#OpenToOpinion: Is the Netflix Documentary BAD VEGAN Good For The Movement Or Not?

The latest in Netflix’s true crime style series titled ‘Bad Vegan’ is an insight into the unusual downfall of celebrity chef Sarma Melngalis and her restaurant Pure Food and Wine. What starts off as a story about a seemingly sharp ivy-league educated businesswoman soon turns into a bizarre series of events that ends up with her turning into an absconding criminal.

FROM GOOD TO BIZARRE

Sarma Melngalis quit a profession in finance to join culinary school before she met celebrity chef Matthew Kenny and decided to start an upscale raw vegan restaurant Pure Food and Wine in 2004 in the heart of New York City. The upscale restaurant was way ahead of its time, but with Sarma’s acumen and Matthew’s flair, the restaurant did really well. Matthew decided to quit the business and Sarma decided to buy out the business on a $2million loan from the original financier.

Sarma met a Shane Fox online who she got talking with. He told her he was part of a covert organisation, was always under surveillance and would be away on “special assignments” often. They continued to have a long-distance relationship before he decided to move with her to New York.

This is where things started spiraling.

Shane convinced her that she needed to pass a few tests to be accepted into his circle of trust which would allow them both a chance at unlimited riches and also allow her dog to be immortal. As part of these tests, he constantly asked her for money to be transferred to his account to be “put away for the future for their happily ever after”, sent her off alone across the country and even to Rome, Italy while he slowly tried to take over her life and gaslight her along the way.

She had allowed him access to all her email, her finances and he even attempted to take over the restaurant. He managed to get in touch with her mother and convinced her that Sarma was mentally unfit and they needed money to make her better.

She was often sending him money from her business account which meant the restaurant had no funds to pay the employees eventually. Whenever an employee pointed out any irregularities in the finances, they were let go.

She learned many things along the way, that his real name was not Shane Fox and that he was often in cities that had casinos. But she chose to believe everything he said to cover it up for the most bit. When she started realising she was being conned, she was far too deep in trouble.

Unpaid staff from Pure Food and Wine protest outside the restaurant

THE PIZZA THAT ENDED THE MADNESS

When investors realised money was being swindled, they filed their case in court and Sarma and Shane aka Anthony Strangis embarked on a yearlong run which ended abruptly when they decided to order (non-vegan) fast food.

Pure Food and Wine had to shut and all the workers were unpaid for five months. No one knew where Sarma was, even her family did not know her whereabouts. All her conversations with family was being controlled by Anthony while they were on the run.

By the end of it Sarma estimates Anthony had managed to gamble off close to $6 million which came from her account, from investors money that was raised for Pure Food and Wine and even from Sarma’s mother.

This was a story the media wasn’t going to let go off. When Sarma and Anthony were caught because they went to get a pizza at a Dominoes, the tabloids went crazy. It did not matter whether Sarma ate that pizza or not.

Her mugshot was plastered all over the papers and she looked thinner and frailer than her usual self. This prompted captions in national newspapers like ‘Somebody Get Her A Cheeseburger’ and she even earned the title of the ‘Vegan Bernie Madoff’.

GOOD DECISIONS AND BAD DECISIONS MAKE TWO KINDS OF PEOPLE NO MATTER WHAT THEY EAT

If Sarma was like most restaurateurs who did not cater to just one special kind of diet, the title of this documentary would be very different. It definitely seems like the title was a deliberate attempt to draw eyeballs and also perhaps show that vegans are not all goody-two-shoes.

On a positive note, any publicity for vegans is always a good thing because it gets more people talking. Vegans always have an agenda- to spread kindness.

Sarma told Vanity Fair in an interview “I’d be glad if my situation becomes a case study in all kinds of ways…I want this stuff to be useful, not merely fodder for people’s creepy entertainment.”

Sarma Melngalis made some terrible choices, of that there is no doubt. But does her choice to be a vegan really need to be dragged into the whole jamboree? How often do you see titles like ‘The Innocent Meat-eater’ or ‘The Vegetarian Tinder Swindler’?

Let us know what you think.

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