Vegan Practically

Here’s a thing that has always been annoying: when so-called chefs can’t figure out protein that is not from an animal source. I blogged about it at Fit Is a Feminist Issue back in 2015. I have just come from two days at an off-site meeting where the catering fell short in this way.

Now, I can already hear the chorus of excuses: they’re not used to it; they design the menu for the majority and the majority eats animal products; dietary restrictions aren’t their problem. And so on.

And I realize that I’m trying, with this blog, to walk that line where I make veganism more appealing without pretending it’s not grounded in good moral reasons that basically say, other things being equal, meat-eating is not morally permissible. It’s a tough line. I don’t walk it particularly well much of the time. And that turns people off. And I probably tip-toe around others’ feelings a lot more than I speak up. And then by the time I say something here I’m already in a mood to vent. So I’m trying to approach this experience with some empathy for the caterers, who from a business bottom-line perspective cater to the majority.

For me this bad catering experience speaks to just how firmly entrenched meat-eating and animal products are in our culture. When you look at the menu, the animal product items put the animal protein front and centre: do you want the chicken or the salmon? Do you want the beef or the lamb? Do you want the sausage or the bacon? How would you like your eggs? Cream or milk? Someone seeking plant-based options is an outlier.

And so when someone comes along who doesn’t eat animal products, some of the most accomplished chefs around are just stumped. In a world where you’re used to designing menus around animal products, no animal products = no protein. Hence: my breakfast on Wednesday was fruit, lunch was rice with some vegetables and whatever cheese-free salad I could salvage from the buffet (thankfully the feta was on the side), dinner was pasta primavera (tasty enough but …). The next day’s breakfast: fruit with some potatoes from the buffet. Lunch: sweet potato soup, salad (this time chickpeas were available as a topping!), more potatoes. Partway through they brought me a sandwich with roasted veggies on it—no seasoning, no protein. If I was staying for another meal I’d have ordered in or stepped off the premises.

The meeting organizers bought me some extra snacks, which I appreciated even though I normally don’t snack between meals through the day. And on the first day they had some plant-based creamer for my coffee that I should’ve taken to my room but didn’t. So black coffee the next day.

Despite the excuses that I noted above, I do blame the caterers. It’s 2023. There is growing awareness about plant-based options as preferable not just on the animal suffering front but from a sustainability-hello-did-you-notice-the-planet-is-burning front. New York City’s public hospitals have now made plant-based meals the default for sustainability reasons. Thank heavens for sustainability reasons since people are completely unmoved by arguments having to do with animal suffering (I will blog about the tyranny of taste some time soon, as “I like them too much” is taken to be a sufficient defence of supporting the industry of killing animals for food—-which at billions of animals a year, from both land and sea, is what the animal-based food industry is). Veganism is not just a “dietary preference” on the order of “I don’t like cheese.” But most people do regard it that way.

Caterers who equate protein with animal products are at best uncreative and in some ways bad at their jobs. If you would never consider offering someone who eats animals a meal without protein, maybe reflect on why not. The answer: because a nutritionally adequate and complete meal includes protein. If not every meal, at least have some in one or two of the three meals in a day. If the meat eaters at the table would feel a meal of salad, rice and veggies is incomplete without protein, so would the vegans. And yet heavy is the expectation that I will be grateful to have been provided something I can even eat, regardless of what it is.

Such is the world we live in. And some days I roll with it better than others. I try to be understanding. And I didn’t cause a single scene. But I made a mental note to try to be more directive next time (like to request meals that include protein).