Freshii, a Canadian chain of health-oriented restaurants with over 100 location, doesn't respect my religion.
In April, they introduced a product called the "Buddha Satay bowl" which contains chicken, thus making it unsuitable for the majority of Buddhist diets.
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| Source: freshii on Instagram |
What is supposedly Buddhist about this product? Why does it have "Buddha", the title of our revered teacher(s), in its name? (And I'll take a moment to acknowledge that not all Buddhist traditions teach vegetarianism, but the largest ones do.)
For 20 years prior, Freshii had a different Buddha bowl that was vegetarian, and I always assumed that it was called "Buddha bowl" because it was suitable for Buddhist diets. But I don't see anything Buddhist about this new Buddha Satay bowl. (And for the record, satay comes from Indonesia, which is a Muslim country.)
What's next? Maybe a Vishnu Teriyaki Bowl that contains beef? Maybe a Mohammed Risotto Bowl that contains pork?
I wrote a very polite email to Freshii pointing out how disrespectful this was, and asking them to please change their menu. Within minutes I received a polite but dismissive reply, that I'm pretty sure was written with AI.
Now, I'm quite accustomed to people not respecting my religion, but never before have I seen such disrespect from a nation-wide corporate entity.
So, I don't know what else to do, but to let Buddhists know that they should avoid the Buddha bowls at Freshii, and to let people who believe in mutual respect for religion that Freshii is not an organization that they should support.

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