HELLO JI

LIFE ON THE VEG-EDGE

Vegetarianism is being touted as the healthy option for both individuals and for the planet. Many young people are trying vegetarian and vegan meat alternatives. But what is key here is choice. Image credit: PABLO MERCHAN MONTES on Unsplash.

As a vegetarian, I am aware that I can, on occasion, come across as someone on a mission. Particularly after I read books like Sonia Faruqi’s Project Animal Farm which details the treatment meted out to animals on factory farms.

But I can see the humour in the situation when a friend grumbles about rising prices of food and then looks at me and says that doesn’t really affect me as a vegetarian.

“Try sourcing fresh vegetables and fruits in our frozen landscape for eight months of the year!” I retort.

Or when a friend’s husband chided her for enjoying chicken biryani in front of me.

“What about my feelings? Why don’t you tell her that her ghaas-phoos offends me?” she responded with a giggle.

I tell him I ate meat once upon a time and though I have not for decades now I respect people’s choice to do so.

Which is how most of us are in polite society, I would have said, we don’t foist our personal choice on others.

I recall lunch breaks at school. We ate in a large pavilion, open at the sides, with trestle tables and benches. The eagerness with which we waited to see what was in whose box. Bhindi rolled up in a paratha in one, dosa with chutney in another, sandwiches or tamarind rice. Most of us didn’t want what our mothers had lovingly packed for us, we were far more interested in the contents of a friend’s box! There was no hesitation in placing “orders” for something that hadn’t appeared in a lunch box for some time – “Ask aunty to make biryani.”

But vegetarianism is being touted as the healthy option for both individuals and for the planet. Many young people are trying vegetarian and vegan meat alternatives. But what is key here is choice.

And thus news of the new veggie burger launched by McDonald’s doesn’t come as a surprise. I just wonder what took them so long. Nor do I wonder why plant-based food brand Yves Veggie Cuisine is to be discontinued. Slowing demand for meat substitutes is putting the Canadian plant-based brand out of business as fewer consumers search for plant-based meat products, as reported by Ritika Dubey in the Canadian Press. 

Seemingly contradictory, they are, in fact, related. Plant-based meat alternatives imitate ham, turkey and burger patties, etc., but vegetarians are not looking for options that taste just like meat. They are not meat-eaters searching for healthy, vegetarian options. They just want the fast food experience. Not really vada-pav, perhaps, but close!

I recall wondering just what the “vegetarian burger” a neighbour very sweetly made for me many years ago at her yard party consisted of. I took one bite and stopped. The taste, the texture, it was so meaty.

Today, I would have no such doubt. Gone are the days when someone placed an order for “A burger, please, and hold the burger”.

Now there are burgers vegetarians can actually sink their teeth into.

Happy Guru Nanak Jayanti!

Shagorika Easwar