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Vegetarians

17:54 / 02.07.02

A friend of mine has decided to become a vegetarian, partly - I think - through a desire to improve his health, and partly - I know - to cut his living expenses.

At a couple recent weddings however, he's grumbled firstly about the distinct lack of variety for the vegetarian eater, and secondly about the size - or rather lack thereof - of the portions given, both of which I'm inclined to agree with him on.

I'm aware that for home cooking purposes there is a massive variety available to the vegetarian, but for public events (such as the aforementioned weddings), it seems that vegetarians are consistantly given a worse deal. I've also begun to think that the famed 'vegetarian option' which appears unfailingly on public event menus time and time again is actually just the standard meal with the meat removed and a few bits of watery, over-cooked cabbage thrown in.

Sound familiar, anyone...?

18:19 / 02.07.02

Yep. If you ever go to a group meal then the vegetarians essentially subsidise the meat eaters. I went to a conference "banquet" the other day and while most people got codfish on a spinach, cream and nut sauce (with a variety of vegatables), us veggies were given pasta and spinach. Leftovers anyone?

18:26 / 02.07.02

Im not a vegetarian, but I can certainly see where vegetarians get the raw end of the deal. I dont eat a lot of meat, and sometimes all I want is a nice steaming plate of broccoli. which is easy if you are in a decent restaurant, near impossible anywhere else. go to a theme park, the zoo, shopping at the mall.

and cost wise? I dont know that it will save any money, especially if you are eating solo or dont make a lot of trips to the grocery. canned veggies arent healthy and frozen doesnt taste very good, so youll prolly want to go with fresh, which doesnt last terribly long.

Ive just fairly recently gotten into eating more vegetables, and have found a lot of fantastic ways to prepare the same old stuff, and discovered new things Id never tried before. unfortunately, my regular, cheaper store doesnt carry much beyond the average fare so I have to trek off to the pricer stores

Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo

18:46 / 02.07.02

As a vegetarian for 6 years this August for health reasons, it all depends on where you are. When I visited Texas, the veggie choices were non-existant, in Minneapolis, they are available most places and are pretty good. California, the LA and San Diego areas I was in, isn't as Veggie friendly as I thought it would be since I'm used to everyplace but fast food joints labeling which meals are vegetarian.

At my oldest sister's wedding, there was only bread and margarine for me to eat, EVERYTHING else, including the salad, had meat in it. So, I tend to keep a meal bar in my pocket if I am going to a social type event, just so that I can have something to eat and not be rude.

18:49 / 02.07.02

when I was planning my wedding last year I was very cautious - I have a strict vegan cousin whod prolly bring her boyfriend. just two people, but I wanted them to be able to eat something fairly substantial. not as easy as youd think

19:45 / 02.07.02

Ha. Had a full-on no-meat wedding, me. Let the bastards eat Thai stirfry and pasta primavera.
Cheaper that way, as it turned out, too.

That said, I have *suffered* at other social events. (Part of the reason why I eats the fish).

I will say that airlines usually do vegetarians pretty well. It's a gamble (sometimes, it's just the overcooked cabbage, sometimes it's a curry that makes one's neighbors glance enviously over), but it's generally worth it.
That is, for "real" meals. For "snacks," it's positively impossible - fucking ham and cheese wraps, with the stringy ham that fuses into everything else inside the tortilla so it simply can't be picked out.

MaximusOverdrive

19:49 / 02.07.02

i'm a vegitarian as well, coming up on the six year mark, and i've found that most places in my current area offer only the most meager of choices, mainly consisting of angelhair pasta and veggies cooked in oil. this isn't bad, but if you have to order it every time you go out with your friends, it gets tired pretty quick.

back in philly though, the options are a bit more open. and with how many asian or east-meets-west fusion restaurants are around me there, i don't really have any problems at all. it's a shame that such a common and easy lifestyle choice is so hard to maintain in non-metro areas.

