7 ms·

Laboratory tests of vegan restaurants in LA find some aren't

89 points by mariorz 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago
I'm not vegan, but now I have to wonder what contaminants are in my food.
- JimmyL 17y ago
  Have a read of The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and you'll be wondering even more. I'm not a vegetarian or vegan (meat is too tasty), but that book in many ways changed how I shop for food.
grandalf 17y ago
Casein is a huge problem. I went to the nearest grocer (a Safeway) and looked at the ingredients in all of the "vegan" cheeses and psudo-meats. All contained casein or some ambiguously named "milk protein". Also, soy protein (isolate and concentrate) is harmful and is contained in a wide variety of additional vegan foods: http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2005nl/april/050400pusoy.htm http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2005nl/april/050400pusoy.htm Bottom line: For best results eat foods in their natural state or as close as possible, with minimal processing.
- viggity 17y ago
  I'm assuming by "best results" you mean "the greatest probability of not consuming any animal products whatsoever" For the "best results nutritionally", you're probably better of eating animal products, including ones that have been cooked. http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/09/15/he_cooked_up_a_new_theory_on_evolution/ http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/09/15/he_co...
  - grandalf 17y ago
    Quite the contrary (that research makes the common logical error of assuming that just because something may have conferred a selection advantage over eons of evolution, that it does so today in a world with no calorie/nutrient scarcity). See the following thread and article: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676446 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676446 and http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246301048&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Im...
  - dejb 17y ago
    There is also an alternative theory that "Man's ability to digest starchy foods like the potato may explain our success on the planet" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6983330.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6983330.stm So does this mean that a diet rich in potato is best nutritionally? Of course not. In evolutionary times whatever could deliver the most calories was 'best nutritionally'. Our inbuilt instinct to follow this path has most likely lead to the current obesity epidemic. To work out what is the best diet for our current circumstances you need to actually study how different diets impact health. And the results are clear - the best diet includes little or no meat (excluding fish).
- gaius 17y ago
  Count yourself lucky. In South Africa chicken counts as the vegetarian option.
  - vidarh 17y ago
    I used to work with a guy that insisted meat didn't count when he was outside the country. He was traveling abroad for business or vacations at least 100 days of the year.
buugs 17y ago
Vegan and vegetarian always fascinated me why do they, or you if you are among them, seek out normal foods that should not fit their diet, such as lets say vegetarian hamburgers bacon etc. Or even from the article why are they searching out quesadillas, cheese pizza, pancakes things that me seem to clearly not be vegan other than that they may have found a way to make remnants of them. It just seems counter-cause to me.
- moted 17y ago
  What makes a pancake inherently something 'not vegan'? The ethical concerns which led me to veganism in no way removed pancakes from my desired diet. As such, I make them on a regular basis. Just because somebody doesn't eat meat doesn't mean they don't like the concept of the meal in general. I make vegan versions of tacos, hamburgers, chicken salad, and egg salad because I like everything else about the meal other than the animal product. If I can substitute the animal for a plant based alternative I can enjoy the meals I've always loved, why wouldn't I?
  - buugs 17y ago
    pancakes: milk and eggs is why i say it isn't vegan from the pictures the vegan pancakes are not what I would call pancakes and maybe there is another way to make them though I can understand lets say tofu salad or tacos, things that the meat isnt really the ruling taste I do not understand tofu burgers, cheese pizza, quesadillas. Thank you for your reasons though.
    - inc 17y ago
      For pancakes, you can use soy/rice milk and substitute apple sauce for the eggs - this works in most baked foods also.
      - buugs 17y ago
        Did not know that :)
      - 17y ago
dtf 17y ago
As a non-vegan, these recipes truly baffle me. Why on earth would anyone eat that? Surely there are some nice, simple dishes you can make using fruits and nuts and vegetables, rather than these massively processed soy products pretending to be meat or fish or cheese? Seriously, what's the point?
- theorique 17y ago
  I'm a vegan primarily for health reasons, so I generally agree with you. I eat mostly 'plant-based whole foods', in the words of Joi Ito. At the same time, it's nice to be able to eat a variety of foods. Some people who are vegans primarily for ethical reasons rather than health or taste reasons may miss meat and/or cheese a lot (especially in the early stages). In this case, these products provide a substitute for the foods that they may remember and enjoy but no longer choose to eat.
  - aristus 17y ago
    Doug Coupland called these kinds of people "crypto-carnivore". :) I enjoy meat and veggie food but I draw the line at egg and milk substitutes. Real vegan cheese is appalling and no amount of processing can make up for it. "Soy" cheese that uses milk protein is much better... and there are a lot more simple vegetarians than radical-Shiite vegans. Nor is there always a bright line. I have heard good arguments over whether honey is or is not vegan.
