Associated Press
You’ve come a long way, vegan.
Once mocked as a fringe diet for sandal-wearing health food store workers, veganism is moving from marginal to mainstream in the United States.
The vegan “Skinny Bitch” diet books are best-sellers, vegan staples like tempeh and tofu can be purchased at just about any supermarket, and some chain restaurants eagerly promote their plant-only menu items. Today’s vegans are urban hipsters, suburban moms, college students, even professional athletes.
“It’s definitely more diverse. It’s not what you would picture 20 years ago, which is kind of hippie, crunchy,” said Isa Chandra Moskowitz, author of vegan cookbooks like the new “Appetite for Reduction.” She says it’s easier being a vegan now because there is more local produce available and more interesting ways of cooking.
“It’s not just steamed vegetables anymore and brown rice and lentils,” she said.
Veganism is essentially hard-core vegetarianism. While a vegetarian might butter her bagel or eat a cake made with eggs, vegans shun all animal products: No meat, no cheese, no eggs, no honey, no mayonnaise. Ethical vegans have a moral aversion to harming animals for human consumption, be it for a flank steak or leather shoes, though the term often is used to describe people who follow the diet, not the larger philosophy.
It’s difficult to come up with hard numbers of practicing vegans. There’s a blurry line between people who define themselves as vegan and vegetarian and some eaters dip in and out plant-only diets. For instance, New York Times food writer Mark Bittman has described his “vegan till 6″ health plan, in which he becomes more omnivorous in the evening.
In a 2009 survey, advocates at the not-for-profit Vegetarian Resource Group reported about 1 percent of Americans are vegan, roughly a third of the people who reported being vegetarians. A separate survey released last year by the same group found a similar breakdown for Americans aged 8 to 18.
That makes veganism something short of a fad sweeping the nation like low-carb once did. Consider that while Kraft Foods reports that it shipped out more Boca Original Vegan Burger Patties and Boca Ground Crumbles last year, the increase was a modest 1 percent. Still, there are plenty of signs that vegans have pushed beyond their old, exclusive cocoon that once inspired celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain to mock them as the “Hezbollah-like splinter faction” of vegetarians.
Exhibit A would be the “Skinny Bitch” diet books, which provide vegan lifestyle tips in a blunt, girlfriend-on-the-phone style (Sample passage: “Soda is liquid Satan. It is the devil.”). Actress Alicia Silverstone added a dose of star power to the vegan cause more recently with “The Kind Diet,” a No. 1 best-seller. Vegan diets also have been touted by other celebrities, including Emily Deschanel in “Bones” and Lea Michele of “Glee.”
Veganism has been buoyed by the same health-conscious wave that has drawn Americans in unprecedented numbers to low-fat, vegetarian and organic foods. The idea of eating lower on the food chain is especially attractive to environmentally conscious consumers, since large-scale meat production is a major source of greenhouse gases.
Veganism also provides a safe harbor for the growing number of people concerned about where their supermarket meat comes from. Critics of industrial-scale food processing like writer Michael Pollan have been gaining a wider audience in recent years.
And — sign of the times — some famous guys are eating vegan now, too.
Bill Clinton, known for his burger-loving ways when president, has credited his trim build at his daughter Chelsea’s wedding this summer to a “plant-based diet” (though he eats a little fish sometimes). Even former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson has talked up his vegan diet.
And vegan cookbooks, once a niche product, are coming out at such a fast clip that there are now sub-niches. Da Capo Press’ 20 vegan cookbooks in print include one on vegan soul food and another with Latin vegan recipes. A book of vegan recipes containing alcohol, “The Tipsy Vegan” is upcoming.
Abstaining from animal products is an ancient practice found in cultures worldwide. But veganism never got traction in meat-loving America. Tracye McQuirter, a vegan for 23 years and author of “By Any Greens Necessary,” a vegan guide aimed at black women, said things were different until about a decade ago. While she was part of a vegan community in her hometown of Washington, she says there was little understanding beyond it.
“People did not know what it meant,” McQuirter said. “There were not a lot of options in terms of grocery stores. There was no Whole Foods… We had to basically cook everything for ourselves.”
That’s changed. More than half the 1,500 chefs polled by the National Restaurant Association for its new “What’s Hot in 2011″ list included vegan entrees as a hot trend. Vegan entrees came in at No. 71 out of 226 trends (beating out organic beer and drinkable desserts) — that’s far from No. 1, but evidence of veganism making inroads beyond urban strongholds like New York City and Los Angeles. Some chain restaurants like Souplantation and Pizza Fusion even mark vegan items on their menus.
In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Roseann Marulli Rodriguez, a blogger for the SuperVegan website, said while there are not many vegan restaurants in her area, her local supermarket has “fake” chicken tenders and “fake” bacon.
“It’s definitely widening in scope,” said Rodriguez, a recent New York City transplant who has been eating vegan for five years, “and I think that’s why more people are doing it, because it’s getting easier.”
MY REBUTTAL POST
“Vegan diets becoming more popular, more mainstream”.
But as my mother would say, if everyone jumped off a bridge would you too? Let’s use that as our reference point shall we?
The AP story posted January 5th to the WSJ Digital page, did nothing for me other than affirm what I always have believed. That good ol’ common sense has been thrown out the window along with the baby and the bath water.
