That above is a black bean veggie burger – doesn’t look half bad, right? Anyway, off to France.

They’ve drawn a line in the sand, and that line is sure to piss off vegans. French MPs have now passed a law that bans the “use of animal-derived descriptions for veggie and vegan products”, which means you can kiss the likes of vegan cheese and veggie sausages goodbye.

At least in name, because that’s what all the fuss is about.

The ban was voted in last Thursday, with this below via Huff Post:

On Thursday MPs voted to ban terms including “bacon”, “steak”, “sausage” and “cheese” where the product has not come from an animal, on the grounds they can be “misleading” to consumers.

Instead, vegan and veggie manufacturers will have to get creative with their product naming, or risk a whopping €300,000 (approx R4,5-million) fine for breaking the law – ouch…

The ban in France was proposed by MP and farmer Jean-Baptiste Moreau, who apparently takes his foodstuffs very seriously. He tweeted on Thursday to say the move would “better inform” consumers, adding: “Our products must be given correctly: the terms of #cheese or #steak will be reserved for animal products.”

This from a country that eats snails and frog legs, mind you.

I guess there’s good news for vegans – they’ll still be able to buy veggie steaks and burgers, but they’ll just be labelled differently.

Here’s something from reporter and vegetarian Sophie Gallagher that might irk a few people:

…”if people have given up meat because they don’t like the idea of eating animals, then equating it to a steak seems a bit backwards”.

“Fundamentally all this marketing of vegetables as burgers and steaks achieves is allowing companies to charge more money for what is essentially just a grilled vegetable that you could buy for 10% of the price in the vegetable aisle,” she added.

That brings to mind the infamous Marks and Spencer incident from earlier this year, where the UK was up in arms about a “cauliflower steak”.

What might that be? Well, it was a slice of grilled cauliflower with some herbs wrapped in plastic, which was flogged to consumers for £2 a pop.

You can read more about that incident here.

I would say that any attempts to ban calling things ‘vegan cheese’ or ‘vegan burger’ here in Cape Town would be met with riots along Bree Street.

[source:huffpost]