- shaunxcode 17y ago
  Truth - as a vegan I find the best meals are those which are almost entirely produce based with some simple grains to add texture etc. I am not a "raw food" type but I love well prepared raw food. Even working from home I have a hard time being able to shop and prepare to eat a healthy raw diet so I fall back on frozen veg, brown rice, quinoa, beans and lentils. Eating out is always going to be a compromise if you really care about what goes into your body. I would prefer to reserve it for when I am out of town or special occasions - but even then what is more special than actually taking the time to cook yourself?
- yosh 17y ago
wooster 17y ago
This reminds me of the schoolgirls in New Zealand who tested Ribena and found it contained almost no Vitamin C: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/27/schoolsworldwide.foodanddrink http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/27/schoolsworldwide...
- rubikscube 17y ago
  If people ate 9 to 12 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, or better yet, ate only/mostly fruits and vegetables as their entire diet, they wouldn't think they need supplements like Ribena to get their Vitamin C, as well as a host of other nutrients.
  - paragatelatte 17y ago
    Man,there are a lot of raw foodists chiming in on this article.
ankhmoop 17y ago
The subject matter is interesting, but what I find most interesting is a blog performing real, 'hard-hitting' local journalism, of genuine interest to a very specific social subgroup.
- dag 17y ago
  The mainstream media had this idea first, they picked up the story of the New York highschool student who tested Red Snapper in various sushi restaurants and found that it was often Talapia. That story got repeated in some jurisdictions, now a year or so later someone gets around to doing it with vegan food. ----- EDIT: Sushi from New York: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/22fish.html?scp=3&sq=red%20snapper%20talapia&st=cse http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/22fish.html?scp=3&... Sushi from Toronto (reported in Vancouver): http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=4381b239-db40-47da-ae6b-b573bc5dc72c http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=4381b...
  - pyre 17y ago
    If you really want a "what food is advertised as isn't what it really is" story search youtube for Vegan Marshmallows. (short: some guy was supplying a 'vegan' gelatin substitute to several groups (not just vegans) and when it was tested it had animal products in it and the guy 'disappeared'). Revealing that some companies/restaurants aren't always truthful isn't a new thing. Certainly not only a year old. It's really as old as investigative journalism in general. Dating all the way back to "The Jungle". Edit: and what you're really saying is that 'mainstream media' just copied the idea too. And from a grassroots-level at that.
shaunxcode 17y ago
This is going to have some pretty big reprecussions for the restaurants in question. A few years back the same thing happened on the east coast when someone ate a vegan philly "cheese" steak at a vegan joint and swore down that it could NOT be vegan. They ordered one to go and utilized their campus laboratory to discover that, yes, it had casein in it. Turned out that the supplier of the restaurants vegan cheese had not been entirely honest. It looks like the same thing is happening with a lot of these cases. Most people source their vegan "meats" from central import supermarkets and the people doing the translation seem to be leaving out a few crucial facts i.e. "this vegetarian fish contains fish" etc. This is another great reason to source your food locally. When you are having to trace the contents of what is going into your mouth across state borders let alone oceans you're going to have some difficulty. One of my long term plans is to open a restaurant which sources everything locally (with in the county) - it will be inherently vegan but will not champion that so as to not turn people off of the concept but rather push the idea of healthy food supporting local business and thus the overall food security for the community.
- pyre 17y ago
  It's actually better to eat food that is seasonal than local. Case in point, if you buy local tomatoes during the winter they are grown in a greenhouse that burns more energy than shipping tomatoes up from Mexico. I recently found out that most (maybe all?) rice that's grown in California is grown in an area where they need to pump the water uphill to irrigate that area. Energy/greenhouse gas-wise it's more environmentally-friendly to import the rice from India. Load of people seem to think that 'local' implies something like a small town and therefore must be better and/or closer to the earth or something, but that's not always the case.
  - shaunxcode 17y ago
    I agree about seasonal eating patterns and I guess that is implicit if you are eating local organic (i.e. no crazy hydroponic winter tomatoes). Living in utah that would mean the winters would bring a lot of grains, canned/bottled fruit and vegetables from the growing season etc. How does a fresh vegetable stew with some home made bread not sound good? On rice - I actually tried growing rice in my apartment using 5 gallon buckets one suspended in the other so that there is a constant supply of water in the bottom (I think the term is self watering container). I just threw in some soil and tossed a hand full of organic brown rice and it sprouted within the week! I am not sure how much I could have grown had I taken it past that point but I was surprised that it even sprouted!
biotech 17y ago
