When vegan restaurants use eggs
Some L.A. vegan restaurants get called out for using fake meat that contains milk and egg products.
Tue, Jun 30 2009 at 11:05 PM EST
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Photo: Andrew Dowsett and Divine Harvester / Flickr In case you hadn’t heard yet, L.A. vegan restaurants are feeding eggs and milk to vegans (via Boing Boing, thanks to Zak).That’s right — A vegan blog called Quarry Girl undertook “Operation Pancake” — a study that basically bought food from 17 L.A. vegan restaurants and tested them for animal products. 10 restaurants passed the test — but 7 did not. According to Quarry Girl:
What the test results seem to confirm … is that the meat substitutes available at vegan Thai restaurants are suspect, as are the ingredients used in some specific food options (pancakes, quesadillas and more).
The specific issue that Quarry Girl points to is that meat substitutes imported from Taiwan sometimes include animal ingredients that aren’t listed on the ingredient labels — an omission that appears largely due to the different food labeling laws in Taiwan vs. the U.S. Luckily, Taiwan’s poised to tighten its food labeling laws, which will hopefully help close this un-vegan-friendly gap in information.
But the larger and more important issue, IMHO, is that many of these meat substitutes are highly processed foods with massive ingredient lists and huge travel footprints that bring up some of the same sort of scary issues as the synthetic, engineered foods from Nestle and Kraft. According to Quarry Girl, “MOST, if not all, of the fake meats you buy come from Taiwan.”
Given the choice between an egg from an organic free range chicken farmer at my local farmers’ market and some multi-ingredient “meat” that’s made with in Taiwan using genetically-modified ingredients grown via factory farming before getting shipped over to the U.S., I’d opt for the egg. “Vegan” apparently isn’t always vegan, and a vegan diet most certainly isn’t always green.
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Comments
treaclemine
07/03/2009 04:29 AM
Our choices in artificially breed and farming animals was found to be in the top three causes of all major environmental problems from local water pollution to global climate change by the United Nations ("Livestock's Long Shadow").
A well-planned vegan diet in the UK needs only one third the fresh water, fertile land and energy used for the typical British diet. The ratio is probably at least that in the USA, too.
The problem with these LA vegan restaurants seems to be in.... More
Andy D
07/01/2009 16:12 PM
You mean one city, plural, double figure vegan restaurants. Nice
Anonymous
07/01/2009 15:50 PM
A vegan who drives a hummer as his primary mode of transportation leaves a smaller carbon footprint than the meat-eater who rides a bike as his full-time mode of transportation.
Bonnie
07/01/2009 15:35 PM
Thanks Matt and Ed! Choosing a vegan lifestyle really is about not abusing and using other living creatures. It has the benefit of a healthier body, and a lesser footprint on the Earth, even when choosing to eat food with a lot of 'food-miles'. Most vegans eventually also come around to being greener by limiting their processed food (the healthier you get, the less you can tolerate processed food) and becoming aware of, and doing something about, via their shopping choices, the environmental.... More
Ed Coffin
07/01/2009 15:23 PM
I couldn't agree more with Matt. It's important to point out from the start that veganism is about stopping unnecessary exploitation of all animals. It's not about being "greener than thou," but that certainly is a part of it. Actually, that vegan meat product shipped from Asia probably has less of an impact on the environment than flesh food raised across the street. Check it out: .... More
Matt
07/01/2009 13:05 PM
There may be some small aspects of vegan foods that are less 'green', but overwhelmingly vegan diets are less energy-intensive and therefore greener than even local omnivorous diets. Travel distance is just one component of energy use. To use and raise animals for their flesh and by-products requires significantly more input (from all the soybeans and food they eat!) and water. Unfortunately though I think most people are looking for an excuse to eat meat and the green-washing of 'local'.... More
