Vegetarian Club takes action against McDonald’s

Destiny Shelton
Contributing Writer

The Vegetarian Club presented its 1,300 student signatures requesting the Aramark food service to remove McDonald’s from the MCV campus at the Food Advisory committee meeting Thursday, March 4.
The Vegetarian Club spreads the awareness of factory farming to students and motivates them to adopt a vegetarian or vegan diet, according to Megan Bolten, the vice president of the Vegetarian Club. They have worked with volunteers of peta2, which is a part of PETA, a youth animal rights organization, to retrieve the 1,300 student signatures.
“Just (factory farming) techniques of slaughter and completely inhumane animal cruelties are what we’re mostly against,” Bolten said. “So until they come up with different ways we’re not going to support even buying a bottle of water from there.
The petition took place last semester and was a part of an international campaign, which Peta launched in 1999, called the McCruelty Campaign.
Bolten said the Vegetarian Club’s petition requested that McDonald’s be removed from the MCV campus, where the medical center is located, until they agree to change their harsh slaughter methods to a less cruel method such as the “controlled-atmosphere killing.”
McDonald’s has spoken of lessening the abuse of their chickens and according to their Web site, their animal welfare program includes Global Animal Welfare Guiding Principles for McDonald’s programs worldwide, an Animal Welfare Council to advise on humane animal handling practices, onsite audits to ensure appropriate animal handling practices in their suppliers’ slaughterhouse facilities, laying-hen guidelines for their U.S. egg suppliers and other local market-specific standards.
But the problem still has yet to be resolved, according to Bolten, so the Vegetarian Club decided to take action. Literature was passed around to students to exemplify what they were signing the petition for.
“McDonald’s is a contradiction being inside a hospital,” junior Shanice Battle said.
She said she supports the Vegetarian Club’s efforts only if McDonald’s is in fact removed and they fight to replace it with a healthier food restaurant that uses less cruel methods in the treatment of their chicken.
Although the Vegetarian Club and other students disagree with McDonald’s methods, there are still students who disagreed with the club’s petition against McDonald’s last year.
Some students said if McDonald’s were to be removed from campus, it would affect them in a negative way.
Daryl Goldsmith, a junior, said he is among the group of students who does not support the efforts of the Vegetarian Club and believe that presenting the signatures they have to the Food Advisory committee meeting this week will not yield results.
“I’m personally a McDonald’s breakfast lover so if they remove that from campus I don’t know if I would feel like going all the way down Broad Street to get breakfast food,” Goldsmith said.
The Food Advisory committee meeting will take place Thursday, March 4 at 5 p.m. in the Compass Room of the Shafer Court Dining Center and is open to all students.