houston – Mama's Milk, No Chaser

I’m quite upset to learn that food truck vendor Mi Patio Cafe & Grill sold animal flesh and animal dairy byproducts on nearly every food option on their menu at Vegandale Food & Drink Festival, where all food and beverages were intended to be fully vegan. Customers were livid and felt betrayed (by a local business nonetheless).

Hearing this news brought up a memory from my own experience at Vegandale. I helped at a New York City-based vendor table called Monk’s Meats for a few hours, assisting in sandwich prep. One customer glanced at the sandwich handed to him, then looked back at its server. “Is this meat?” he asked suspiciously. “Ah, no…” he received in reply. Overhearing this exchange, I thought to myself, Wow, how ridiculous! Let’s not be *that* kinda vegan… I mean, this is a vegan festival! Looks like this man had the right idea to question after all. (For the record, Monk’s Meats is a 100% plant-based business).

Vegandale was promoted as ‘100% vegan… Where you don’t have to worry about ingredients,’ and this reassurance was given in the website FAQ as well. We paid $10-$20 per ticket to enjoy a fully vegan community event with promise to uphold a certain standard of ethics.

Via Associated Press

As I write this*, I’m taking note of the tornado warnings that have made my phone beep seemingly every hour for the past few days. The sound of rain pelting the windows. Bayous and reservoirs cresting over. I’m watching friends’ and neighbors’ homes flood in real time. Reading about pleas for rescue as families seek refuge from rising water in their attics and on their roofs. You could say things are out of control.

Amid all of this, babies still need to eat. Newborn babies who took their first breath at a Houston area birth center after tropical storm Harvey made landfall. Older babies who nurse around the clock or drink expressed or powdered milk or formula supplements.

The stores are closed and roads are crumbling or underwater. Formula is now largely inaccessible. But babies still need to eat.

Pumping moms need to continue pumping to avoid mastitis, supply issues, and maintain production. What about when the power goes out? Or when the house floods and the circuit board must be shut off? Hopefully they have a manual pump or have been taught how to hand express… because babies still need to eat.

New mothers, welcomed into motherhood with all the terrific drama Mother Nature herself could muster: I hope you have a (relatively) easy time getting started. The well-trained eye of a lactation consultant in your home, personally assessing latch and other tricky spots, cannot compare to scouring the internet for emergency breastfeeding help in the early days. But no one is risking travel across town for ‘work’ in a deluge. A lucky mother has her phone fully charged and ready to go with breastfeeding apps right now because, of course, babies still need to eat.

*(Flood waters have since receded from my neighborhood and we’re doing fine now. However, eleven million people in the southeast counties of Texas are still trying to get a grip on the continued consequences of this historic flooding). Read More

Tag: houston

Mi Patio Cafe: Serving Animal Products to Unaware Vegan Families Isn’t Ethical

Breastfeeding Concerns During a Natural Disaster: Babies Still Need To Eat