What the court decided
A prisoner in Australia has lost his legal fight over Vegemite. Andre McKechnie, 55, who is serving a life sentence for murder, challenged the ban on the yeast-based spread in Victoria state prisons, arguing it breached his human right to "enjoy his culture as an Australian," according to NPR's report on the ruling.
Justice Claire Harris of the Supreme Court of Victoria accepted that the refusal to allow him Vegemite "limited his cultural rights" under the state's Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act. But she found the limit was justified by the authorities' goals of removing illicit drugs and alcohol from the prison system.
"The limitation on Mr. McKechnie's ability to enjoy Vegemite in community with other persons of Australian background is primarily that he is a prisoner," Harris wrote in her 47-page judgment.
The arguments over drugs and alcohol
Prison officials testified at a trial in July that Vegemite had been banned across the state's 12 prisons for the past 20 years. They said it could potentially impair sniffer dogs' ability to detect narcotics and could be used to brew alcohol because of its yeast content.
McKechnie represented himself by video link from Barwon Prison, a maximum security facility west of Melbourne. He pointed out that neighboring New South Wales does not ban Vegemite from its prisons, arguing this showed that "less restrictive means reasonably available" existed to achieve the same goals. He also argued that Vegemite contains "no live yeast" and that any piece of fruit would be more useful for making alcohol.
He cited a 2017 Melbourne newspaper article about a man who tried to use the spread's odor to hide drugs at a Victorian music festival; police sniffer dogs thwarted the attempt. The judge upheld the prison authorities' argument that McKechnie had not provided proper foundations for his opinion that Vegemite does not interfere with the dogs. A state prison department manager, Kevin White, cited publicly available research saying Vegemite helped home-brewed beer ferment more quickly.
Culture, identity and health claims
McKechnie said not eating Vegemite left him feeling "deprived of being able to practice my Australian culture, sad and disconnected from my family and community." Harris was unpersuaded on causation, saying "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."
To support his case, he cited a 2003 article in the food studies journal Gastronomica stating that "Vegemite may be the best predictor of national identity of any food in the world." He also referred to the Australian Olympic Committee overturning a Chinese import ban on Vegemite before the 2008 Beijing Games, and to the Men at Work hit "Down Under," which mentions a "Vegemite sandwich."
He had initially testified that the lack of Vegemite contributed to a thiamine deficiency, saying he kept kosher and could not eat pork, another source of the vitamin. He dropped the issue as "not important" after lawyers for the prison authorities objected to his evidence.
Vegemite's place in Australia
According to NPR, most Australians revere Vegemite, and more than 80% of households are estimated to have a jar in the pantry. It is often regarded as an acquired taste by people who did not grow up with it; the report notes that Barack Obama, the last U.S. president to visit Australia, once said: "It's horrible." Vegemite's owner, Bega Group, did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.
