Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years
bighospitality.co.uk
bighospitality.co.uk
Based on anecdotes and my social circles, the number of people completely avoiding meat hasn't changed. But omnivores adopting a semi-veg lifestyle has increased.
If I had to pick one thing, I'd say environmental concerns are the main reason my omnivore friends and colleagues are eating less meat.
I agree that there is a point in the belief that it is unethical to kill animals. That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world, there are a lot of things to argue about, but in general, I agree that in an ideal world, we should not do that.
The environmental concerns, I only buy half-heartedly. I don't really believe that land-owners will transform their pastures or soy cultures into rain forest instead of another profitable exploitation, I'd rather have states force responsible production and norms.
It is just not practical for me to go full-veg, where I live I would need to cook one hour a day for it, and I am a lousy cook, I have neither the inclination or the motivation for it.
But I reduced my consumption more and more. It was surprising to see how my taste changed. I used to be a huge meat eater and now I find eating even a small steak a bit nauseating. I almost eat no beef anymore, little pork but mostly chicken and fish, and even these I eat little.
If farmers switch to other exploitative crops, it should drive up the supply and down the price of those crops, reducing the drive to clear more rain forest.
I'd rather not gamble away the rainforest to optimism about humans acting rational. It's already irrational: humans will optimize towards short term gains.
More of a light hearted example. I worked at a grocery store years ago, one summer the 4L ice cream buckets stopped having handles. A lot of people complained, they liked to use them for berry picking and other things. One day I asked the people we ordered the dairy stuff from why. Turns out, some accountant figured out they'd have a marginal gain of 1¢ per ice cream bucket if they removed the handles. In the end though, that year we ended up throwing a lot of them away, whereas the summer before we'd had trouble keeping them in stock. People really liked those bucket handles. I still wonder if the penny savings were worth the loss in sales from people that wanted buckets with handles more than ice cream.
I'm interested in food insecurity and related things, which is why I ask.
Not even morningstar farms veggie burgers in grocery stores. But that was 10 years ago, things are different now.
Whenever I go home for Christmas I'm amazed at what's available.
Before moving in, I used to think it should be easy to be vegetarian in a Buddhist country but it is not. Japan's culinary habit is that a good meal needs to have a lot of different ingredients in it. From a dietetics point of view, that's great but it often means that even in most salads, you'll have a few pieces of bacon or chicken, a shrimp or some grains of minced meat.
That still makes for a very meat-light diet and I would switch to a no-meat-at-all in a heartbeat if those bentos and salads came in vegetarian versions, but that makes it almost impossible to totally avoid meat.
Imagine if a wizard finished casting a very complicated and resource-intensive spell and the result is that every living cow, pig, chicken and turkey in the meat industry were replaced with a clone of a dog you've met. In the thousands of crowded compound pens, the millions of tiny cages, on the assembly lines facing captive bolt pistols like the one from No Country for Old Men-- there is now that dog. In that moment, what would be an example of something happening that is more unethical? Of course the answer would be different for each person; some people would have the point that we can't compare apples to oranges. For me I find it hard to imagine a war or a process of exploitation in 2019 that measures up.
So the question might reasonably be 'are the conditions these animals face worse than never existing?'.
Not an enviable choice, but it confounds some of the simple ethical arguments for, eg, vegetarianism.
Our goal is to minimize the amount of suffering we are responsible of. In that respect it is obviously better to not breed animals than to breed them and make them suffer.
But I grew up in the countryside, I knew some cows and goats, heard the sad cry of the cows when you take their calves away. The reason why I eat very little beef and pork now but have less problems with chicken and fish is because I do feel different about them.
See I used to be more concerned about the ethics of animal exploitation as a kid than as an adult. (My experience was with free range animals though.) One of the questions I often came back at as a kid was "Do the animals understand what is happening? Why don't they try to escape?" It puzzled me that the cattle seemed to love their captors. Food was more primordial to them than freedom.
Then I realized some things: most humans would take such a deal. Security vs freedom. If I offered you to double your life expectancy (which is basically what wild vs farm animals experience), to feed and cure you, provide a more comfortable shelter than you could be able to get on your own, would you object to me eating your meat at a determined date?
I know I would refuse, I used to think most humans would but nowadays I am far less optimistic about that, and I am pretty certain that most animals would sign in.
I still think the whole system is unethical and an ideal world should not have it, so I do limit my meat consumption, I don't participate in the boohooing of vegans. I just don't see it as the highest priority ethical concern right now.
Why does eating meat mean you can cook less?
Meat's convenient in a way that vegetables aren't.
Meat on the other hand is greatly benefited by things like marination, mechanical tenderizing, monitoring temperature as it cooks. You can whip up a steak pretty quick, but probably not any faster than you could stir fry some veggies.
Also in particular, stir frying isn't a great example of a vegetable preparation which is fast. Prep is usually at least twice the amount of time as the frying.
Peanut butter celery sticks would be a better example I think.
There are so many variables it's hard to say anything concrete, but on average I'd bet people spend less active time preparing vegetables to eat than meat.
Maybe with very thin, low quality grocery store steaks. When I eat meat I buy steaks from a butcher that are over an inch thick, and require 5-7 minutes minimum per side for medium rare. Sometimes even more for thicker cuts
>prep is less than a minute. Also in particular, stir frying isn't a great example of a vegetable preparation which is fast. Prep is usually at least twice the amount of time as the frying.
