
Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years - Kaibeezy
https://www.bighospitality.co.uk/Article/2019/08/28/Vegan-takeaway-orders-quadruple-over-past-two-years
======
strict9
After 15 years of not eating meat, the past 1-2 years have been a golden era
of vegetarian options in the grocery store, restaurants, and fast food.

Based on anecdotes and my social circles, the number of people completely
avoiding meat hasn't changed. But omnivores adopting a semi-veg lifestyle has
increased.

If I had to pick one thing, I'd say environmental concerns are the main reason
my omnivore friends and colleagues are eating less meat.

~~~
Iv
For me that's a mix of ethical and environmental concerns.

I agree that there is a point in the belief that it is unethical to kill
animals. That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world,
there are a lot of things to argue about, but in general, I agree that in an
ideal world, we should not do that.

The environmental concerns, I only buy half-heartedly. I don't really believe
that land-owners will transform their pastures or soy cultures into rain
forest instead of another profitable exploitation, I'd rather have states
force responsible production and norms.

It is just not practical for me to go full-veg, where I live I would need to
cook one hour a day for it, and I am a lousy cook, I have neither the
inclination or the motivation for it.

But I reduced my consumption more and more. It was surprising to see how my
taste changed. I used to be a huge meat eater and now I find eating even a
small steak a bit nauseating. I almost eat no beef anymore, little pork but
mostly chicken and fish, and even these I eat little.

~~~
rhn_mk1
> That's not the most unethical thing that is happening in the world

I'm just going to refer to the factory farming article from 80000hours:

[https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-
farming/](https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/)

Considering that "Each year, 50 billion animals are raised and slaughtered in
factory farms globally. Over a billion animals live in factory farms at any
point of time in the United States. Most experience serious levels of
suffering.", I would argue that it's hard to find anything comparable in
magnitude to that tragedy if one allows that farmed animals are even a 1/100th
fraction as conscious as humans.

I would... probably not enjoy being proven wrong this time :S

~~~
yters
Do the animals experience more suffering than if they lived in the wild? Is
industrial slaughter more or less traumatic than death in the wild? Are there
any benefits animals experience living in captivity vs living in the wild? Is
there anything positive about more such animals getting to live in the first
place due to demand for meat?

~~~
rhn_mk1
Those are good questions, but about a different topic (except the last one).
The choice here is not between raising animals for eating in factories as
opposed to raising them in the wild. It's between raising them in factories
versus not bringing them to life at all.

Wild animal suffering is a different beast altogether.

Your last question is on the point though. Do the animals raised for meat have
lives worth living?

~~~
yters
Is it better for a being to not exist entirely than suffer? If so, then would
this imply that if animals suffer even more in the wild that they should be
wiped out?

~~~
bootlooped
Yes. If you had the choice between having a child that would live its entire
life in agony, or not having that child, I think it's obvious which is better.

No. For the same reason that murdering your 4 year old is not ethically
equivalent to using birth control.

~~~
yters
Should we sterilize animals in the wild since they suffer too, possibly even
more than animals in captivity?

~~~
nojvek
why would animals in wild suffer more than in captivity? In captivity animals
go through hell, tiny living spaces, shit and eat in same place, hormones
injected, little freedom. Tons of videos on youtube if you feel like watching
some gore.

It's not about taking suffering away. Animals born in the wild live their life
naturally. Animals created by us in farms are raised for one thing, for human
consumption. If an animal wants to run away in wild and do it's thing, it has
that choice. In captivity, we force the choice humans made for them.

Basically if we have slightest amount of empathy for our pets and are willing
to apply that to other animals, eating meat doesn't look enticing.

~~~
SamReidHughes
Many cat adoption centers won't let people adopt cats if they'll let them
outside. And those cats are living a better life than squirrels. I disagree
with that, but the way I'd put it is, eating wild animals (modulo overfishing)
is unquestionably morally right, but with captured animals, well, you noted
that they're injected with hormones. That doesn't make the animals unhappy. I
think you should concentrate on what the animal's mental state is, and not get
distracted by aesthetics.

~~~
belltaco
>eating wild animals (modulo overfishing) is unquestionably morally right

How did you come to that conclusion?

I don't think it's anywhere close to "unquestionably".

~~~
SamReidHughes
I didn’t use “unquestionably” in any sense which is obviously false, like,
say, some sense that would imply I’m unaware of vegans. I came to that
conclusion by gut instinct.

------
ph4
I stopped eating meat at the start of this year after reading "Eating Animals"
by Jonathan Saffran Foer. My primary concerns were ethical. I'm not
necessarily morally opposed to eating meat, but I am opposed to the inhumane
conditions of factory farming.

I am shocked at how easy it was to stop. I always pictured some long and
tormented inner battle, but the book made the necessity of the decision self-
evident. I eat meat maybe once per month now, a 99% reduction in intake, with
no significant physical or psychological struggle whatsoever.

