Vegan Practically

Last week I posed three questions for future discussion. Today I’m going to focus on the first of these questions: If you’re a restaurant offering vegan options, is it right to frame them as burdensome favours for difficult guests? It’s not the best-worded question because it seems as if the obvious answer has got to be “no,” so maybe it’s a bit leading. Nevertheless, as I said, it’s a frequent enough occurrence that it’s worth discussing both why it so often happens and why it seems so obviously (to me, anyway) the wrong approach.

This comes up in more than one way. First, it’s possible that a restaurant has vegan options that are clearly labelled but there are very few. We might refer to that scenario as “the Token Vegan Menu item” (frequently a Beyond Burger and fries). Second, a restaurant might say somewhere on its menu that items can be made vegan upon request. Finally, a restaurant might say somewhere on its menu to let the kitchen know of any “dietary restrictions or food allergies,” and vegan is among them. In that case, the kitchen will come up with a list of options.

So far, none of these scenarios suggests in any obvious way that they are doing a “burdensome favour to a difficult guest.” But as many of us know, “delivery is everything.” And I’ve experienced “delivery fails” in each type of case that came across in just that.

Let’s start with the Token Vegan Menu item. I concede that it’s better to have something than nothing, but do we not all agree that one of the wonderful things about dining out is that you get to peruse the menu and choose among options.

How many people like to go to a restaurant where there is just one choice? Don’t feel like a burger and fries today? Too bad. Well, the restaurant with exactly one vegan option might feel as if they’ve covered their bases with the token vegan item. But it’s not the most satisfying restaurant experience to be offered one option. A vegan who doesn’t feel like eating that thing and who inquires about other possibilities is that burdensome guest. We are instead expected to be grateful for the one thing, order it, and let that be that.

Then there are restaurants that have little symbols or codes that indicate dishes that can be made vegan upon request. That might mean leaving out a key ingredient (such as, say, the mozzarella on a pizza, the feta on a greek salad, or the protein on a breakfast plate — picture home fries and toast). Or it might mean substituting a vegan option (such as a vegan burger patty instead of a meat burger patty, or falafel instead of fried chicken) upon request. I grant that these requests are not always met with a sigh. But it happens a lot. Or you pay more for the privilege (e.g. “substitute vegan cheese for $2). The message: this substitution is an unwelcome pain in the butt so we are going to charge you extra for it.

Finally, like the restaurant I went to with friends recently, there is the verbal list passed on from the kitchen to the guest via the server. Where everyone else at the table has a detailed menu with prices, the vegan has a much shorter list without prices. Frequently, these efforts from the kitchen lack protein altogether, and consist of things like pasta with oil and sautéed veggies or a grilled vegetable sandwich. Again, the general expectation is that the vegans at the table will be grateful for any option at all. At the dinner I attended, the waiter encouraged the non-vegans to select the animal product items because they included protein and were, for that and other reasons, better.

I of course commented that the vegan items could also include protein, at which point the Beyond Burger and fries were drawn to my attention. Not wanting to cause trouble, I went for that. My appetizer, drink, and Beyond Burger and fries came to $70.

These are three distinct scenarios but what they share is that they convey the impression that (1) it’s a great challenge to come up with vegan items, even if you’re a supposedly good chef, (2) vegans should be satisfied with very little choice, (3) vegans should be willing to pay extra for vegan options, and (4) it’s fine to promote animal products as superior to the vegan menu items even in the presence of vegans. Dining in mixed company is a topic for another day (and something I have talked about in the past).

To answer the question I posed at the beginning: no, it is not okay to frame vegan options as burdensome favours for difficult guests. It is easy to do that in the world we live in because there is a widespread ideology at play that has normalized the use of animals and animal products for human enjoyment. Because of that, animal protein is the focal point of most dishes. At the dinner I attended, others were eating “the chicken,” “the lamb shank,” and “the salmon.”

But when you drill down on the ethical and environmental reality of the situation, especially if that’s your business, can you really so easily ignore the facts? Maybe it would be too much to expect complete revision of all menus such that they dispensed with animal products altogether (one day, let’s hope).

But acknowledging the mass atrocity and environmental destruction of factory farming, which accounts for 99% of the animal products consumed worldwide, all restaurants have an obligation to do better than they do. They could start by offering a proper selection of vegan items and labelling them (if they label them at all) as “cruelty-free,” to be more explicit about why most people who seek out these options are doing so.