A lot of people think vegetables are difficult because they don't have knife skills so it takes multiple minutes to cut a piece of produce. With practice, prep for cooking vegetables should be just as fast. Also, even if it does take an extra couple minutes of my time, its worth it for my own health and morals by not supporting industrialized farming
Are you treating your vegetables like wagyu beef and giving them massages or something? If not, aside from a quick wash, cooking vegetables is no more difficult than cooking meat. Sautee them, bake them, pan fry, deep fry, air fry, broil, steam, sous vide, etc...
Veggies are less effort: peel some, chop into suitably sized bits. To compare like with like compare with pre-sliced and peeled veggies, or animal carcass before skinning and butchering. :)
Something like a rosti with cheese or added spinach or cabbage is cooked meat speed fast and tasty, as are a whole host of the traditional leftovers recipes that grew up to use up spuds, carrots, cabbage etc next day.
Before moving in, I used to think it should be easy to be vegetarian in a Buddhist country but it is not. Japan's culinary habit is that a good meal needs to have a lot of different ingredients in it. From a dietetics point of view, that's great but it often means that even in most salads, you'll have a few pieces of bacon or chicken, a shrimg or some grains of minced meat.
That still makes for a very meat-light diet and would switch to a no-meat-at-all in a heartbeat if those bentos and salads came in vegetarian versions, but that makes it almost impossible to avoid meat.
I'm just going to refer to the factory farming article from 80000hours:
https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/
Considering that "Each year, 50 billion animals are raised and slaughtered in factory farms globally. Over a billion animals live in factory farms at any point of time in the United States. Most experience serious levels of suffering.", I would argue that it's hard to find anything comparable in magnitude to that tragedy if one allows that farmed animals are even a 1/100th fraction as conscious as humans.
I would... probably not enjoy being proven wrong this time :S
Wild animal suffering is a different beast altogether.
Your last question is on the point though. Do the animals raised for meat have lives worth living?
No. For the same reason that murdering your 4 year old is not ethically equivalent to using birth control.
It's not about taking suffering away. Animals born in the wild live their life naturally. Animals created by us in farms are raised for one thing, for human consumption. If an animal wants to run away in wild and do it's thing, it has that choice. In captivity, we force the choice humans made for them.
Basically if we have slightest amount of empathy for our pets and are willing to apply that to other animals, eating meat doesn't look enticing.
Not necessarily more in every case but they do suffer in many different ways. Nonhuman animals in the wild are routinely exposed to: starvation, dehydration, disease, injuries, predation, parasitism and extreme weather conditions:
> The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored.
– Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
> It's not about taking suffering away. Animals born in the wild live their life naturally.
A "natural" life does not necessarily mean a good one.
> Animals created by us in farms are raised for one thing, for human consumption. If an animal wants to run away in wild and do it's thing, it has that choice.
The choice to do what? The vast majority of nonhuman animals receive no help with their suffering. There are exceptions of course like when we help by rescuing trapped animals, vaccinating and healing injured and sick animals, caring for orphaned animals etc. But the general rule is a very short life (most nonhuman animals in the wild don't live to adulthood) with far more suffering experienced than happiness.
> Basically if we have slightest amount of empathy for our pets and are willing to apply that to other animals, eating meat doesn't look enticing
No disagreement here, but the same empathy should be given to nonhuman animals suffering in the wild and we should help to reduce their suffering as much as practically possible. Widespread interventions aren't practical now due to a lack of knowledge and resources but our future descendants may well be in a better position to make an effective difference.
Further reading:
* https://foundational-research.org/the-importance-of-wild-ani...
* https://www.animal-ethics.org/wild-animal-suffering-section/...
* http://www.olemartinmoen.com/wp-content/uploads/TheEthicsofW...
How did you come to that conclusion?
I don't think it's anywhere close to "unquestionably".
And, it raises an interesting question about the moral gravity of preventing existence.
As to the second question, that is an active topic of research:
https://foundational-research.org/the-importance-of-wild-ani...
with some info on Wikipedia as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_animal_suffering#Ecology_...
From my perspective, the conclusion seems to be wrong, and thus I deny the first premise.
Or, is there an amount of happiness that outweighs some amount of suffering? Among utilitarians, that's one of the major differences.
Your argument is valid and has been made before, and the answers are varied:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_utilitarianism#The_be...
The debate between living vs avoiding suffering has very important implications for artificial life, artificial consciousness, artificial intelligence, and even space colonization and curing aging.
I agree that factory farming isn't ideal, but it seems to me that it is less ideal from the perspective of the animal for their entire bloodline to be terminated. To make a strong argument against factory farming, you have to provide a feasible alternative that IMO doesn't exist.
The question really comes down to whether or not you consider the opportunity to experience life, even a particularly difficult life, as a blessing.
A life born of slavery, torture, and slaughter is not a life worth living. An animal doesn't really have the idea of a bloodline or legacy (just the primal urge to reproduce). The rationalization that a life of suffering is somehow doing the animal a favor is just asinine.
I understand that this isn't a philosophy that I share with everybody but you should still be respectful of it.