The article refers to the best seller “Skinny B—“ as undergirded with a cultural fervor of along with the chain restaurants striving for plant based consumers.” Why? I am still confused? Last vegan I saw, which was five minutes ago, was lacking in vibrancy and health beyond compare.
These vegans may be young urban hipsters, et al….but it doesn’t make them right? Not only that it doesn’t mean they are remotely healthy.
The lack of digestive fortitude to break down all those greens, nuts and seeds just scares me. They aren’t prepared properly for human consumption causing a plethora of alkalinity in the gut. When I refer to the gut, it is the stomach, the place where some say 90% of your health is derived.
So for a general point of common sense that I will illuminate here, just remember it is just that common sense kicking in. SO if I have an alkaloid stomach from eating troughs of kale say for example, how I am I going to keep at bay pathogens the body regularly takes in? That acid my friend kills bugs, the bad ones too! Remember that e.coli outbreak a few years back? Well I wonder how many people were on the little purple pill for acid reflux, and downed a huge spinach salad sprinkled with nuts and seeds nightly as a way to get healthy? But instead had to be rushed to the hospital to for food poisoning?
And with the lack of stomach acid, how does one break down all those calcium pills the doctor says to take? Why is it that you need to have 6 of those large pills? Because my guess, you might absorb a tiny amount of it if you are lucky. You need stomach acid plain and simple. Those poor vegans are struggling to get flat abs AND save the planet at the same time are just not doing themselves any favors. Again, just common sense…..
And speaking of stomachs I am not meant to have so much of the greens and grains as these vegan gurus pronounce! What am I a cow? A cow has five stomach to break down that luscious green stuff so I don’t have too….I am all for delegating tasks aren’t you? So when I ingest all the greens and improperly processed grains, I am jacking up my insulin causing more insulin to be released into the body and telling my cells to store fat.
The article continues to say that there’s more variety out there for people to try especially when in season. Which is something the article got right….we should be eating more local, seasonal and organic….but can’t we eat local, organic grass fed beef too? Are the Vegan Patrol going to lock me up for eating a beef. No her name is not Betsy the cow, she is just a cow.
But the article continues with myths and again common sense should triumph over this one in particular.
“The idea of eating lower on the food chain is especially attractive to environmentally conscious consumers, since large-scale meat production is a major source of greenhouse gases”.
So consuming only vegetables and no beef will save the earth….? We had more herbivores over 300 years ago than today as Joel Salatin says at the recent Weston A. Price Convention in November 2010. And if one does think about it, those cows do more of a service to the pature lands than any commercial cows any day of the week. Wasn’t cow manure coveted “black gold” back in the day to lay on the land as the spark plug for soil humus development?
Again, I am not a rocket scientist, but I just don’t see vegans using logic.
So when this WSJ articles pronounces that the vegan school of thought is to help push it’s environmentally co-opted ideas on the consumer, these poor vegans didn’t stay on the logic train long enough to see where their destination would finally take them? It certainly wasn’t Clarksville, nor was it “Healths-ville!”
And to say it’s the ‘sign of the times’ when some heavy hitters are eating vegan now, again it doesn’t make it right? I certainly wouldn’t follow any advice from an impeached President nor a half-witted ear biting boxer?
What is up with cook books that are vegan containing alcohol, if you want healthy eating you sure don’t want extra sugars in your body. Remember alcohol digests in the mouth and is a simple sugar…YIKES! I know in real classical cuisines, alcohol OR fats are there to deliver flavors, but we aren’t talking classical cuisine now are we?
BUT my biggest bone of contention is that fact that this article asserts with no foundational truth, which is what journalism is all about right? Truth is by definition exclusive….so let us be honest…..the next point will bring that home.
This article then contends that abstaining from animal products is an ancient practice found in cultures worldwide. Then they apparently did not see Bizarre Foods on the Travel network when Andrew Zimmer when to see the Masai tribe, just as Dr. Weston A. Price did in the 1930’s. There Mr. Zimmer drank cow’s blood, and ate meat. Those Massai peoples looked more vibrant and healthy than Alicia Silverstone! And these people worked hard and played hard too. No one looked sick to me!
And maybe I was the only one who watched this particular show early November 2010. “Medicine Men Gone Mad”!! The premise was two identical twin brothers were study a group of people in the baron remote area of Siberia whom of which they killed 4 whales a year to sustain life. The brothers decided to examine their blood work after one brother ate like these semi-indigenous peoples and the other brother ate canned meat, and white flour breads tea and candy.
I bet the vegans fell off their chairs when the cholesterol was taken. The brother who at the organs and muscle meat and fats of whale had a remarkably lower cholesterol than the brother who at the processed foods. I have yet to see it replayed on Planet Green Network due to it’s non politically correct vegan rhetoric. But I am sure you can YouTube it.
With this logic train falling prey to it’s own gaps, I hope that we can discern with commonsense how to appreciate all food types. Vegans aren’t going to save the world. If the world went to hell in a hand basket, will our counterparts be scavenging for kale and lentils? I sure won’t be.
Like I have said before, when a chicken can start balancing my check book, I will look at this vegan thing a little more closely.