We recently connected with Lauren Ornelas and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Lauren thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Our mission at Food Empowerment Project (F.E.P.) is to encourage people to see the power of their food choices to help make a difference locally and globally to protect human and non-human animals and the planet. Unfortunately, for many people, eating one meal a day is a struggle. For those who have the privilege of eating several times a day, I feel we have an obligation to be more informed about where our food comes from and who it impacts.

We work to inform people about injustices taking place against non-human animals and advocate for veganism for those who have access to healthy foods.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

F.E.P. is a vegan food justice organization that advocates for all humans and non-human animals facing injustices in the food system. The following are the four areas we focus on:

1. We promote veganism as a way to not support cruelty to animals, especially for those who care about animals. Non-human animals are individuals who want and deserve to live free of fear of harm and without having their babies taken away from them. For example, mother cows cry for their calves when they are removed from them, which is an integral part of the dairy industry. If they are housed near each other, you can hear them bellowing to one another. It is heartbreaking.

2. We advocate for and amplify the voices and campaigns of farm workers, not only by supporting boycotts and legislation and regulatory changes they call for, but also by coordinating a school supply drive for the children of farm workers every year. This is not an act of charity but a way to thank farm workers and help right an injustice taking place against them.

3. We work to get transparency from companies that use chocolate by asking them from what country they source their cacao as this very basic information is critical to not only determining if the company even keeps track of such a basic fact, but knowing the country helps us figure out if they are sourcing from areas where child labor and/or slavery is prevalent. We do this to help consumers who do not want to contribute to slavery and child labor in the cacao industry.

4. We work on fighting food apartheid and for access to healthy foods in Black and Brown communities that would like us to work with them, meaning we do not just start working in someone’s community without them wanting us there. We do this by using our survey tools to assess the availability of healthy foods (fresh, frozen, canned fruits and veggies, meat and dairy alternatives) along with other questions such as store hours, signs in windows, etc. This work has also led us to the conclusion that we need to fight for living wages as food costs are directly related to people’s inability to eat healthy.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I would say that over my life many things have impacted my philosophy that ultimately impact how and why I started F.E.P. and my philosophy.

You can start with Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience to understanding why it is important that we take a stand against unjust laws, to the grape boycott called by the Latinx and Philipnix farm workers for their rights, to Steve Biko reminding us that pride in our people will not be something that society gives but something we must do for each other; although he was speaking to Black is beautiful, I took this very much to heart as a Xicanx.

Documentaries that impacted me greatly include the Animals Film, which goes through all of the different ways that human animals treat, abuse, exploit, and kill non-human animals. It was the first time I ever saw a baby chick have the tip of her beak cut off and watched her bleed on other fluffy yellow chicks, all so people could eat eggs. I watched a BBC documentary in 2000 in which the interviewer asked a formerly enslaved person from the cocoa industry what he would say to Westerners who still eat chocolate, and they said something to the effect, “When they eat chocolate they are eating my flesh.” I knew I could never look at chocolate the same way again.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Our work has shown how various social justice issues are connected when we look at what we eat and how important it is that we are active participants to improve the world both locally and globally, and for that I am very proud. Also, our work has been recognized in many ways, from local city governments to global organizations.

But one specific success was our work on the 50-mile rule regulation. A regulation of the California Department of Housing and Community Development required farm workers to leave state-subsidized housing provided to migrant labor and move at least 50 miles away in order to be eligible for housing the following year.

The law was a relic of a time when migrant workers were primarily young, single men – but today, the state’s agricultural workers are a vastly different demographic and include families with approximately 3,500 children, according to research by Kaveh Danesh, economics PhD candidate at UC Berkeley studying poverty and inequality.

The 50-mile regulation was a violation of the basic human right of education and intentionally harmed children of farm workers. The people who feed all of us sacrifice so much for their children, and this unfair hardship was an added oppression.

F.E.P. worked along with The Center for Farmworker Families, Human Agenda, and others to ensure that children can stay enrolled in the same school and can avoid having to worry about moving mid-year. This is up for re-evaluation in 2024.

In November of this year, I had the opportunity to moderate a panel that followed a screening of the documentary “Como Vivimos” filmed by Aggie E. Bazz. This moving film follows kids of farm worker families living in the Artesi II Migrant Family Housing Center in California. It shows the student’s obstacles due to the 50-mil rule regulation. Panelists included a student (now teacher) who lived in the housing center featured in the film, a farm worker, the Executive Director of the Center for Farmworker Families, Dr. Ann López, a representative from a California state assembly member, and a representative from the Housing Committee Department.

F.E.P. also celebrated the joyous holiday, Mooncake Festival 月饼节, by launching our new recipe website, VeganChineseFood.com! This site is filled with delicious recipes and shows we can recreate our cultural foods without animal ingredients.

Lastly, in October we completed our second annual virtual event, Chopped with a Vegan Twist! This program highlights talented vegan chefs while sharing the importance of the power of our food choices. Like the known cooking show, we featured three bakers who prepared tasty plant-based desserts using four mystery basket ingredients. We are always pleased to provide a cooking show for those of us who are vegan and don’t see animals as ingredients. And it was great that we were able to attract some non-vegans who are interested in veganism.

We also shared information surrounding the issues with certifications like fair trade, the human impact of child labor and slavery on cocoa farms in Ghana and the Ivory Coast, the inhumane treatment of cows on dairy farms, and what can be done to be more informed about our chocolate choices, like consulting our chocolate list!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://foodispower.org
• Instagram: @foodempowermentproject
• Facebook: Food Empowerment Project
• Linkedin: Food Empowerment Project
• Twitter: Threads: @foodempowermentproject
• Youtube: Food Empowerment Project
• Other: TikTok: @foodempowermentproject

Image Credits
All image credits to Food Empowerment Project