~~~
okmokmz
>I am shocked at how easy it was to stop. I always pictured some long and
tormented inner battle, but the book made the necessity of the decision self-
evident. I eat meat maybe once per month now, a 99% reduction in intake, with
no significant physical or psychological struggle whatsoever.

I found this to be the case too. It wasn't particularly challenging to stop
eating meat, and if anything I felt physically and mentally better afterwards

------
sandworm101
How much of this is changing eating pasterns, and how much of this is the re-
labeling of foods?

"Vegan" is no doubt now a sales point, but many vegan foods have been eaten
for centuries without that label attached. Slapping the sticker on them now
doesn't mean that anything has changed beyond how we do the count.

I also question the "vegan" label itself. Exactly what type of vegan are they
talking about? Veganism isn't as simple as whether a food is vegetarian. There
is no single authority or rulebook to determine whether it is kosher or not.
There are various levels and judgement calls to be made.

~~~
mattl
Generally vegan meats meat-fish-seafood-and-dairy-free when you see it on a
generic packaging or restaurant.

Kosher at least in the US usually comes with a symbol and you know the ones
that are legit (Orthodox Union is the most common in the US, the (U) symbol Ⓤ)

~~~
sandworm101
Vegan can also mean food that doesn't involve the exploitation of animals.
That version of veganism means no food that requires insect pollinators.

A cutting-edge vegan discussion is whether lab-grown meant can be vegan. An
animal need not have a brain to be an animal. And an animal grown in a vat is
still an animal.

~~~
saagarjha
> Vegan can also mean food that doesn't involve the exploitation of animals.
> That version of veganism means no food that requires insect pollinators.

I'm curious: what foods fall under this?

Edit: I meant "what foods are OK to eat under this definition?"

~~~
mywittyname
Lots of nuts, almonds for example require bee hives to be transported all over
the country to pollinate orchards.

~~~
saagarjha
I just realized that I asked the opposite of the question I wanted to know the
answer to. I'll fix it above.

------
glitchc
I love these doubling and quadrupling statistical figures that are absolutely
meaningless when placed outside the context of the percentage of the whole.

"We quadrupled subscriptions last night" is true when going from 400 million
to 1.6 billion and also true when going from 1 to 4.

~~~
huhtenberg
As an old Soviet joke went -

    
    
        This year our glorious industry delivered an astounding
        5000% increase in production of supercomputers.
    
        * As compared to the 1913 numbers.

------
davidweatherall
What a terrible site.

"This content is copyright protected" if you try and copy text from an
article, and turning javascript off means none of the content is visible.

~~~
woogley
Reader mode (FF) works, even with the site blanked out from lack of JS

------
lostgame
I've also rapidly seen the number of popular vegan restaurants explode in the
city of Toronto, where I live, over the past 3-4 years.

One note a few people are making is that you don't have to be vegan to eat
vegan. This is true, and purposeful - vegan food is generally of a relatively
high quality - and a lot of what it offers is the direct contrast to most
other North American-favoured food.

Like they say Lucky Charms are a 'part of a balanced breakfast', followed by a
picture of a table with orange juice, a banana, etc...so it is that, if I have
a busy work day, and we order some greasy pizza in, I can go hit he Freshii on
my way out and balance out the sausage, grease, and cheese that way.

I think more and more people are simply realizing just _how_ unhealthy our
diet is, here in North America, and as these potions become more available,
and awareness of them is increasing, I think all this indicates is expected
are finally waking up from a sense of brainwashing that's gone on in
advertising everywhere, getting us to honestly shove the worst things in our
bodies over the past few decades.

There are environmental concerns with Vegan food, particularly in transit of
the more obscure and in demand things like Avacados - so I do get a giggle
when people are all uppity about how ethical they're being - but obviously
there are ethical and environmental concerns with the treatment of animals, as
well.

Overall, it's no surprise to see this data, I'd argue in-restaurant demand, at
least in this city, has similarly exploded.

It's good. It means we are collectively eating a little better, and that's
something that affects both the mind and the body.

~~~
dustinmr
I passed through Toronto twice last week. Had a fantastic meal here:
[http://www.nourishmoi.com/](http://www.nourishmoi.com/)

And you’re right, I don’t regularly keep vegan. But I do like the option
sometimes.