Just how shitty of a life do you need to have to not be worth living? People who spend their lives in prison don't usually kill themselves. You can read stories about people captured as prisoners of war who have no hope that they will ever escape, but they don't attempt to kill themselves. Are they being "asinine"?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl
> After enduring the suffering in these camps, Frankl concluded that even in the most absurd, painful, and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning and that, therefore, even suffering is meaningful.
After reading a little bit about meaning, it seems that it's something that has to be found first
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_(existential)
so even if there's meaning in the most miserable of lives, it's not guaranteed that it will be found. However, I haven't found anything suggesting that meaning makes life worth living, only a passing mention of it bringing happiness, which doesn't square with my understanding of torture or concentration camps. Am I misunderstanding what meaning is?
I think comparing it is a false equivalency. Also Godwin's Law.
At least they'll have a life that they wouldn't have had otherwise.
Under His Eye. Blessed be the fruit.
And when I say generally immoral, it obviously becomes nuanced when rape or young age is involved.
My parents lived for years with the guilt that had been instilled in them by their religious upbringing. It was one of the hardest decisions they ever had to make so they could give their future offspring the best life possible.
Research has shown that abortion laws lead to lower crime rates, lower poverty and a higher educated populous. My sisters and I are living proof of that.
Similarly, I think it is immoral to use force to get other people to do what you want. But that quickly becomes a nuanced argument when you start taking public safety into account, or crime prevention. Life doesn't take place in a vacuum so I'm not trying to pass judgement.
This seems to be an extreme pro-life point of view. You could ask exactly the same question about contraceptives.
I think if you compare the utility that livestock farming provides, with all the externalties and all the suffering it produces is indeed unethical.
I would accept that in the general case, but since you let your utilitarian views slip, I have to ask: what's the difference?
When something is immoral, it means it has a negative utility, and therefore it should be avoided. When something is moral, it has a positive utility, and therefore it's something that should be strived for, barring any other activity with greater utility. In my eyes, that makes every moral thing a utilitarian's moral imperative, with the only gap being things that have no moral value.
How does my view differ from yours?
I can think of a number of activities that would provide greater utility than attemting to impregnate as many women as possible.
I'm not a pure utilitarian and I see a distinction between the concepts of morality and utility. Mostly because I'm not capable of gauging utility all the time, so I can fall back on broader moral principles.
I don't even attribute the same value to life of different species. I don't think that worm farms are as bad as cow farms.
I tend to buy organic/free range animal products. I think factory farms are terrible, I would not mind seeing them gone, but imposing free range would be terrible for the environment.
Free range ones are not too unethical as they provide to animals close to the best they could hope for if they were free.
It would have to be coupled with other measures to limit resources depletion, but it's the right thing to do imho. It would raise the price much higher, factoring in humane treatment. Sales would drop due to this higher price, there wouldn't be as many farm animals as now.
That's why I wish we solve the environmental issues first, as well as the food security of the whole population.
I experienced the same, which was really odd. I guess you can learn to like (or dislike) a taste.
The other thing I noticed that concerns about suffering started to weigh far stronger for me once the environmental concerns made me stop eating meat. I think that I subconsciously ignored or trivialised a lot of the information I got about what was and is actually happening in that sector.
Side note: in my time in kitchens, I learned that the art of storing/reheating food is just as important as from-scratch preparation.
I understand parent is not motivated to learn it, but I encourage them to rethink it, and I leave this message for everyone else. Personally, cooking has been an incredibly fulfilling and freeing life skill to acquire.
And for me the biggest marker is that it's now advertised on the package. Not just the small vegan logo, there is big lettering like "suitable for vegetarians" or "meat-free" or whatever. It must have become a selling point.
Veg/vegan food was always just food to me, so all this hub bub about it is bizarre to me.
No. I've eaten pretty much everywhere around. Italian, Chinese and Mexican places in particular have built in vegan options pretty much by default. I'm surprised there aren't such Chinese or Mexican options in LA (although when confronted with something like "gan bian si ji dou" or even "dry fried green beans" on a menu, it's not immediately obvious if it's vegan or not).
I spent a bit of time in Seattle over a decade ago. I was trying to save money at the time, so I didn't order out much, but I do remember burritos from Taco Del Mar being fine no matter what is (or isn't) in them. There was a great place for fries called Frites which appears to be closed now and a bunch of Indian places, too. I also remember a hot dog place near the Lenin statue with all kinds of options, but any mention of that place seems to be wiped off the net, so I might have just imagined it. :)
I wasn't trying to say what is or isn't the norm, just that I don't understand why people make a such a big deal about what they, or others, are eating.
In my circles it's tallow, A2 milk, and beef liver that are huge in popularity but I agree mainstream goes for coconut water, oat milk, etc. Those are a function of big ag ad dollars I imagine, more than decisive tastes or the actual super-ness of any food.
Perhaps, but when you look at what's behind "A2 milk" (I hadn't heard of it before), it's basically a single company promoting their brand with largely BS statements. The Wikipedia article has plenty of details: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_milk
This must be a marketing gimmick; eating animals is very nutritious—it's just not sufficient. However, this is the same as Avacado/acai berry/whatever.
I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit.
Might have something to do with the billions spent on marketing meat and dairy. Pretty big industries with pretty big financial contributions to our wonderful politicians, for decades now.
I would probably be fine with replacing it with a lighter version of soylent (it's too thick to serve as milk), but the idea that we drink milk because of marketing, or that they're artificially inflating the nutrition you get out of milk, is laughable.
