Soy-less Greens

Jump to Comments

Photo by foodistablog.

Despite my nine years of vegetarianism, I have never been all that into animals. My reasons for going vegetarian were initially selfish–I didn’t like the taste of meat, I thought it would make me lose weight. (I was 12; give me a break.) Later, my reasons evolved to slightly less stupid ones–wanting to improve my karma, wanting to do something good for the environment to counter the fact that I always forget to turn out the kitchen light when going to bed. But still, animal rights were never a big thing.

This is probably why I’ve never freaked out upon discovering that something I eat contains animal products. Gummi bears, McDonald’s fries, broccoli cheddar soup–I’ve just stopped eating it, shedding no tears for all the little ponies or piglets that died for my previous (ignorant) sins. I’ve never been the kind of vegetarian who throws fits about the edge of the steak touching the edge of my portobello mushroom on the grill, or sends the salad back to the kitchen if I find one tiny piece of bacon in it. If I don’t know about it containing meat, and I can’t taste it, it doesn’t bother me.

But I have always found myself in the minority among vegetarians and vegans, which is why I thought I’d pass along this article: A blogger tests the food at several vegan restaurants in Los Angeles and discovers that almost half of them test positive for animal products in their ingredients. It’s worth a read. The conclusions of the testing make it pretty likely that this is not restricted to Los Angeles–that it is, in fact, probably going on in your local restaurants as well.

My reaction: the bottom line is that of course it’s inexcusable for restaurants to represent their food as something it’s not, and if a restaurant is doing that, it deserves to be exposed . . .

BUT

. . . being a vegetarian or vegan or anyone who chooses to restrict their food gives you a certain illusion of control over what you eat. The problem with this is that unless you grow and prepare all your own food, it’s exactly that–an illusion. If you eat food outside of your home–and this goes for vegetarians and meat-eaters both–then you are handing that control over to someone else, and this means you aren’t always going to get exactly what you want or ask for. And at least until everyone in the food-prep process is replaced with an automaton, it’ll probably stay that way.

Here’s a partial list of where things can go awry:

1) With you: You can mis-read the menu, or fail to read it entirely. (I’m still upset about the time that I chomped on one of my friend’s stuffed mushrooms at the Olive Garden. Guess what it was stuffed with? Clam! I don’t mean to be a six-year-0ld, but grooooossssss.) Or something may be common knowledge among vegetarians–that most cream- and cheese-based soups served at restaurants contain meat broths, for example, or that refried beans at many Mexican restaurants can contain animal lard–but that you may not be aware of yet.

2) With your server: Yes, most servers are too moral to lie about whether or not an item contains meat out of laziness or busy-ness (or, if they are too lazy or busy to check, they at least hedge their bets and say it does contain meat so vegetarians won’t order it). Note that this says “most.” It’s been known to happen. Also, if your server is not a vegetarian, and especially if they’re not a very experienced server or working at a higher-end restaurant, they may not be aware of things like “broth” or “rennet” or “casein” or “gelatin.” They may assume that a food item that appears to have no visible animal bits in it probably doesn’t have any animal products in it.

3) With the kitchen staff: In many cases, when a server doesn’t know whether or not a menu item contains animal products or by-products, their first recourse is to ask the cook. The problem with that? Sometimes the cook doesn’t know what’s in it any more than the server does. Except at top-end, independently owned restaurants, there’s likely at least one thing on any restaurant’s menu–and probably many things–that are delivered entirely or partially pre-made, especially soups, desserts, and sauces. And because there’s limited storage, many of these items are immediately taken out of their original packaging (with the nutritional information on it) and distributed into new containers. By the time it’s on your plate, the nutritional information is long gone and can’t be consulted.

Also–this should be obvious–unless, it’s a solely vegan or vegetarian restaurant, cross-contamination happens. When a kitchen gets busy, it’s inevitable that a little piece of this can get stuck in a little piece of that. The cook preparing your spinach & walnut salad is the same guy preparing your date’s chicken caesar, and no, he’s not washing his hands in between. Your bean burger is cooked on the same grill as the regular burgers; your french fries are cooked in the same deep fryer as the buffalo wings. (To be fair, there are some restaurants that make a point to avoid cross-contamination as much as they can. They are, however, the minority.) No, you can’t ask them not to do this. If you can’t handle this, you’d be better off sticking to your own kitchen, or at least to restaurants that observe the same food restrictions that you do.

Last, the language barrier can make it tough. English is not the native language of most cooks in the U.S. Depending on the kitchen, “veganism” may be beyond communication.

4) With the restaurant management: If a restaurant or chain is intentionally misleading about what ingredients they put into their menu items, they can get slapped with a lawsuit, so they rarely intentionally lie. But they can also get hit with a lawsuit if they label an item as vegetarian or vegan and a later test proves it isn’t, which is why so few restaurants (especially chains, who have bigger pockets and are thus bigger targets) are reluctant to clearly demarcate “vegetarian” from “non-vegetarian” items on their menus. This facilitates assumptions on the customer’s part (see #1).

5) With the food manufacturer: If you read the article linked above, you’d have seen that, while evasive employees and management may have contributed to the non-vegan vegan food, in most cases, restaurants weren’t knowingly serving animal byproducts. They were getting their food straight from manufacturers (often overseas), who were either knowingly or unknowingly contaminating it, mislabeling it, or mistranslating the ingredients. And the bottom line? “Over 50 percent of processed foods for vegetarians contain meat.” Ostensibly, even more vegan products would contain animal byproducts.

So even prior to the food’s arrival at the restaurant, you’ve got a 50/50 chance that what you order will be meat-free. And that’s before you calculate in the human error at the actual restaurant. Take from that what you will.

2 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tags: food, waiting tables