I have been on a "gluten-free" diet for a couple years now. This means that I have to carefully inspect the ingredients list of everything I eat, something that I didn't really do before. The results are unappetizing to say the least. Even worse, sometimes potentially harmful ingredients are not necessarily listed, or are listed by some rarely-known name. If you wish to have good control over what you're eating, whether that means avoiding gluten, casein, animal products, soy, etc; your best bet is to prepare all of your own food. Don't eat out, don't buy preprepared foods at the market. Disclaimer: I'm not quite disciplined enough to follow that advice, and I know that I end up eating small amounts of gluten. It's a trade off between stress and nutrition, I guess. Since vegans usually don't get sick by eating trace amounts of non-vegan food, my advice is to just deal with it. And be happy that you don't have a lot of real food allergies (unless you do, of course).
- pyre 17y ago
  I guess the 'real' issue here is whether or not restaurants are knowingly using non-vegan ingredients and lying to their customers (i.e. committing fraud) just to turn a buck. Restaurants lying about what is really in their food should tick _everyone_ off vegan or non.
pmorici 17y ago
I wonder how many vegans and vegetarians are also pro-choice and how they reconcile that inconsistency.
- pyre 17y ago
  I debated whether or not to respond since you just sound like flame bait, but I guess I'll respond... Vegan/vegetarian is a description of a diet, _NOT_ a philosophy. People can go vegan or vegetarian for a number of reasons: 1. boycott poor treatment of animals in the livestock industry 2. health concerns and/or allergies 3. dieting/losing weight 4. ethical concerns (not wanting to kill things) 5. religious practices I'm sure there are many more. Pro-choice does not necessarily run counter to any/all of those. But even if you don't agree with someone's decision you can agree that they had a right to make it, no? Edit: Just to add that years ago 'vegetarian' used to describe what 'vegan' now describes. But there are a lot of people nowadays that have given up meat, but not eggs/dairy so 'vegetarian' as a term has grown to largely describe those people.
  - pmorici 17y ago
    Well, the thought just popped into my head because of the sites subtitle "meat is murder" (clearly someone who is vegan by reason #4) and the fact that the article deals with establishments in L.A. which people generally tend to associate with a less conservative political view.
tdavis 17y ago
Why would a vegan blog do this in the first place? Presumably the vast majority of vegans are so for ethical reasons; they can't possibly be allergic to anything that has once been part of an animal. In which case, veganism (?) is basically the definition of "what you don't know can't hurt you." I applaud the blog for their investigative journalism, but all they've really done is taken restaurant choices away from a group that already has a smaller number of places to eat. Right? Am I missing something?
- colins_pride 17y ago
  Does opening the box kill the cat?
- pyre 17y ago
  What about people that are vegan/vegetarian for ethical and/or religious reasons? While it won't 'kill' them, people are making money by lying about a product to their customers (fraud). Is this a good thing? Wouldn't you feel pretty violated if you thought that you were making an ethical choice, only to have the person helping turn out to be a cheat? (e.g. killing someone to put them out of the misery only to find out that they still had a desire/will to live) An even better example would be if you were boycotting the RIAA by buying music from an independent label that claimed they weren't part of the RIAA. Only to find out that .5% of their profits really were going to the RIAA. Wouldn't you feel violated if all that time you thought that you were doing a good thing boycotting the industry, but you weren't entirely? Obviously it's better than if you were buying directly from big name labels like Sony,etc but you're still going to be pissed off at being misled.
- shpxnvz 17y ago
  Allergies are not the only non-ethical reason some people choose to avoid certain foods, and it's also not a all-or-not situation. Those who are concerned with high levels of "bad" cholesterol, risk of colon cancer, too much "high-quality" protein, etc... may look to decrease or eliminate certain foods such as meat, milk or egg. Also, I wonder if you think that "what you don't know can't hurt you" applies to other ethical concerns. If you're government tortures people but doesn't tell you, does that insulate either them or you from any ethical responsibility? Would you also believe, in that hypothetical case, that a journalist who brought the story to light only served to weaken the people's faith in the government, or is there value in uncovering deception which prevents people from exercising their ethical choices?
cmars232 17y ago
http://failblog.org/2009/06/29/bulletin-board-win/ http://failblog.org/2009/06/29/bulletin-board-win/
whatusername 17y ago
Reminds me of this story: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2632416820070326 http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN26324168... (Where two teenage girls found out that Ribena (Blackcurrent) Juice didn't contain any Vitamin C - despite advertisements to the contrary. GSK eventually admitted 15 breaches of the NZ Fair Trading Act.
tel 17y ago
Concerns about the results aside I found it wonderful that the people who carried out the experiment, while not producing a bulletproof scientific analysis, were very thorough and kept to the stated aim to have a fair scientific trial. Blinded randomization, repeated measurements, and further information about those tests would have been interesting to see, but the article manages to largely avoid jumping to unwarranted conclusions. They asked a fair question; performed systematic, documented experiments; and then produced compelling research to support their theory. Altogether it's a testament to using science to explore everyday questions.

