Melbourne, Australia
A prisoner on Monday lost his challenge to an Australian state’s ban on inmates eating Vegemite after arguing in court that refusing the polarizing yeast-based spread violated his human right to “enjoy your culture as an Australian”.
Andre McKechnie, 55, who is serving a life sentence for murder, took his battle against the salty, sticky, black-brown byproduct of beer brewing to the Victorian Supreme Court last year.
He had argued that Vegemite’s refusal denied him his right under the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities to “enjoy his culture as an Australian in the community with other people of Australian descent”, according to court documents.
Justice Claire Harris accepted prison authorities’ refusal to allow McKechnie Vegemite to “limit her cultural rights” under the Charter.
But she said the ban was justified because it met authorities’ goals of eliminating illicit drugs and alcohol from the prison system.
“Mr McKechnie’s limited ability to enjoy Vegemite in community with other people of Australian origin is primarily due to the fact that he is a prisoner,” Harris wrote in his 47-page judgment.
Alcohol Brewing and Sniffer Dogs
Prison officials said at a July trial that Vegemite had been banned in all 12 state prisons for the past 20 years because it could potentially impair the ability of sniffer dogs to detect narcotics and could be used to brew alcohol because of its yeast content.
McKechnie, who appeared in court via video link from Barwon maximum security prison, west of Melbourne, argued the failure of neighboring New South Wales to ban Vegemite from its prisons was evidence there were “less restrictive means reasonably available” to achieve such drug and alcohol outcomes.
Most Australians revere Vegemite as an unfairly maligned culinary icon, and it is estimated that more than 80% of Australian households have a jar in their pantry. Vegemite is generally considered an acquired taste, at best, for those who were not raised on it.
The last US president to visit Australia, Barack Obama, once said: “It’s horrible. »
McKechnie initially testified that the lack of Vegemite contributed to his thiamine deficiency.
He said Vegemite and pork were sources of thiamine, also known as vitamin B1. As a Jew who observed kosher law, he told the court he also could not eat pork and took daily doses of the vitamin.
Vegemite has long been marketed as a source of the B vitamins thiamine (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), and folate (B9), which are touted as healthy supplements to the diet of growing children.
But McKechnie left the thiamine issue aside as “unimportant” after prison authorities’ lawyers objected to his testimony.
“Deprived, sad and disconnected”
McKechnie said not eating Vegemite made him feel “deprived of the opportunity to practice my Australian culture, sad and disconnected from my family and community”.
The judge responded that “it is difficult to accept that the inability to consume Vegemite, rather than the fact of his imprisonment, is a material cause of his sadness and disconnection from his family and community.”
McKechnie cited an article published in the food studies journal “Gastronomica” in 2003 that said: “Vegemite may be the best indicator of the national identity of any food in the world.” »
The paper, based on research conducted by Australia’s University of Queensland in 1995, found that a “taste for spreading is strongly correlated with early exposure as well as Australian birth and ancestry.”
McKechnie also referenced the Australian Olympic Committee overturning a Chinese ban on the importation of Vegemite ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
He cited Australian band Men at Work’s 1980s international hit, “Down Under,” which mentions a “Vegemite sandwich.”
Regarding the effectiveness of combating smuggling with Vegemite, McKechnie cited a 2017 Melbourne newspaper article that reported a man’s failed attempt to use the smell of the spread to conceal illicit drugs he was trying to smuggle into a music festival in Victoria. The attempt was thwarted by police sniffer dogs.
The judge upheld the prison authorities’ argument that McKechnie had failed to provide a proper basis for his opinion that Vegemite does not interfere with drug-sniffing dogs.
McKechnie also argued that Vegemite contained “no live yeast” and that any piece of fruit would be more useful for making alcohol than the spread.
Kevin White, director of the state Department of Prisons, cited publicly available research that found Vegemite helped home-brewed beer ferment more quickly.
Vegemite’s owner, Bega Group, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.
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