( Michael Appleton / Mayoral Photo Office )
Last Friday marked the first 'vegan Friday,' an Eric Adams initiative to make all New York City public school lunches completely vegan at the end of each week. Jen Chung, executive editor of Gothamist, talks about what she's been hearing from students. Plus, listener lunch reviews, and what does it mean if the vegan mayor eats fish?
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now call in for your reviews of the first vegan Friday in the New York City public schools last week. Today you might be celebrating Taco Tuesday, but now Fridays are officially vegan Fridays in the New York City public schools. Are they anything to celebrate? Call in with your review public school parents, 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. If your kids eat the school lunches, how did your child like vegan Friday? Do we have any high school students listening, maybe having a period off or a day off who want to call in yourselves, how was vegan Friday at your school? 212-433-WNYC.
These are, of course, thanks to our new mayor, Eric Adams, who's an avowed vegan, but maybe he's not 100% vegan. Maybe you saw yesterday's news about a pretty fishy report on his veganism. More on that in a second. Adams has been promoting a plant-based diet, which he says helped him overcome type two diabetes a few years ago. He even wrote a cookbook. Did you know that Eric Adams wrote a cookbook a 224-page book on his plant-based diet that came out a couple of years ago?
What was on the menu for the first vegan Friday last week? Well, according to reports, it depends. The DOE, Department of Education, had vegan tacos and seasoned broccoli on the official menu, but schools reportedly served all sorts of other items which met, let's say, varying degrees of being vegan. What did your school serve for vegan Friday? What did your child's school serve for vegan Friday? If you're a teacher or a staff member, did you go to the lunchroom and taste it? How vegan was it? 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692.
As your calls are coming in on the topic of varying degrees of vegan, it was a restaurant employee apparently who revealed to Politico this weekend that our vegan Mayor orders the fish when he goes out to that restaurant. He's not a vegan, he's a pescatarian. The whistleblower reporter said a pescatarian is somebody who eats a lot of fish. After days of silence on fish gape, Adams finally came clean on the issue at a news conference yesterday, where he also did a vegan chili demonstration. Here's 20 seconds.
Mayor Eric Adams: I'm the Mayor of the City of New York and I'm perfectly imperfect. Ignore the noise. Don't worry about what's on Mayor Adams plate. Put these items on your plate because I'm living a healthier lifestyle. I'm encouraging New Yorkers to have as many plant-based meals as possible.
Brian Lehrer: As many plant-based meals as possible. I think it only takes a little bit of generosity of spirit to say, "Yes, Eric Adams is a vegan, lives basically a vegan lifestyle, but occasionally, he falls off the wagon." A lot of people who probably consider yourselves vegetarians, sometimes you have a piece of something. 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Particularly with your vegan Friday reviews, or anything you would like to say about what makes somebody vegan enough to call themselves a vegan and write a cookbook about it. 212-433-9692. Here with us to help take your calls is none other than our own Jen Chung, executive editor of Gothamist. Hey, Jen. Thanks for joining us on the radio side.
Jen Chung: Hi, Brian.
Brian Lehrer: Your daughter, and listeners, this is one of the reasons why Jen is doing this with us, your daughter gave a pretty scathing review for the first vegan Friday on Channel 7. [chuckles] You want to relay that to our WNYC audience.
Jen Chung: Sure. My 12-year-old attends a sixth grade in Manhattan and we were pretty excited about the prospect of a vegan Friday. I think she was very open to it and we talk a lot about trying to have a healthier diet. She knew that vegan Friday was coming and her beloved mozzarella sticks were going to be not on the menu on Friday. As soon as she got her vegan Friday lunch, I asked her, "Well, what did you get? Can you show me?" She sent me a photograph of a package Southwestern black bean and cheese burrito. Then there was also a banana on her plate.
She then inspected the ingredients and it turned out the Cheese was not vegan, it was a milk-based cheese and that does not make it vegan. I think she was also a little bit let down because I think she was excited about the prospect of having a vegan Friday lunch. There was another vegan option, but it didn't look as appetizing to her. I think I've seen a number of different pictures on social media of black beans, tomatoes, and corn being served to students and it seems like some schools had a really nice presentation.
Think about what the Department of Education has to do, they have to feed like 930,000 kids every day and multiple meals and have different options. I totally understand that the rollout is going to take some time, but I think we can all get on board with what Mayor Adams is saying about trying to introduce more plant-based meals into our lives, be healthier, and have a more conscious way of thinking about things. My daughter was very amused that what was told to her as being the first vegan Friday lunch was just vegetarian.
Brian Lehrer: LaTonya with a child in the school system, I think. LaTonya you're on WNYC. Hi, there.
LaTonya: Hi. I just listen to you every day, so thank you. [chuckles]
Brian Lehrer: Thank you.