The plant "milk" lobby, on the other hand tries to trick me into buying their product every time I'm at the damn store by redefining "milk" to mean "that white liquid".... https://plantbasedfoods.org/plant-based-foods-association-te...
> Companies selling dairy alternatives are using easy to understand, clear, descriptive, and truthful language on labels. Our members and others in this category, are using common English words that consumers understand: milk, cheese, yogurt and butter. To our members, and to consumers, these words represent functionality, form and taste, not necessarily the origin of the primary ingredient.
That's bullshit and they know it. If you ask for butter, or cheese, or yogurt at the store and they give you a vegan product you'd be right to be annoyed. They approximate the food only at the shallowest level of perception and are very different foods to work with in the kitchen.
Also, I do like almond milk—just not as a milk replacement.
What? "Got Milk"? Milk mustaches on famous people and athletes? Come on.
> plant "milk" lobby, on the other hand tries to trick me into buying their product every time
Au contraire! That pesky, evil, plant milk lobby! Are you really that confused when it says "soy", "milk", "oat", "almond" right before "milk"?
So—you're saying NOBODY would drink milk if they stopped advertising after THOUSANDS OF YEARS of drinking it as adults (true with my genes!) and MILLIONS OF YEARS of juvenile mammalian existence? Extent is not the same as the sole cause. I drink milk because it makes me nostalgic for my childhood and hey, it's calories, baby! In any case, you conveniently cut out the meat of the sentence when you quoted me—milk advertises itself by being highly nutritious, which is less true of plant-based milks, which you typically gravitate to because you want milk but can't have it for reason X.
> Are you really that confused when it says "soy", "milk", "oat", "almond" right before "milk"?
It's actually rarely obvious in my experience, especially when they place e.g. Silk next to dairy. I've accidentally bought plant-based milk twice because I didn't recognize the brand and the plant-based nature was not emphasized on the packaging. This feels very intentional to me.
Partially related: I don't think I've seen a milk advertisement in years. Are they spending less or am I just avoiding the areas they're targeting (notably: video ads/). I swear I used to see them on billboards all the time. Maybe SF is just an expensive market to advertise to....
Nostalgia, huh? Is that worth the environmental damage and severe ethics concerns? Not to mention, uh, you're drinking a cow's milk that should be for its children. We're the only species that does that. It's so odd.
Soy milk tastes great, has a nice nutrition profile, and is actually good for you (and the environment, and the animals).
No, I am but a weak and flawed human that likes dairy and meat. Ideally I'd stop eating and drinking all of this today.
> Not to mention, uh, you're drinking a cow's milk that should be for its children. We're the only species that does that. It's so odd.
Life is odd. I will say that I grew up around dairy cows and they don't seem to mind what happens to their milk, so that is emphatically not a concern for me, and I would not have been able to be around cows at all if it weren't for the dairy market. (how's that for an ethical dilemma? the animals that will survive the ongoing extinction event are likely to be exploited by humans.) The environmental and humanitarian concerns (e.g. meat eating, farming conditions) are much, much larger concerns for me.
> Soy milk tastes great, has a nice nutrition profile, and is actually good for you (and the environment, and the animals).
I don't disagree with this at all. I'm not arguing FOR milk, certainly not from an ethical standpoint, I'm just pointing out the ludicrous double standard of people with clear agendas to push plant-based drinks who then talk shit about "big dairy". It's all manipulative and shitty—comparing the actual food is much more interesting.
No. It's not.
I like Dr. Fuhrman's equation: H=N/C. This equation expresses the concept that your health (H) is predicted by your nutrient intake (N) divided by your calorie intake (C). There's not a lot of nutrients in meat (all you get really is protein and iron), whereas in vegetables/fruits you get a whole vast assortment of proteins, vitamins, fiber, phytochemicals, antioxidants, etc.
Meat also has the problem of being a carcinogen, per the WHO [0].
> I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit.
Nope. It's not.
Milk has a ton of sugar, lactose is not well-tolerated by something like 80% of the population, and the proteins in milk are potentially carcinogenic. [1] Anyway, and that's just the nutrition angle - not even getting into the horrific ethics problems and environmental problems. We need to move away from meat. We can do better.
0. https://www.who.int/features/qa/cancer-red-meat/en/
1. https://nutritionstudies.org/provocations-casein-carcinogen-...
Your whole post is ill-informed, but this is particularly nonsensical. Go look up nutrition information for any muscle meat and you'll see plenty more than just iron, to say nothing of organ meat.
Regarding protein, you get a broader amino acid profile from animals, but this doesn't really matter.
Yet I've cited the WHO and Dr. T. Colin Cambell, author of the China Study. Where's your evidence?
> Regarding protein, you get a broader amino acid profile from animals, but this doesn't really matter.
Completely incorrect. Soy and pea protein are very much complete proteins with balanced amino acid profiles.
How do you reconcile the environmental damage from your dietary preferences?
I'm really tired of this form of argument. The fact that you cited something doesn't necessitate its relevance, truth or your understanding of it.
You've also ignored the specific bit of your post I called out as more importantly inaccurate, so I'm really not interested in engaging any further.
Energy wasted on growing plants that feed humans directly is feeding a 1st order process. Energy wasted on growing plants that feed animals that feed humans indirectly is feeding a 2nd order process.
