Vegan pub visit.

[Beardy]

I’m taking my daughter out for a birthday dinner this evening, to Suffolk’s first fully vegan gastro pub. I’ve read the menu and there isn’t even a token steak on there for us carnivores. The beer list looks entertaining, but I’m driving so I won’t be able to console myself with that. I need to put my happy face on though, because I don’t want to spoil her night.
Hey ho

[Jaded]

Our football club is entirely vegan, and the food is exceptional. I'd lie back and enjoy it!

[rogerzilla]

I eat a lot of vegan food.  The lack of dairy is more of a problem than the lack of meat (milk substitutes are yicky and most of my favourite desserts can't be made - although vegan ice cream can be ok).

Vegans are right in principle: being a vegetarian for ethical reasons is fooling yourself, because you are still driving the mass killing of chickens and cows.

[citoyen]

The lack of dairy is more of a problem than the lack of meat

Agreed. Vegan “cheese” is an abomination.

Though I actually don’t mind roasted almond milk in my coffee too much - doesn’t taste anything like actual milk but has a pleasant flavour of its own.

Some of my favourite recipes in my own repertoire are de facto vegan.

[T42]

I’m taking my daughter out for a birthday dinner this evening, to Suffolk’s first fully vegan gastro pub.

Gastro in France is short for gastroenteritis.  Bon appétit.

ETA maybe you could smuggle in a tin of therapeutic corned beef.

[ian]

Yeah, I've no problems with vegan food, but for the cheese. I had one of those 'plant burgers' yesterday but I made them put proper cheese on it. Are you sure? Yes, I am.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I once grabbed a couple of pizzas in a supermarket cos they were cheap. Only once I got home did I notice they were made with "cheeze". Absolutely disgusting. However, plant milks can be fine in cereal or tea and coffee. I'm not sure I'd choose to drink them but then I wouldn't do that with cow milk either. Never tried vegan ice cream (I presume this is not simply sorbet?) and not tempted to (but then I'm not a big ice cream fan anyway).

I've no idea about egg substitutes.

I think there is a general problem with "foods pretending to be other foods". If you want vegan food, just eat something that doesn't involve milk, eggs or meat. There's plenty of vegetables, rice, pasta, blah blah so on, without making fake stuff.

What Roger says about the ethical reasons is spot on too.

[Kim]

Vegan cheese makes USAnian cheese look like cheese.


ETA: Maybe that was Cheesoid's problem?

[Mr Larrington]

Here's one I made earlier:


Reefer Madness - click to embiggen by Mr Larrington, on Flickr

I have no idea why the vehicle in the foreground is impersonating an ostrich in the eastbound lane of the A2 between Klagenfurt and Graz but I successfully delivered my load of Cheesoids to Vienna.

[Beardy]

It was an interesting night out, but Mo especially enjoyed it, which was the point. It was quite funny watching her trying to choose what to eat because absolutely everything was vegan, and she’s just not used to that level of choice  The boy is veggie as well so his wife is used to eating plants masquerading as other stuff. The three of them were well into it with them all choosing something different and ‘doing a bit of this’ <fx:hand waving>


I had a plant burger which was inoffensive enough, though the cardboard cheese detracted from the whole. I wouldn’t chose to eat another one if DED animal was available. The backed cheesecake was actually quite nice.

I’m generally with Cudzo on the why try and make pretend meat, but I’m an unadventurous eater (ok I’m faddy), and I know what I like (<fx:deep Yorkshire accent> and I like what I bloody well know). This makes trying new foods a bit of a challenge, especially when it’s been cooked by others for a group and the cook won’t have taken into account my specific dislikes. But we had a good night out in spite of my ‘quirks’.

[Pickled Onion]

Lab-grown dairy will be a game-changer. When it's possible to make cheese the standard way, rather than mixing a bunch of stuff and flavourings until you get vaguely the right consistency, and produce a proper stilton or brie or manchego, using milk from cows will seem an incredibly complicated and messy way of doing it.

An interesting point in that article is that one of the reasons lab-grown dairy is expensive, is because of the subsidies thrown at farming.

I think there is a general problem with "foods pretending to be other foods". If you want vegan food, just eat something that doesn't involve milk, eggs or meat. There's plenty of vegetables, rice, pasta, blah blah so on, without making fake stuff.

What Roger says about the ethical reasons is spot on too.

It's not just about the ethics. If we are to stand any chance of hitting CO₂ targets, meat from animals has got to go. Greenhouse gas emissions from farming is an order of magnitude greater than from aviation. The vast majority is from meat and dairy farming. Anyone who claims to be doing their bit by not flying on holiday once a year but still eats meat (even "only locally produced meat") is fooling themselves. Yes, there is great food without meat that's not a curry or butternut squash risotto, but for the majority of people the only way is going to involve acceptably convincing fake meat.

[The Family Cyclist]

Thr cheese is awful. Even a strict vegan we know who's family are veggie will eat normal cheese

On the burger front I had a portobello or whatever its called mushrooms burger Friday night and could happily never eat a meat burger again if I could have the mushroom burger instead

[rafletcher]

Even a strict vegan we know… will eat normal cheese

Huh? So much for ethics.

[FifeingEejit]

I eat a lot of vegan food.  The lack of dairy is more of a problem than the lack of meat (milk substitutes are yicky and most of my favourite desserts can't be made - although vegan ice cream can be ok).