21:32 / 02.07.02

Part of me always feels guilty for being sulky over the lack of vegetarian foods at social events since, I see it as "well I didn't HAVE to become a vegetarian, why should they make something especially for me?" I know that it could easily be reversed, and they don't have to to eat meat, but since the "meateaters" usually outnumber me, it's easier to for me to feel like I'm just being a pain. Most of the time at family events my aunt will make me a vegetarian dish, but I've also been to many a one where on the way home I've had to go through a Tim Hortons drive-thru and pick up a garden veggie sandwich because there was nothing for me to eat.

Rollo Kim, on location

22:01 / 02.07.02

I'm a celiac (I can't eat anything with a grain in it). So I basically can't eat out full stop - even if the place has been forwarned, the chances are the food's contaminated or it doesn't occur to them not to use certain ingredients (grains, or the protein in them , they basically put them in anything and everything - soup, sauces, drinks, you name it). Such fun! I really don't enjoy eating meat and I don't unless there's no other option. Salad simply does not fill the hole.

22:47 / 02.07.02

As a 16 stone veggie, I can sympathise. When I first became veggie, I lost weight and saved cash in one happy package because I stopped eating 'meat and two veg' and just ate more of the two veg. Now I eat a lot of Indian and Mediterranean cuisine and my weight and living expenses are almost back at their previous levels. And it tastes a lot nicer! I am lucky enough to have a good greengrocer literally at the end of the road which is open until 8pm and sells a lot of good fresh veg and two delis with lots of goodies not much farther away.
But I still get the short shrift at functions which means I invariably end up tucking carefully into the buffet, until the people notice you peeking inside the sarnies to check the fillings. Why can't they label these things and save the confusion?

11:18 / 03.07.02

To answer the abstract: well, yes, it's a little awkward at times, but I wouldn't use the term disadvantage. Certainly my own experience of vegetarianism and now veganism is that I eat less food but it tastes better and I get more energy out of it. There might be the occasional function where I'm not catered for adequately: I don't get mad, just smile and politely insist they sort their shit out. Otherwise, being veggie has meant exploring loads of foods (and by association, cultures and sub-cultures) I would never have gone for otherwise (I can't believe I only just discovered sushi! but then, I was living in Glasgow for 9 years.) Added to that, I'm lessening my personal impact on the environment and eliminating one belly-lifetimes worth of animal cruelty.

One also has the fun of virtually dicating restaurant terms to one's friends on nights out. Muhahahah.

11:20 / 03.07.02

I agree with Lurid that the 'vegetarian option' in restaurants should be made more expensive, to bring it into line with the carnivore dishes...

11:28 / 03.07.02

i've had hassle at 'functions' - at my brother's wedding there was only breaded mushrooms to eat for the evening buffet, although that probably says more about my brother than the caterers. i used to go to staff christmas dinners, but after a few years of being given (usually well after everyone else had had theirs) a plate of badly cooked veg, rice and a bit of sauce for fifteen or twenty quid - a meal that would've cost me about two to make myself - i gave up. it's far better generally at restaurants than it used to be: i remember (again) paying a fortune for a salad while everyone else had fish, being treated like a whinger for double checking with the organiser that it would be a veggie meal, then finding fucking salami in it. i have to say, the english in general are pretty poor at respecting the veggie.

11:37 / 03.07.02

Where as on air planes veggie food is not only often nicer tham the meat options, but also usually served first...

12:55 / 03.07.02

..and veggie pizza is usually the best thing to order from delivery places...

I think this all says quite a lot about the general state of cooking in restaurants. It's very easy to create dishes that don't involve meat but are extremely nice, just as easy as with meat. The problem I see is that cooks are just relying on old staples and not creating their own recipes. Their idea of a vegetarian meal is a meat meal with all the meat removed, or one of the standard veggie things (nut roast anyone?)

They're not even using existing veggie recipes from other cultures, no, they just can't be arsed. It's only deliberately innovative places, and veggie restaurants which are forced to be innovative, that make an effort to create interesting food.

13:10 / 03.07.02

I don't think functions are so bad, because at least you have advanced warning, so you can eat before hand so you don't starve. It's the spontaneous events that are the problem for me (although I'm not that big on spontaneity to start with). Like going to the pub straight after work and everyone else can grab a bite there but the only thing you can eat from the menu is a bowl of chips ... again. Or if you're lucky you can have your third vege burger that week ...