Animals need to keep their body warm, grown their body, have immunity, give birth, grow offspring inside their body and then after all that they give you milk and meat.
Incomparable.
But: I rarely order vegan in a restaurant. I find it's much easier to do vegan at home. Why? Mostly food safety and storage. After cooking vegan for a few weeks, when I cooked meat, I realized just how much of a pain in the *$$ maintaining food safety is.
I keep seeing this. Where are people picking this up from?
ect. | Common Errors in English Usage and More https://brians.wsu.edu/2016/05/25/ect/
Because you live in the west. In most of the world, plants can be just as dangerous as meat, sometimes more so. Google "pork tapeworm". You can get it from eating undercooked pork or, more commonly, from poorly-washed vegetables grown anywhere near pigs. Do you wash your salads in chlorinated water? I doubt it. You can only get away with that because, in the west, we have physically separated farm animals from crops.
We have numbers from actual research on that:
https://plantproteins.co/vegan-plant-based-diet-statistics/
https://animalcharityevaluators.org/blog/is-the-percentage-o...
So, yes it increases, and quite fast even.
Especially in progressive cities and circles, meat and oil are in the same class. It's hip to eat veg, socially conscious.
But if you dig on vegan food
Well come over to my work
I’ll have them cook you something
that you’ll really love
It's always been trendy in certain circles, I think the expansion now is partly environmentalism and partly "mainstreaming of hipsterness".
For those who like to heavily politicize diet, this is a perspective that gets buried by absolutists who like to identify as either pro/anti-meat. Silly.
I take a middle view that too much cholesterol is probably best avoided but I don't think it demands being dispensed with. And just because we "don't need it" doesn't mean there aren't benefits, like a testosterone boost.
This has given me more ideas on what to cook without meat besides, Indian food or pasta.
I am shocked at how easy it was to stop. I always pictured some long and tormented inner battle, but the book made the necessity of the decision self-evident. I eat meat maybe once per month now, a 99% reduction in intake, with no significant physical or psychological struggle whatsoever.
I found this to be the case too. It wasn't particularly challenging to stop eating meat, and if anything I felt physically and mentally better afterwards
"Vegan" is no doubt now a sales point, but many vegan foods have been eaten for centuries without that label attached. Slapping the sticker on them now doesn't mean that anything has changed beyond how we do the count.
I also question the "vegan" label itself. Exactly what type of vegan are they talking about? Veganism isn't as simple as whether a food is vegetarian. There is no single authority or rulebook to determine whether it is kosher or not. There are various levels and judgement calls to be made.
Kosher at least in the US usually comes with a symbol and you know the ones that are legit (Orthodox Union is the most common in the US, the (U) symbol Ⓤ)
A cutting-edge vegan discussion is whether lab-grown meant can be vegan. An animal need not have a brain to be an animal. And an animal grown in a vat is still an animal.
How does that work? If I grew a chicken breast in lab, without the rest of the chicken, that's not an animal, right?
If a jellyfish not an animal because it doesn't have a brain? A worm? Many vegans choose not to draw lines between different types of animals.
Legal death is defined as brain death in many (most?) places. I think you mean these people are in a vegetative state, but their brain is still on autopilot so the body doesn't completely shutdown.
I'm curious: what foods fall under this?
Edit: I meant "what foods are OK to eat under this definition?"
"We quadrupled subscriptions last night" is true when going from 400 million to 1.6 billion and also true when going from 1 to 4.
This year our glorious industry delivered an astounding
5000% increase in production of supercomputers.
* As compared to the 1913 numbers."This content is copyright protected" if you try and copy text from an article, and turning javascript off means none of the content is visible.
This is actually quite common, especially for websites whose format is based on online newspapers.
Usually disabling CSS in addition to JS brings the content back.
javascript:for(i=0;i<document.styleSheets.length;i++) {void(document.styleSheets.item(i).disabled=true);}One note a few people are making is that you don't have to be vegan to eat vegan. This is true, and purposeful - vegan food is generally of a relatively high quality - and a lot of what it offers is the direct contrast to most other North American-favoured food.
Like they say Lucky Charms are a 'part of a balanced breakfast', followed by a picture of a table with orange juice, a banana, etc...so it is that, if I have a busy work day, and we order some greasy pizza in, I can go hit he Freshii on my way out and balance out the sausage, grease, and cheese that way.
I think more and more people are simply realizing just how unhealthy our diet is, here in North America, and as these potions become more available, and awareness of them is increasing, I think all this indicates is expected are finally waking up from a sense of brainwashing that's gone on in advertising everywhere, getting us to honestly shove the worst things in our bodies over the past few decades.
There are environmental concerns with Vegan food, particularly in transit of the more obscure and in demand things like Avacados - so I do get a giggle when people are all uppity about how ethical they're being - but obviously there are ethical and environmental concerns with the treatment of animals, as well.
Overall, it's no surprise to see this data, I'd argue in-restaurant demand, at least in this city, has similarly exploded.
It's good. It means we are collectively eating a little better, and that's something that affects both the mind and the body.
And you’re right, I don’t regularly keep vegan. But I do like the option sometimes.
Enviro concerns. Rebellion. I feel I'm healthier barring intake of Iron.