Vegans are right in principle: being a vegetarian for ethical reasons is fooling yourself, because you are still driving the mass killing of chickens and cows.

As opposed to instigating a mass extinction event? (of chicken, Sheep, Cows etc.)

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[Cudzoziemiec]

I think there is a general problem with "foods pretending to be other foods". If you want vegan food, just eat something that doesn't involve milk, eggs or meat. There's plenty of vegetables, rice, pasta, blah blah so on, without making fake stuff.

What Roger says about the ethical reasons is spot on too.

It's not just about the ethics. If we are to stand any chance of hitting CO₂ targets, meat from animals has got to go. Greenhouse gas emissions from farming is an order of magnitude greater than from aviation. The vast majority is from meat and dairy farming. Anyone who claims to be doing their bit by not flying on holiday once a year but still eats meat (even "only locally produced meat") is fooling themselves. Yes, there is great food without meat that's not a curry or butternut squash risotto, but for the majority of people the only way is going to involve acceptably convincing fake meat.

Sure, good point too. There are a dozen good reasons for being vegan, vegetarian, omnivorous, carnivorous, pescetarian, fruitarian, and a dozen other diets I haven't heard of yet. Roger just happens to have picked up on that one.

[citoyen]

As opposed to instigating a mass extinction event? (of chicken, Sheep, Cows etc.)

These animals only exist at all because they’ve been bred to satisfy human appetites. Dairy cattle would never have happened by evolution. And nor would massive barns full of hundreds of thousands of battery chickens.

[nuttycyclist]

As opposed to instigating a mass extinction event? (of chicken, Sheep, Cows etc.)

These animals only exist at all because they’ve been bred to satisfy human appetites. Dairy cattle would never have happened by evolution. And nor would massive barns full of hundreds of thousands of battery chickens.

Batteries are the way forwards.   Bring on the electric chicken revolution.   Oh sorry, the EV thread was over there in vroom.

Seriously though, shouldn't we consider whether a mass farm feeding the nation who have decided to live in towns is more or less environmentally damaging than thousands of homesteads and small village farms all doing the same thing in order to feed themsleves/local community.

[FifeingEejit]

As opposed to instigating a mass extinction event? (of chicken, Sheep, Cows etc.)

These animals only exist at all because they’ve been bred to satisfy human appetites. Dairy cattle would never have happened by evolution. And nor would massive barns full of hundreds of thousands of battery chickens.

Indeed, but every Vegan seems to love petting them and saying they won't harm them, which ultimately they must do to stop them "suffering" more.

[grams]

You don’t need to kill any of them, just make they collectively have children at below replacement level.

All the vegan ice cream I’ve had is indistinguishable from its cow-based equivalent.

[FifeingEejit]

You don’t need to kill any of them, just make they collectively have children at below replacement level.

We're talking about animals that have been selectively bread to produce enough of a milk yield to feed both their bairns and humans,
Have you ever seen a cow that isn't getting milked?  That in itself is fecking cruel.

[lissotriton]

You don’t need to kill any of them, just make they collectively have children at below replacement level.

We're talking about animals that have been selectively bread to produce enough of a milk yield to feed both their bairns and humans,
Have you ever seen a cow that isn't getting milked?  That in itself is fecking cruel.

Cows only produce milk if they have given birth recently. Then most of the calves are killed shortly after. So the answer is to stop breeding them.

[mrcharly-YHT]

As opposed to instigating a mass extinction event? (of chicken, Sheep, Cows etc.)

These animals only exist at all because they’ve been bred to satisfy human appetites. Dairy cattle would never have happened by evolution. And nor would massive barns full of hundreds of thousands of battery chickens.

Specific breeds will disappear.

I look over a croft from my window. Full of sheep; they are only bred for their wool.

The mass breeding of livestock will disappear.

Cue someone from farming saying "A lot of land isn't usable for arable farming, you fool!"

Well, a lot of livestock are fed on grain and crops grown on arable farming land. Very very very few just graze. Stop using that arable farming to produce feedstuffs for livestock and you won't have a shortage of arable farmland.

[Flite]

You don’t need to kill any of them, just make they collectively have children at below replacement level.

If that principle had been applied to humans in the 1950s, the world would not be in such a mess now

[citoyen]

As opposed to instigating a mass extinction event? (of chicken, Sheep, Cows etc.)

These animals only exist at all because they’ve been bred to satisfy human appetites. Dairy cattle would never have happened by evolution. And nor would massive barns full of hundreds of thousands of battery chickens.

Specific breeds will disappear.

Indeed. Hardier breeds that evolved naturally (ie without human intervention) could still survive in the wild, if given the chance.

The reduced human impact on the land might also allow many other species to thrive - ones that are currently at risk of being wiped out, largely thanks to intensive agriculture.

[ian]

It's the myth that all land must be somehow 'productive.'

Vast amounts of arable land are used to grow crops (soybean, alfalfa/lucerne, etc.) as animal feedstock, which isn't efficient land use of course. It'll be interesting to see the effects of climate change on crop growth, it's likely to force some significant re-evaluation of what we grow and where. We're very reliant on a small range of crops that have been extensively bred to return huge yields in carefully controlled conditions. Dairy cows might not be natural, but compared to something like wheat (an amalgam of three different species), most crops are freakish.

I'm mostly vegetarian these days, but I'm not sure I could give up my mild cheddar addiction. Trying to cut back on fish, but my wife is less keen on a vegetarian diet (mostly, I think, because she got electrocuted by a pig once).