89 points by mariorz 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago

I'm not vegan, but now I have to wonder what contaminants are in my food.

JimmyL 17y ago
Have a read of The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and you'll be wondering even more. I'm not a vegetarian or vegan (meat is too tasty), but that book in many ways changed how I shop for food.

grandalf 17y ago

Casein is a huge problem. I went to the nearest grocer (a Safeway) and looked at the ingredients in all of the "vegan" cheeses and psudo-meats. All contained casein or some ambiguously named "milk protein". Also, soy protein (isolate and concentrate) is harmful and is contained in a wide variety of additional vegan foods: http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2005nl/april/050400pusoy.htm http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2005nl/april/050400pusoy.htm Bottom line: For best results eat foods in their natural state or as close as possible, with minimal processing.

viggity 17y ago
I'm assuming by "best results" you mean "the greatest probability of not consuming any animal products whatsoever" For the "best results nutritionally", you're probably better of eating animal products, including ones that have been cooked. http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/09/15/he_cooked_up_a_new_theory_on_evolution/ http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/09/15/he_co...
- grandalf 17y ago
  Quite the contrary (that research makes the common logical error of assuming that just because something may have conferred a selection advantage over eons of evolution, that it does so today in a world with no calorie/nutrient scarcity). See the following thread and article: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676446 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676446 and http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Implications/dp/1932100660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246301048&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Im...
- dejb 17y ago
  There is also an alternative theory that "Man's ability to digest starchy foods like the potato may explain our success on the planet" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6983330.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6983330.stm So does this mean that a diet rich in potato is best nutritionally? Of course not. In evolutionary times whatever could deliver the most calories was 'best nutritionally'. Our inbuilt instinct to follow this path has most likely lead to the current obesity epidemic. To work out what is the best diet for our current circumstances you need to actually study how different diets impact health. And the results are clear - the best diet includes little or no meat (excluding fish).
gaius 17y ago
Count yourself lucky. In South Africa chicken counts as the vegetarian option.
- vidarh 17y ago
  I used to work with a guy that insisted meat didn't count when he was outside the country. He was traveling abroad for business or vacations at least 100 days of the year.