I find it less expensive as good meat is expensive. Meat imoho is hard to cook. I'm put off by slaughter and the whole idea. I feel it's one thing I can do to help the world (and prolly be a bit healthier). I have friends who have reduced too! thats cool. The idea of the amount of intake to output on a cow. Its high, there's an index for it.
Prolly gonna try go vegan (everything) Screw big corps poisoning me with mass slaughter and cruelty products. Odd ingredients I have never heard of. Who is going to pay for my double bypass or kemo? Oh......me? Call me a PETA/Hippie, whatever. I care about the future of the planet and being low impact. It feels like the right way to go about it right now. The mass consumption in the states today is pretty off-putting // disturbing.
Reduce/Recycle/Reuse. No, I do not need a new phone. This one works just fine.
Lactose intolerance happens with age in X% of the population. The ones who don't become lactose intolerance simply retain their lactase production that they've always have had.
https://sciencelife.uchospitals.edu/2011/09/14/lactose-toler...
In some people lactase production decreases with age.
Same thing that causes male pattern baldness - age - even thought it doesn't happen to everybody.
The doctor told me that everyone gets more lactose intolerant to an extent as they get older, but I unfortunately have it pretty extreme in my 30's. It does force me to eat healthy whole foods though, as most processed junk foods now make me sick! So overall not so bad.
As some other commented, lactose tolerance is more of a spectrum and not a black/white thing. You may be OK with a baked product like cake but not be able to handle a milkshake for example.
As someone in the higher-end restaurant sector, I certainly haven't seen increased demand for vegan options. It also doesn't help that many vegans are very price sensitive, not to mention have a disproportionate amount of other dietary restrictions.
The statistics may present this to be takeaway only, but, for instance, the oddly named Hogtown Vegan has become one of the more popular and well-received places in the city.
May I ask what city you're from? I'm curious as to whether this is a regional thing.
Edit - more steakhouses have opened in the last year than veg restaurants.
Calgary, being a fairly sizeable city, may be an exception, but a lot of our beef comes from Alberta. I'd say Alberta is mostly known for beef and oil.
Heck, you guys have the Calgary Stampede - the last time I travelled out there I made sure to grab myself the nicest reasonably priced steak I could - Alberta's beef is known across this country.
Confirms what I was thinking about it being regional. I imagine other states and provinces with similarly agriculture focused behaviours would see the same result.
Vegetable forward restaurants are a thing, but I have it on good authority that they still sell a pretty large volume of meat and fish.
With the exception of steak houses (not fine dining IMO) there are always vegan options in my experience.
In my experience, vegan items sell fairly well, vegetable based items in general sell very well, but meals that are vegan from start to finish are less than 1% of clients. As in, serving 100 meals per day, we'll get one strict vegan per week.
Every high end restaurant is doing more vegetables; but guests still expect meat for the main course.
I have an acquaintance who is vegetarian, with one exception: Michelin-starred restaurants.
For starters, the options a lot of higher-end restaurants offer have a history of tending to be either really unsatisfying "twigs and berries" type food, overly rich (a lot of vegans aren't used to having their food drenched in cooking fats), poorly prepared (e.g., overcooked), or a mix of them all. So there's a long history of being charged what feels like a rather exorbitant price considering that you end up going home hungry and dissatisfied.
Second, vegetarians do notice and make decisions based on what non-vegetarian options are on the menu. If you're serving veal or foie gras, the vegan member of the party is going to be a lot more likely to try and convince the rest of their party to go somewhere else.
Also, straight-up boredom. People who eat vegan in particular tend to get really into cuisine from all over the world, and become acclimatized to eating food that's got very bold flavors. After a few years of that, the nouvelle cuisine-inspired stuff being served at a lot of higher-end restaurants is, frankly, just not very exciting. Especially after you take out the butter and cream and whatnot that serve as the gastronomic foundation of that style of cooking.
Which isn't to say that all high-end restaurants are like that. But so many are that eventually it gets easier to just use the price point itself as a heuristic.
Price sensitive as in not willing to pay as much as traditional customers? In my experience vegans tend to pay more for their food, as many of them look for local produce, fair trade, organic, etc. which drives the price up. I'd also be curious to learn what other dietary restrictions they may have. Aside from a few that avoid gluten, most of my vegan friends only avoid animal products with no other restrictions
Never seen a vegan restaurant at that price point. Have had vegans complain that a $15 cauliflower appetizer is too expensive however.
Edit - vegans also tend to restrict their diets further such as raw vegans, 'whole' food vegans, oil avoidance is a thing in the community, as is gluten free.
Nah, it's significantly lower if you consider that booze sales are ~30-40% of sales in most sit-down restaurants. When main courses are $25, typical guest check averages are more like $40-60.
> I wouldn't be surprised if a vegetarian restaurant of a certain caliber is going to come out at a slightly lower price point due to lower ingredient cost
Unfortunately labour and rent cost the same no matter what you serve.
Vegan +388%
Vegetarian +136%
Fish 'n' chips +1%
If you call anything that isn't carnivore food as "vegan" food, then you're labelling like 90% of our food as "vegan". That's obviously ridiculous, so I think it's more accurate to call food "vegan" when it's being eaten by someone who is respecting vegan principles.
What I mean to say is that I think "vegan food" is defined by the eater, not the makeup of the food.
Edit: I would like to understand what I could have changed about my comment if you felt it did not contribute to the discussion.
