California Puts Plant-Based Meals in the Penal Code

On September 18, 2018, Governor Jerry Brown signed SB 1138, a bill by state Sen. Nancy Skinner of Berkeley that requires California's licensed health facilities and state prisons to make plant-based meals available. The law defines a plant-based meal as an entire meal with no meat, poultry, fish, dairy, or eggs, and it applies to people who often cannot simply choose another cafeteria: hospital patients on a physician's order and inmates eating whatever the institution serves. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and Social Compassion in Legislation co-sponsored the bill, pointing to a 2017 American Medical Association policy backing plant-based hospital menus. Prisons were told to phase the option in on what the law calls a cost-neutral basis, so the mandate had to survive a budget fight, not just a moral one.