My Response on Eating Responsibly as Described in Today's Leah Garchik Column

Dear Leah,

I read about Jamie Jobb and "the complications of buying ice cream" in your column today, and I'm not quite sure what eating "responsibly" means if it doesn't include animal welfare.

My sister became a vegetarian in 1972, and my mother and her partner soon joined her in that diet.  My son made the  decision in 1987, but I continued to eat meat because I figured we all had to die, so the animals could frolic around freely until it was their turn to die and land on my plate.

Then in 2001, I saw pictures of factory farming, and I stopped eating meat.

But I continued with dairy and eggs and  thought that vegans were nuts until I learned that, as the label on the package said, "Dairy=Cruelty."

I now know what's done to cows to get them to produce 10 times more milk than they would naturally produce, how they're artificially inseminated, how they respond when separated from their calves, how they're confined...

Well, you can read all about this on your own.  Information is rampant--and I don't mean the junk science or hyperbole.

But...here's what I'd like to relate to  Jamie Jobb and your other readers:  Vegan ice cream is readily available, and it's delicious.

I'll be serving it at a Post-Oscar gathering to discuss the movies of 2017 and eat the food that was in them.  Do you remember how Tonya in I, Tonya wanted Dove Bars but got Eskimo Pies instead?  There are vegan Eskimo Pies.  In The Florida Project ice cream was big too, so we'll have our choice of several Ben and Jerry flavors, and there are a lot of other brands, so that cow the children see on the safari can live in peace!

 Here's the Post-Oscar menu so far--all of it free of meat, eggs, and dairy:

a peach for Call Me by Your Name (no special embellishments)

mushrooms , toast we can crunch on to annoy whoever is sitting next to us for Phantom Thread  

Keylime pie for The Shape of Water

Sandwiches and lemonade for The Post

Eskimo Pies instead of Dove Bars for I, Tonya

Froot Loops for Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Booze and tea for Churchill

Water for Dunkirk

Pizza (CyBelle's has a vegan pizza with cashew cheese and vegan chicken)  and ice cream for The Florida Project

What do they eat in Lady Bird?  (I know they smoke pot.)  They have leftovers.  I could bring all the leftovers out of the fridge because I can see that the food eaten in movies is a bit heavy on junk food.

Tina