The interesting thing is vegan/vegetarian _full meals_, which I'd guess is a much lower percentage.
Well, apples are plants, and the adjective "vegan", when applied to foods, basically just means "plants and fungi", so, by definition, yes. Trivially yes.
But an apple isn't a very interesting case. What's more interesting is what TFA is talking about: an increase in orders of entire meals that contain no animal products from restaurants. It wasn't that long ago that it wasn't even possible to do such a thing at the vast majority of restaurants in Western countries. It may not indicate an increase in the number of people who eat mostly or only vegan food, but it certainly indicates changing attitudes about what qualifies as a proper meal.
If a takeaway menu picks out those options that are entirely meat free, and also free of animal fats etc. They'll label that as vegan regardless of knowing or declining if a non-vegan orders it. Maybe they just like that dish.
I quite often do order vegan dishes, Indian takeaways especially, despite remaining a meat eater overall.
Still humorous though, reminds me of the bleach drinking memes.
Depending on how strict you are, plastic isn't vegan. The crude oil used could be considered an animal byproduct, as it is possibly derived from prehistoric animals ;)
In my opinion if restaurant offers only apples as the "vegan option" i think it's correct to call it vegan food. But since i guess vegan is not well defined property of food, as it's more commonly used to describe the people practising veganism, i'd draw the line in "food served or prepared that adheres vegan principles".
If your family just happens to make a 4-bean salad without meat, then for you that’s omnivorous.
If I make the exact same salad, but my family growing up typically would have put bacon in it, then that same salad becomes “vegan food” because for me it’s a contrivance.
It’s a relativistic definition of what’s vegan and what’s not.
There are many, many traditional dishes that do not contain meat or even any animal products. I see no reason to suddenly label them "vegetarian" or "vegan".
But when people work hard to make a burger without any animal products then it does make some sense to call the result "vegan food" in that it was made specifically to suit vegan people.
Partially correct.
Vegan, the noun, refers to a person who does not eat or use animal products.
Vegan, the adjective, means using or containing no animal products.
>There are many, many traditional dishes that do not contain meat or even any animal products. I see no reason to suddenly label them "vegetarian" or "vegan".
They are vegan by definition
>But when people work hard to make a burger without any animal products then it does make some sense to call the result "vegan food" in that it was made specifically to suit vegan people.
Perhaps that is your modern interpretation of what "vegan" means, but it is not accurate. Hummus, for example, is a vegan dish regardless of having never contained animal products, and regardless of whether or not the person eating it is vegan.
I don't see why all traditional dishes that don't contain animals products should suddenly be labeled vegan. They are suitable for vegan people but I don't want veganism to hijack traditional cultures.
Yes, that is the definition of vegan as a noun. As an adjective vegan is describing food using or containing no animal products
i.e. traditional dishes that don't contain animal products are technically vegan, just like all other dishes that don't contain animal products
It's absolutely not hijacking traditional culture. I'm not mandating they call that dish vegan, I'm not saying that it is an american vegan dish, I'm simply saying that there are plenty of traditional dishes that are vegan by definition. Hummus, as an example
Unless that apple is an animal byproduct, yes, technically it is vegan (as are all other fruits and vegetables). Realistically though, no one calls single pieces of fruits and vegetables vegan, it's more commonly used to refer to dishes
>I think it's more accurate to call food "vegan" when it's being eaten by someone who is respecting vegan principles.
So if I order and eat Thai food it is American food because I'm American, but if I was Thai it would be Thai food?
>What I mean to say is that I think "vegan food" is defined by the eater, not the makeup of the food.
By definition, it is defined by the makeup of the food
A lot of the debate under your comment is stemming from the difference between vegan people and vegan food.
In French we have three words. Vegatarien, Vegetalien, Vegan. Vegetalien means vegan but it's only used in the context of what food the person eats. While vegan was more about the lifestyle and not wearing leather/fur, etc. Although recently the term vegan is used for food more and more, it's simpler.
Even if only a small percentage of people are vegans, you only need one vegan in a group of people to pick a place that offers vegan food. Vegan food is also a safe bet for the larger group of vegetarians. That means more places want to offer some good vegan options, which in turn makes more people try vegan food, and makes it easier to be a vegan.
I’m not a vegan nor a vegetarian, but I often find myself ordering vegan dishes because they seem more healthy for myself and the environment. There are so many types of food these days where vegan is not a compromise.
Though I think the medium term equilibrium is just that more establishments will need to do better than a half-ass salad for a vegan offering. Which is 100% great.
https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/02/the-tyranny-of-the-minor...
It's one of the root causes leading to the rise of populists like Trump.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/trump-electoral-c...
In short, be careful what you wish for.
[1] https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict...
And people with kosher or halal diets, too.
That's a given, and vegans have an important role in the society to counterbalance it.
> There are a good number of people who actually want to eat meat, and there are a few who don't want to go places without it.
On the other hand, (I hope) the majority actually just wants to eat delicious dishes without big negative externalities.
> Not every one is okay with just rabbit food, though.
Here, I'm not sure whether you're referring to what rabbits eat (grass), what restaurants stuck in the past offer to vegans (what's left of meat menus and salads when you leave out animal products), or a prejudice toward any vegan food.
