Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: necessity of non-vegetarian meals

[Steve Melamut (melamut]

Without entering the fray about intentional communities, diversity, 
imposing values, etc., I would like to take a quick survey.
I don't want a philisophical conversation on this issue on the listserv, 
contact me individually for any comments of that nature.

We are planning our common house at Solterra in Durham NC.  We frequently 
have potential members at all of our meetings.  We are continually 
revisiting the question of what kind of food will be served and how the 
kitchen will be designed.

Solterra was initially advertised as an intentional community promoting 
macrobiotic diets, but before any members started to buy in, it was changed 
to a more general diet.  We have been saying that all types of foods 
would be served including meat, fish, poultry.

Some of our members only eat vegetables.
Some people eat fish and vegetables.
Some people don't eat milk products.
Some people don't eat eggs.
At least one of our members wants dishes that have not been used with 
animal flesh (does not matter to me I was raised in a kosher household, a 
few sets of different color dishes are easy to deal with).

The real problem seems to lie with meat and poultry (and to a lesser 
degree with fish).  Some people want a dual kitchen, so that the 
preparation areas can be separate.  Some people don't want their food 
prepared on surfaces that have been used for meat, nor in pots that have 
touched meat.  We seem to be heading towards dual pots and pans, stoves, 
and very powerful exhaust fans.

I am surveying members in the near future to see if a non 
meat,poultry,fish kitchen would be acceptable.  It simply seems easier, 
and if there is a concensus, we can go that way.  I don't personally care 
one way or another.  I sometimes eat fish and occassionally try meat and 
poultry just out of curiosity...

But,  I also wanted to survey existing and planned communities to see how 
they handled this issue.  If you send your response to me personally, I will 
post the results when they are accumulated.

Thankyou

Steve Melamut
melamut [at] email.unc.edu

This is my message, not the communities.  It is not intended to say that 
any changes are intended from our current plan, we are working by 
concensus and it has not been even brought before the membership.  Nor 
will it be if anyone does object when I survey opinions of current 
members of the community.