LaTonya: I have two kids in the same public school in Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. I'm a vegetarian, they both mostly eat vegetarian meals. Both of my kids came home so upset. It was like chickpeas that were runny and green and a taco. They were like-- What was it? "The water stained the table." It was pretty awful. Then their school sent a letter letting parents know that most of the kids do not eat lunch. They needed to make sure that they sent their kids to school with lunch.
I'm also a vegan Friday, so I think it's great, but it has to be appetizing. Then I just worry about the lower-income kids who rely on the school lunch to eat for the day, we have to keep on giving them an option that they will eat-
Brian Lehrer: That they will actually eat.
LaTonya: -and veganism does not have to be nasty. [crosstalk] have to be nasty.
Brian Lehrer: LaTonya, thank you. Thank you so much. Call us again. Lydia in Stanhope, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. A 26-year-old vegan, I'm told, or vegetarian?
Lydia: No. I've been a vegetarian for 26 years. I'm 41, so I've been a vegetarian for more than half my life. Your point to the Mayor, like what makes it vegan or what makes a vegetarian, I just feel like you have to give yourself some concessions and not make it a punishment. If your body is telling you it needs a certain food, then you have to listen to that. You couldn't do it long-term if you were hideously strict with yourself, is my thinking about it.
Brian Lehrer: Lydia, thank you so much. Sophia in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sophia.
Sophia: Hello. Thank you for taking my call. One of my comments, I was mentioning, I saw photos of the lunches and they looked a little sad. I'm vegetarian, flexitarian. I just noticed that my body just can't handle just a vegan-based diet, so I have to diversify it. When I saw these lunches, I was shocked that this is what they are being served. I wonder if every school is being served the same thing. Does it matter based on your district? How much money is going to school? Because I wonder if the schools in low-income areas are getting a less sad or a less glimpse that's not so diverse in the plant-based world.
Brian Lehrer: Yes. You said it was sad-looking to you, what you saw?
Sophia: Yes, it was very sad.
Brian Lehrer: Sophia, thank you. Jen Chung, what do you think about that set of calls that we just took and the lessons for the DOE?
Jen Chung: Well, I think the first caller hit on a really great point, you want this to at least be appetizing for kids. You don't want their first experience maybe with like a vegan meal to be a turn-off and then for them to be wary of it in the future. Then this last call, just talking about wondering were kids served the same meal in the schools? I don't think so. I think there might have been some supply stuff. I definitely am interested in understanding a lot more. I don't know if it's necessarily based on district or income. Again the school system serves almost a million kids, multiple meals a day, and I'm wondering if they're also like supply issues. The DOE has said that they're rolling this out over the next few weeks. I also like this idea of being gracious with yourself and giving yourself concessions and realizing like, "I'm trying to be healthy, but know my body needs this other thing." Those are all really good pieces of advice.
Brian Lehrer: Do you as a journalist conclude that Eric Adams lied about being a vegan or that anything in this little incident is telling about him in any larger sense that matters to public policy?
Jen Chung: I think he wants to be a vegan. I think that's the diet that has helped him be able to reverse his type 2 diabetes, but I think a lot of vegans will also say like, "If you're not 100% vegan, you can call yourself vegetarian and that's fine too." What I think is really exciting is if he can just get more people interested in plant-based diets, hopefully, it'll feel more accessible. I think that's also part of what he's trying to do, is to hopefully bring more equity into bringing more healthy food options into more neighborhoods and just open people's eyes to that. That's my optimistic way of looking at it.
Brian Lehrer: Fabiana in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Fabiana.
Fabiana: Hi, guys. Thank you for taking my call. It's actually a pleasure. I've been vegan for four years, and I would say that I agree with the concessions for yourself and being gracious with other people. I am vegan. I have a vegetarian child. I have been sending lunch to my kid for 13 years right now, my kid is 16, and I sent lunch every day because I think the quality of the food in the school system is terrible. I would like to hear more whole food plant-based, as in good quality food and not a highly processed vegan cheese just because it's vegan.
The Mayor could just have said, "We'll do meatless Monday," and have it a lot less marketing-driven and a lot more interesting, potentially. I wonder what the schools can do with the type of [unintelligible 00:12:29] they take.
Brian Lehrer: Fabiana, thank you so much for your call. We just have like 15 seconds left, Jen. Do you get any sense that after a lot of reviews of the first vegan Friday, that they're going to try to do it any better?
Jen Chung: I think they're always going to try to make it as appealing to kids. I think they want kids to eat. That's what Eric Adams has said, he wants to make sure that kids who need those meals will be eating them at schools.
Brian Lehrer: Jen Chung, executive editor of Gothamist. Thanks, Jen.
Jen Chung: Thank you.
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