buugs 17y ago

Vegan and vegetarian always fascinated me why do they, or you if you are among them, seek out normal foods that should not fit their diet, such as lets say vegetarian hamburgers bacon etc. Or even from the article why are they searching out quesadillas, cheese pizza, pancakes things that me seem to clearly not be vegan other than that they may have found a way to make remnants of them. It just seems counter-cause to me.

moted 17y ago
What makes a pancake inherently something 'not vegan'? The ethical concerns which led me to veganism in no way removed pancakes from my desired diet. As such, I make them on a regular basis. Just because somebody doesn't eat meat doesn't mean they don't like the concept of the meal in general. I make vegan versions of tacos, hamburgers, chicken salad, and egg salad because I like everything else about the meal other than the animal product. If I can substitute the animal for a plant based alternative I can enjoy the meals I've always loved, why wouldn't I?
- buugs 17y ago
  pancakes: milk and eggs is why i say it isn't vegan from the pictures the vegan pancakes are not what I would call pancakes and maybe there is another way to make them though I can understand lets say tofu salad or tacos, things that the meat isnt really the ruling taste I do not understand tofu burgers, cheese pizza, quesadillas. Thank you for your reasons though.
  - inc 17y ago
    For pancakes, you can use soy/rice milk and substitute apple sauce for the eggs - this works in most baked foods also.
    - buugs 17y ago
      Did not know that :)
    - 17y ago

dtf 17y ago

As a non-vegan, these recipes truly baffle me. Why on earth would anyone eat that? Surely there are some nice, simple dishes you can make using fruits and nuts and vegetables, rather than these massively processed soy products pretending to be meat or fish or cheese? Seriously, what's the point?

theorique 17y ago
I'm a vegan primarily for health reasons, so I generally agree with you. I eat mostly 'plant-based whole foods', in the words of Joi Ito. At the same time, it's nice to be able to eat a variety of foods. Some people who are vegans primarily for ethical reasons rather than health or taste reasons may miss meat and/or cheese a lot (especially in the early stages). In this case, these products provide a substitute for the foods that they may remember and enjoy but no longer choose to eat.
- aristus 17y ago
  Doug Coupland called these kinds of people "crypto-carnivore". :) I enjoy meat and veggie food but I draw the line at egg and milk substitutes. Real vegan cheese is appalling and no amount of processing can make up for it. "Soy" cheese that uses milk protein is much better... and there are a lot more simple vegetarians than radical-Shiite vegans. Nor is there always a bright line. I have heard good arguments over whether honey is or is not vegan.
shaunxcode 17y ago
Truth - as a vegan I find the best meals are those which are almost entirely produce based with some simple grains to add texture etc. I am not a "raw food" type but I love well prepared raw food. Even working from home I have a hard time being able to shop and prepare to eat a healthy raw diet so I fall back on frozen veg, brown rice, quinoa, beans and lentils. Eating out is always going to be a compromise if you really care about what goes into your body. I would prefer to reserve it for when I am out of town or special occasions - but even then what is more special than actually taking the time to cook yourself?
yosh 17y ago

wooster 17y ago

This reminds me of the schoolgirls in New Zealand who tested Ribena and found it contained almost no Vitamin C: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/27/schoolsworldwide.foodanddrink http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/27/schoolsworldwide...

rubikscube 17y ago
If people ate 9 to 12 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, or better yet, ate only/mostly fruits and vegetables as their entire diet, they wouldn't think they need supplements like Ribena to get their Vitamin C, as well as a host of other nutrients.
- paragatelatte 17y ago
  Man,there are a lot of raw foodists chiming in on this article.

ankhmoop 17y ago

The subject matter is interesting, but what I find most interesting is a blog performing real, 'hard-hitting' local journalism, of genuine interest to a very specific social subgroup.