------
bobharris
I'm going as veg as I can. Shooting for vegan.

Enviro concerns. Rebellion. I feel I'm healthier barring intake of Iron.

I find it less expensive as good meat is expensive. Meat imoho is hard to
cook. I'm put off by slaughter and the whole idea. I feel it's one thing I can
do to help the world (and prolly be a bit healthier). I have friends who have
reduced too! thats cool. The idea of the amount of intake to output on a cow.
Its high, there's an index for it.

Prolly gonna try go vegan (everything) Screw big corps poisoning me with mass
slaughter and cruelty products. Odd ingredients I have never heard of. Who is
going to pay for my double bypass or kemo? Oh......me? Call me a PETA/Hippie,
whatever. I care about the future of the planet and being low impact. It feels
like the right way to go about it right now. The mass consumption in the
states today is pretty off-putting // disturbing.

Reduce/Recycle/Reuse. No, I do not need a new phone. This one works just fine.

------
roland35
I am not vegan myself, but I do appreciate the huge increase in vegan options
now that I am lactose-intolerant! I do enjoy ordering a vegan option with
grilled chicken or bacon added if I can.

~~~
i_am_nomad
If you don’t mind me asking, how did you become lactose intolerant? I don’t
know much about that aspect of biology.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
You don’t become lactose intolerant; you become lactose tolerant via genetic
mutation. This is a mutation that originated in Northern Europe but not in
east or South Asia.

~~~
astura
One does not "become lactose tolerant," humans are born lactose tolerant,
after all their primary food for the first few months of life is milk. A
lactose intolerant baby is very rare.

Lactose intolerance happens with age in X% of the population. The ones who
don't become lactose intolerance simply retain their lactase production that
they've always have had.

------
Kaibeezy

      Vegan +388%
      Vegetarian +136%
      Fish 'n' chips +1%
    

Vegans are 1.16% of the UK population

~~~
sniuff
You don't have to be vegan to eat vegan food.

~~~
jbob2000
If I eat an apple, am I eating vegan food?

If you call anything that isn't carnivore food as "vegan" food, then you're
labelling like 90% of our food as "vegan". That's obviously ridiculous, so I
think it's more accurate to call food "vegan" when it's being eaten by someone
who is respecting vegan principles.

What I mean to say is that I think "vegan food" is defined by the eater, not
the makeup of the food.

Edit: I would like to understand what I could have changed about my comment if
you felt it did not contribute to the discussion.

~~~
mytailorisrich
To me, 'vegan food' is a dish that would normally contain animal products and
has been contrived to remove them.

~~~
okmokmz
That doesn't make sense. A huge amount of vegan dishes have never been made
with animal products and were never designed to be made with animal products

~~~
mytailorisrich
A vegan is someone who refuses to eat any animal products.

I don't see why all traditional dishes that don't contain animals products
should suddenly be labeled vegan. They are suitable for vegan people but I
don't want veganism to hijack traditional cultures.

~~~
okmokmz
>A vegan is someone who refuses to eat any animal products

Yes, that is the definition of vegan as a noun. As an adjective vegan is
describing food using or containing no animal products

i.e. traditional dishes that don't contain animal products are technically
vegan, just like all other dishes that don't contain animal products

It's absolutely not hijacking traditional culture. I'm not mandating they call
that dish vegan, I'm not saying that it is an american vegan dish, I'm simply
saying that there are plenty of traditional dishes that are vegan by
definition. Hummus, as an example

~~~
mytailorisrich
Vegan as an adjective is a new term, or at least its use has exploded. This
has happened partly for political purposes to hijack aspects of culture, and
partly for marketing purposes as a result of this.

~~~
okmokmz
Those are unfounded assumptions and opinions. It also doesn't change the fact
that that is the current definition of vegan. You can use the word however you
want, but the way I'm using it is correct based on the dictionary definition

~~~
mytailorisrich
Why has the use of the term exploded? Why should 'good old' dishes suddenly be
labeled?

------
Mikeb85
As interesting as this is, it's just the takeaway sector.

As someone in the higher-end restaurant sector, I certainly haven't seen
increased demand for vegan options. It also doesn't help that many vegans are
very price sensitive, not to mention have a disproportionate amount of other
dietary restrictions.

~~~
mumblemumble
I wouldn't be surprised if higher-end restaurants end up lagging on this
trend, simply because they have a bit of a reputational hole to dig themselves
out of with the vegetarian, and particularly vegan, crowd. For a lot of
reasons.

