I recently decided to do mutual aid for the first time, and decided to look into my city's Food Not Bombs chapter. I know that the org is basically completely decentralized and every chapter does its own thing and there's no hierarchy, etc. But I was under the assumption that FNB was at least completely vegetarian (and I know some chapters are completely vegan), and no meat is supposed to be served, in large part because of potential safety issues with serving meat, and also because they want to stop exploitation of both people and animals, and don't believe in violence against animals. That's what it says on their main website, anyways.

I've only been to the meal shares a few times, and while I did notice some vegetarian stuff the first time, there was also vegan stuff too, including the meal I brought. But then the last couple of times, there have been dishes with meat. And I was going to go today but there were several people who were explicitly making dishes with meat in them in the group chat with the intent to bring them, and it rubbed me the wrong way, so I stayed home instead.

I don't think this chapter is prioritizing food safety at all, either. Like some of those meat and dairy dishes sit out for over a few hours without being kept cooled or heated at a safe temperature. And the first time I ever went to a meal share, someone I was serving food to said they got very sick from a previous meal share, and yeah, I'm not fucking surprised at all. It also seems extremely disorganized, no one labels any of the food they bring besides me, despite people repeatedly asking through the meal share if things are vegetarian or vegan-friendly. I live in a bigger city, too, so I'm unpleasantly surprised by all of this, tbh.

I don't know if I'm being overzealous with my venting and maybe my expectations of doing mutual aid are a lot different than reality, but, idk, I don't think I am?

I honestly feel like just ditching the org entirely, serving the omni food others are bringing is gross to me anyways, ngl. I have since found a couple of mutual aid groups in the area that explicitly serve vegan/plant-based food only, and I'm thinking of doing that instead.