dag 17y ago
The mainstream media had this idea first, they picked up the story of the New York highschool student who tested Red Snapper in various sushi restaurants and found that it was often Talapia. That story got repeated in some jurisdictions, now a year or so later someone gets around to doing it with vegan food. ----- EDIT: Sushi from New York: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/22fish.html?scp=3&sq=red%20snapper%20talapia&st=cse http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/22fish.html?scp=3&... Sushi from Toronto (reported in Vancouver): http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=4381b239-db40-47da-ae6b-b573bc5dc72c http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=4381b...
- pyre 17y ago
  If you really want a "what food is advertised as isn't what it really is" story search youtube for Vegan Marshmallows. (short: some guy was supplying a 'vegan' gelatin substitute to several groups (not just vegans) and when it was tested it had animal products in it and the guy 'disappeared'). Revealing that some companies/restaurants aren't always truthful isn't a new thing. Certainly not only a year old. It's really as old as investigative journalism in general. Dating all the way back to "The Jungle". Edit: and what you're really saying is that 'mainstream media' just copied the idea too. And from a grassroots-level at that.

shaunxcode 17y ago

This is going to have some pretty big reprecussions for the restaurants in question. A few years back the same thing happened on the east coast when someone ate a vegan philly "cheese" steak at a vegan joint and swore down that it could NOT be vegan. They ordered one to go and utilized their campus laboratory to discover that, yes, it had casein in it. Turned out that the supplier of the restaurants vegan cheese had not been entirely honest. It looks like the same thing is happening with a lot of these cases. Most people source their vegan "meats" from central import supermarkets and the people doing the translation seem to be leaving out a few crucial facts i.e. "this vegetarian fish contains fish" etc. This is another great reason to source your food locally. When you are having to trace the contents of what is going into your mouth across state borders let alone oceans you're going to have some difficulty. One of my long term plans is to open a restaurant which sources everything locally (with in the county) - it will be inherently vegan but will not champion that so as to not turn people off of the concept but rather push the idea of healthy food supporting local business and thus the overall food security for the community.

pyre 17y ago
It's actually better to eat food that is seasonal than local. Case in point, if you buy local tomatoes during the winter they are grown in a greenhouse that burns more energy than shipping tomatoes up from Mexico. I recently found out that most (maybe all?) rice that's grown in California is grown in an area where they need to pump the water uphill to irrigate that area. Energy/greenhouse gas-wise it's more environmentally-friendly to import the rice from India. Load of people seem to think that 'local' implies something like a small town and therefore must be better and/or closer to the earth or something, but that's not always the case.
- shaunxcode 17y ago
  I agree about seasonal eating patterns and I guess that is implicit if you are eating local organic (i.e. no crazy hydroponic winter tomatoes). Living in utah that would mean the winters would bring a lot of grains, canned/bottled fruit and vegetables from the growing season etc. How does a fresh vegetable stew with some home made bread not sound good? On rice - I actually tried growing rice in my apartment using 5 gallon buckets one suspended in the other so that there is a constant supply of water in the bottom (I think the term is self watering container). I just threw in some soil and tossed a hand full of organic brown rice and it sprouted within the week! I am not sure how much I could have grown had I taken it past that point but I was surprised that it even sprouted!

biotech 17y ago

I have been on a "gluten-free" diet for a couple years now. This means that I have to carefully inspect the ingredients list of everything I eat, something that I didn't really do before. The results are unappetizing to say the least. Even worse, sometimes potentially harmful ingredients are not necessarily listed, or are listed by some rarely-known name. If you wish to have good control over what you're eating, whether that means avoiding gluten, casein, animal products, soy, etc; your best bet is to prepare all of your own food. Don't eat out, don't buy preprepared foods at the market. Disclaimer: I'm not quite disciplined enough to follow that advice, and I know that I end up eating small amounts of gluten. It's a trade off between stress and nutrition, I guess. Since vegans usually don't get sick by eating trace amounts of non-vegan food, my advice is to just deal with it. And be happy that you don't have a lot of real food allergies (unless you do, of course).

pyre 17y ago
I guess the 'real' issue here is whether or not restaurants are knowingly using non-vegan ingredients and lying to their customers (i.e. committing fraud) just to turn a buck. Restaurants lying about what is really in their food should tick _everyone_ off vegan or non.