For starters, the options a lot of higher-end restaurants offer have a history
of tending to be either really unsatisfying "twigs and berries" type food,
overly rich (a lot of vegans aren't used to having their food drenched in
cooking fats), poorly prepared (e.g., overcooked), or a mix of them all. So
there's a long history of being charged what feels like a rather exorbitant
price considering that you end up going home hungry and dissatisfied.

Second, vegetarians do notice and make decisions based on what non-vegetarian
options are on the menu. If you're serving veal or foie gras, the vegan member
of the party is going to be a _lot_ more likely to try and convince the rest
of their party to go somewhere else.

Also, straight-up boredom. People who eat vegan in particular tend to get
really into cuisine from all over the world, and become acclimatized to eating
food that's got very bold flavors. After a few years of that, the nouvelle
cuisine-inspired stuff being served at a lot of higher-end restaurants is,
frankly, just not very exciting. Especially after you take out the butter and
cream and whatnot that serve as the gastronomic foundation of that style of
cooking.

Which isn't to say that all high-end restaurants are like that. But so many
are that eventually it gets easier to just use the price point itself as a
heuristic.

~~~
okmokmz
Entirely anecdotal, but I went to a 10 course tasting menu restaurant in
Portland last year that was about $300 per person and they had a vegan menu.
I've seen other high end restaurants providing vegan or vegetarian menus as
well in Seattle

~~~
mumblemumble
It's an interesting anecdote, but the words that really jump out of the
sentence there are "Portland" and "Seattle". I wouldn't be surprised if the
percentage of people who eat vegetarian in the PNW is 10x as high as what it
is in, say, the Rust Belt.

------
bobinaz
Eating patterns are definitely changing. While nobody I know is going full
vegan, plenty are incorporating more vegan food into their diets.

------
jl6
I recently adopted a vegan diet and have made good progress with weight loss.
I attribute this to veganism providing me with a very simple rule that allows
me to instantly reject a large number of the junk food options that cross my
path, which I previously would have eaten thoughtlessly.

I miss cheese on pizza, but have otherwise not found myself lacking in tasty
and nutritious options

------
dontbenebby
Could part of this be the rise of non-American restaurants?

If I'm eating say, thai I don't "order vegan" \- but a tofu based curry may
_be_ vegan.

Vegan food, done well, is pretty great. But there's a steep learning curve
with the spices etc, so I tend to eat out for it.

~~~
geddy
> Vegan food, done well, is pretty great. But there's a steep learning curve
> with the spices etc, so I tend to eat out for it

Agreed - it took a good number of weeks of our weekly meal prep before I felt
comfortable adding actual flavor to the dishes. It definitely is something you
acquire quickly, though. Meat and dairy are good flavor-enhancers so becoming
vegan overnight was rough from the flavor profile perspective.

Luckily there are plenty of resources to help out and I got a handle of it in
no time. You learn what to swap out and how to get the right texture with
things like tempeh, tofu etc and all that.

~~~
dontbenebby
If you have any suggestions on cookbooks/resources, I really enjoy curries etc
and they seem to be great for mealprep (very freezable).

I can always add in some beef or chicken if I get nostalgic ;)

------
godshatter
I gave the article three of my best guesses at which domains I should allow
javascript for, and it failed to load anything but a blank page. Hope it was
interesting.

------
mytailorisrich
Vegan and vegetarian are absolute terms. The only meaning of "semi-vegetarian"
or "semi-vegan" is that you're not either.

"Semi-vegan" is a particularly nonsensical term.

~~~
Ensorceled
I try to eat a vegan meal at least a couple of times a week and vegetarian
usually once a day.

If semi-vegetarian is off limits, what am I?

~~~
dfxm12
You're just a boring omnivore, like most of us.

------
ultim8k
Too bad that vegan food is mostly carbs and tasteless stuff like tofu. There
are so many tasty and healthy vegetables and great veggie recipes but you have
to cook at home because you can't find them outside.

~~~
54mf
If your tofu is tasteless, you're doing it wrong. One of the major perks of
tofu is that it absorbs flavor really well.

~~~
GrumpyNl
Tofu by itself is tasteless.

~~~
Djvacto
Raw, uncooked tofu may be tasteless, but I'm not really one for grabbing a raw
chicken breast either. Marinades go a long way with tofu, as does which method
you cook it.

------
mises
Woman Tries to Climb Mountain to Prove Vegans aren't Weak, Dies.
[https://time.com/4344556/mount-everest-death-climbing-
vegan/](https://time.com/4344556/mount-everest-death-climbing-vegan/)

~~~
ravenstine
Lots of people, vegan or not, die going up Mount Everest.

