happy with the progress...
oh, and bethany, i'm sorry, i must have missed your reply before, yes, i'm sure my school cooks it's own food. or at least sure enough to go ahead and ask this of them
anyways, i've editted it myself several times...veggiefriend (i think is her name) told me she'd edit it for me as well, so she helped me A LOT! and now, it's with my english teacher who said she's be happy to look over it for me :)
when i get it back from my english teacher, i'll make those changes, and take a big breath and send it away and start praying like mad :) i'll post what the letter i actually sends looks like...wish me luck :)

[VegWithEdge]

Awesome and good luck!! I was beginning to wonder what was happening to this letter :p

[ringo_is_my_man]

in my skool they have to cause i think its a law that you have to have a nonvegitarien meal and a vegatatien meal cause of certain types of religons and stuff like that

[steinbock]

well, we have a large salad...for 50 cents less than a FULL meal...but that just doesn't cut it... i want food for lunch, not a wilted salad on an itty bitty tray...i want to get a full lunch instead of the snack-ish foods we can get