pmorici 17y ago

I wonder how many vegans and vegetarians are also pro-choice and how they reconcile that inconsistency.

pyre 17y ago
I debated whether or not to respond since you just sound like flame bait, but I guess I'll respond... Vegan/vegetarian is a description of a diet, _NOT_ a philosophy. People can go vegan or vegetarian for a number of reasons: 1. boycott poor treatment of animals in the livestock industry 2. health concerns and/or allergies 3. dieting/losing weight 4. ethical concerns (not wanting to kill things) 5. religious practices I'm sure there are many more. Pro-choice does not necessarily run counter to any/all of those. But even if you don't agree with someone's decision you can agree that they had a right to make it, no? Edit: Just to add that years ago 'vegetarian' used to describe what 'vegan' now describes. But there are a lot of people nowadays that have given up meat, but not eggs/dairy so 'vegetarian' as a term has grown to largely describe those people.
- pmorici 17y ago
  Well, the thought just popped into my head because of the sites subtitle "meat is murder" (clearly someone who is vegan by reason #4) and the fact that the article deals with establishments in L.A. which people generally tend to associate with a less conservative political view.

tdavis 17y ago

Why would a vegan blog do this in the first place? Presumably the vast majority of vegans are so for ethical reasons; they can't possibly be allergic to anything that has once been part of an animal. In which case, veganism (?) is basically the definition of "what you don't know can't hurt you." I applaud the blog for their investigative journalism, but all they've really done is taken restaurant choices away from a group that already has a smaller number of places to eat. Right? Am I missing something?

colins_pride 17y ago
Does opening the box kill the cat?
pyre 17y ago
What about people that are vegan/vegetarian for ethical and/or religious reasons? While it won't 'kill' them, people are making money by lying about a product to their customers (fraud). Is this a good thing? Wouldn't you feel pretty violated if you thought that you were making an ethical choice, only to have the person helping turn out to be a cheat? (e.g. killing someone to put them out of the misery only to find out that they still had a desire/will to live) An even better example would be if you were boycotting the RIAA by buying music from an independent label that claimed they weren't part of the RIAA. Only to find out that .5% of their profits really were going to the RIAA. Wouldn't you feel violated if all that time you thought that you were doing a good thing boycotting the industry, but you weren't entirely? Obviously it's better than if you were buying directly from big name labels like Sony,etc but you're still going to be pissed off at being misled.
shpxnvz 17y ago
Allergies are not the only non-ethical reason some people choose to avoid certain foods, and it's also not a all-or-not situation. Those who are concerned with high levels of "bad" cholesterol, risk of colon cancer, too much "high-quality" protein, etc... may look to decrease or eliminate certain foods such as meat, milk or egg. Also, I wonder if you think that "what you don't know can't hurt you" applies to other ethical concerns. If you're government tortures people but doesn't tell you, does that insulate either them or you from any ethical responsibility? Would you also believe, in that hypothetical case, that a journalist who brought the story to light only served to weaken the people's faith in the government, or is there value in uncovering deception which prevents people from exercising their ethical choices?

cmars232 17y ago

http://failblog.org/2009/06/29/bulletin-board-win/ http://failblog.org/2009/06/29/bulletin-board-win/

whatusername 17y ago

Reminds me of this story: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN2632416820070326 http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN26324168... (Where two teenage girls found out that Ribena (Blackcurrent) Juice didn't contain any Vitamin C - despite advertisements to the contrary. GSK eventually admitted 15 breaches of the NZ Fair Trading Act.

tel 17y ago

Concerns about the results aside I found it wonderful that the people who carried out the experiment, while not producing a bulletproof scientific analysis, were very thorough and kept to the stated aim to have a fair scientific trial. Blinded randomization, repeated measurements, and further information about those tests would have been interesting to see, but the article manages to largely avoid jumping to unwarranted conclusions. They asked a fair question; performed systematic, documented experiments; and then produced compelling research to support their theory. Altogether it's a testament to using science to explore everyday questions.