The other week I was at a pub on a Sunday and all they were doing was the Sunday roast. They said that the veges were cooked separately and they'd do me a plate of them, and I was thinking what a great success it was. That is, until the food arrived. My friends got a dinner plate full of meat, and a small side dish with the veges in it. I just got the small side dish.

14:06 / 03.07.02

I've been vegetarian (ovo-lacto, though not so much anymore) for 10 years, and my biggest issue is that, if given a vegetarian option, health-minded meat eaters will descend upon it like a flock of, um, some eeeevil descending things.

Just about every time I split food with omnivores, I have to remind them that, say, though the veggie pizza is great-tasting, and a nice complement to the pepperoni pizza they just ate, it's all I can eat, dammit, and I'd appreciate them keeping their grubby little paws off it.

My family's gotten much better with this, thankfully, so if I'm over everyone eats vegan, to be on the safe side, or something special is prepared for me (Instead of icky cheese sandwiches and canned soup, which is what I used to get)

The biggest disadvantage I've found, recently, is that organic produce (and, hell, produce in general) gets really expensive if you eat a lot of it. I participate in community food programs, I shop around to find the cheapest produce, etc, but the fact remains that, if you don't waste your money on overprocessed and GMO-filled garbage, eating can get expensive. Especially if you don't take supplements, and try to get all of your vitamins and minerals through your diet.

I could be wrong, but I consider this a vegetarian issue because most of the omnivores I know don't really care what's in their food, and don't really give a toss about issues of sustainable agriculture and biodiversity... Not all, but most.

As a French vegetarian, life was very difficult indeed. In addition to not being able to eat anything, anywhere, I used to be subjected to the following conversation multiple times a day:

Me: I don't eat meat.

Them: Do you eat beef?

Me: No.

T: Do you eat chicken?

M: No.

T: Fish?

M: NO!

T (mystified): What do you eat, then?

Drove me crazy.

14:45 / 03.07.02

shortfatdyke said: the english in general are pretty poor at respecting the veggie

Crikey, I have to disagree. I'm in Spain right now and believe me, England is eeeeeeasy. Compared to anywhere else I've been (round Europe, Australasia and the US), Britain is heaven for veggies. It can still be a pain but compared to elsewhere, I love the place!

14:57 / 03.07.02

I agree, Ariadne.

I've found a lot of vegetarian meal options, and a lot of veggie-sensitive people, in the time I've spent in England. Although I've eaten more than my fair share of Ploughman's Lunches/Platters/Sandwiches in the UK, they're significantly better than the nasty, greasy grilled cheese sandwiches (on white bread! eeeek!) that I've been forced to eat in small-town Canada and the USA...

15:14 / 03.07.02

I was a vegetarian for a couple of years, & have now gone back to eating meat, although not very much.

Yes, the lack of variety, or even availability, of vegetarian dishes when eating out is grossly annoying. Although is it often easy to get a restaurant to prepare you a meatless dish if you ask persistently. I do remember eating at one restaurant & asking if their vegetable soup was made with a meat stock. "Oh, yes," the waitress cheerily replied. "All of our soups have a meat base." Yes, how nice for you.

Also, there's the odd idea that if you don't eat meat, you won't get enough to eat. I've eaten at restaurants where the main vegetarian dish is a platter of steamed vegetables that is fairly tasty but larger than anything I'd ever eat in one sitting. And it comes with a salad. The logic of that escapes me.

And yes, the ignorance of many non-vegetarians can be astounding. "But, what do you eat?" "Oh, so you think animals are so great?" (Yes, people become vegetarians solely because they have a Disney-like view of animals. It couldn't possibly be for health or environmental reasons.) "But, cows are stupider than broccoli." (So are some humans, but you don't see me throwing them onto the grill.)

It would be nice if there were more places were you could get a quick, tasty vegetarian meal while out & about. Not necessarily a fast food restaurant, but something relatively speedy.