For example, this from the Guardian: ... the owner of I Am Doner, a pair of kebab shops in Leeds and Harrogate, said his vegan kebab routinely outsold chicken, halloumi and falafel. Made from seitan, a meat substitute derived from wheat gluten, the “voner” kebab sometimes outsells the lamb alternative too.
That said, wouldn't falafel be vegan? Clearly, precision is evolving here.
Edit - also the traditional way to make falafel is vegan as it originated as a fasting food for Middle Eastern Christians (traditional fasting rules dictate no animal products).
Some Greek places put yogurt instead of tahini which is not vegan, but I wouldn’t call that typical. I would call it a “too common aberration” and “a reason not to eat Greek falafel”.
*adds Voner kebab to list of things to try (handy as I'm planning to be in Harrogate this autumn and Berlin next spring (the latter apparentl having a few outlets offering the stuff).
(Omnivore here)
Many avoid it nonetheless.
I frigging love falafel but I were at a kebab shop that offered seitan, I'd order that (at least the first time) because I also like seitan and I can't get that at any other falafel place.
OK, found the British Takeaway Campaign 2017 report, https://jeweb-11431-s3.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/applicatio... - It's a pretty detailed and interesting report, but for everything in there it doesn't provide this data point. Overall, it does mention: Spending on takeaway grew to £9.9 billion in 2016, up more than a third (34%) since 2009 (£7.4 billion).
Still looking for the rankings / market share... OK, here's that, from the Mirror of all places, but referencing a 2017 report by Paymentsense, which tracks payments.
The top 10 takeaways:
Chinese - 35 per cent
Indian - 24 per cent
Pizza - 13 per cent
Fish and Chips - 7 per cent
English - 4 per cent
Italian - 4 per cent
Burgers - 3 per cent
Thai - 2 per cent
Mexican - 1 per cent
Turkish - 1 per cent Shepherds Pie
Bangers & Mash
Fish & Chips
Steak & Kidney Pie
Roast Beef & Yorkshire Pudding
Cornish Pasty
I miss cheese on pizza, but have otherwise not found myself lacking in tasty and nutritious options
If I'm eating say, thai I don't "order vegan" - but a tofu based curry may be vegan.
Vegan food, done well, is pretty great. But there's a steep learning curve with the spices etc, so I tend to eat out for it.
Agreed - it took a good number of weeks of our weekly meal prep before I felt comfortable adding actual flavor to the dishes. It definitely is something you acquire quickly, though. Meat and dairy are good flavor-enhancers so becoming vegan overnight was rough from the flavor profile perspective.
Luckily there are plenty of resources to help out and I got a handle of it in no time. You learn what to swap out and how to get the right texture with things like tempeh, tofu etc and all that.
I can always add in some beef or chicken if I get nostalgic ;)
"Semi-vegan" is a particularly nonsensical term.
Given the site's market and the story, semi-vegan seems a reasonable compromise to describe many takeaway orders.
Why should there be a specific term for that?
You're describing an order that is neither vegan nor vegetarian. It's no different from a "normal" (for lack of a better word) meal consisting of a salad followed by a steak and chips.
Not that TFA mentioned either, but semi- seems a helpful shorthand to me, to describe changing habits, as we increasingly don't want meat every meal. Even if most people choosing those meals probably never think to describe themselves as semi-vegan yet. :)
If semi-vegetarian is off limits, what am I?
Well, yes there is since that's the very definition of "vegan" and "vegetarian".
If I drink only at weekends, am I a semi-teetotaller? That's ridiculous.
What do you mean not supposed to? My grandmother wasn't supposed to drink? Her being a teetotaler was just the result of her daily choices. That's what eating vegan meals is for me.
Do you have to explicitly choose to be a vegan? If prisoners were fed 100% vegan diets and had no options for outside foods, would they be vegans? I guess I'm wondering if intent matters just as much as action, or is one or the other good enough?
I've been tee-total for over 10 years. I've sipped someones drink a handful of times to see what it tasted like, can I not say I was tee-total anymore?
The definitions are more about proclamations. If today I decide to be a vegan, then tomorrow I will call myself a vegan despite having only abstained for 24 hours so far. If I decide to eat meat a couple times a month then I'll tell people I'm predominantly vegan, they understand what I mean.
http://www.withouthotair.com/c29/page_229.shtml
There's also the word "reducetarian":
Using percentage seems perfectly rational.
Ironically, this attitude is harmful to the environment and to animals.
There are a wide variety of dishes and people may be suggested that they can perfectly eat good, tasty food without eating meat at every meal.
There is no need to even mention the terms "vegetarian" or "vegan", or to invent random new terms.
Agreed. Group behaviour doesn't make sense. That doesn't make it less real.
"Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."
— Everett, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
The general rule of thumb is, don't eat a dish that the chef probably isn't eating themself. They probably haven't put any love, or even thought, into it.
As for tofu: marinate in maple syrup and tamari, then roast. And I first had that at a restaurant.
That's the one thing that keeps me away from a lot of vegan food, as much as I do admit that vegan food has gotten way better than it used to be.
I have a voracious appetite, and the best way I've been able to prevent myself from gaining weight again is to limit my carb and sugar intake. I'm occasionally tempted by vegan food, but when I find out the nutrition info, I know I can't sustain just consuming a ton of carbs. Maybe if I didn't have a job where I have to sit down in front of a computer all day, things would be different.