1) First, in the LA Times, a vegan activist details the varied flavors of abuse she got after creating a petition asking In-N-Out Burger to add a veggie burger to its menu:
…dozens of vile Facebook screeds calling me: un-American, a fascist, a moron, delusional, an imbecile, fanatical, disgusting, disgraceful, a control freak sociopath, and the worst part of the human race….It turns out veggie burgers persecute religious groups (“You’re attacking a CHRISTIAN BUSINESS and it is WRONG”), seek to destroy American values, and are hell-bent on ruining everyone’s good time.
Also,
We have learned that this single menu addition could lead to In-N-Out, and quite possibly the whole country, becoming “a gender-free, multicultural safespace to cuddle in” that’s populated by “the worst types of humans.”
Eternal vigilance and all that… Still! That’s a heckuva fuss to make over a veggie burger. (The petition has 36,000+ signatures right now, btw. Please sign it!)
2) Relatedly, and music to my ears: Reuters reports that a group of forty large investors representing more than $1.25 trillion in assets is urging the top global food companies to shift to plant-based proteins:
“Investors want to know if major food companies have a strategy to avoid this protein bubble and to profit from a plant-based protein market set to grow by 8.4 percent annually over the next five years,” Coller said. The campaign follows an Oxford University study which said $1.5 trillion in healthcare and climate change-related costs could be saved by 2050 if people reduced their reliance on meat in their diet. The study also pointed to growing political pressure on companies to change, citing a consultation in Denmark on the introduction of a red meat tax and a Chinese government plan to reduce its citizens’ meat consumption by 50 percent, FAIRR said.
Among the companies being addressed: Kraft Heinz, Nestle, Unilever, Tesco and Walmart.
3) If you’ve ever had gall bladder problems then you might have some inkling of the agony bile farm bears endure their entire lives—trapped in tiny cages, and with their gall bladders constantly “milked” for bile for use in Asian folk remedies. Happily Laos has just announced that, in compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) treaty, it will close all its bile farms—and all its tiger farms for good measure. (Tigers are also used for folk remedies, as well as the pet and trophy trade.) The tigers and bears will be sent to sanctuaries. (No word on the lions, tho…)
4) Armani goes fur free. (And, btw, a lot of the supposedly fake fur out there isn’t fake. Here’s how to tell.)
5) Personally, I can’t wait for dairy to die:
Some of the nation’s largest dairy producers will pay $52 million to settle an antitrust class action with consumers in 15 states and the District of Columbia….The dairy producers were accused of conspiring to prematurely slaughter more than 500,000 cows between 2003 and 2010 to limit the production of raw milk and drive up prices for yogurt, sour cream and other dairy products.
Fortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll have to wait long. (See, also, this article on how dairy farmers are converting their land into almond groves. Wheee! And because I know someone’s gonna bring it up: here’s a piece on water use in almond farms versus dairy.)
Looking forward to your thoughts and fauna-related news (and nondairy milk preferences) in the comments.
Hillary Rettig
We use soy milk in coffee b/c the texture works really well. Cashew (richer than almond) for everything else, including baking.
singfoom
I thought all the bile farming was done via American retirees and Fox News. I love how much I learn here!
Hillary Rettig
@singfoom: I love it when the thread starts with a ZING!!!!
NotMax
Uh huh. force them to install separate dedicated grills so the veggie stuff doesn’t become ‘contaminated’ with any meat juices or fat.
Yeah, that’ll fly.
News flash: There is a veggie option. They’re called fries.
Eric U.
the idea of bile farming is terrifying.
singfoom
Also, too. As a midwesterner American who puts milk in his tea (because that’s the only civilized way to drink tea, goddammit), you’ll pry the milk out of my cold dead hands. And no, I don’t drink coffee. I hate bitter things except my worldview.
Keith P.
Going through an absolute nightmare of a job onboarding process…got delayed for the 3rd or 4th time last week, then got delayed another day this week when my laptop didn’t arrive (overnight priority fedex took 3 days). Laptop arrived with no software, which I kind of need to write software, so I had to deal with figuring out what my licensing credentials are. Then it turns out I don’t have access on the machine to install software, so helpdesk tried. They crashed the installer, so they downloaded the entire 8 GB full installer….TWICE, with no luck. Then got some more documents I need to sign and fax (in 2016), so I have to plan yet another trip to FedEx to print/fax. And then to get admin access, they have to get the contractee to sign a doc allowing me admin rights (to simply install software), so I’ve been sitting around my house with my thumb up my ass all day.
I am so ready to get out of the IT business. I love to program, but I absolutely hate how utterly clogged with red tape the industry has gotten. Every year, contracts get more and more tedious just to get started with. Last 2 out of 3 jobs, I’ve spent more time doing things other than programming (which is really all I’m interested in other than the paycheck)
Waldo
Seriously? Asking In-N-Out Burger for a vegan option? That’s like asking KFC if their chickens are free-range. You’re still eating a bucket of sh1t!
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: Me too, strong tea with milk is my favorite beverage. Assam or Darjeeling?
Hillary Rettig
@Eric U.: it’s just dreadful. the poor bears live with a tube stuck in their gall bladders. I’m lucky enough not to have ever had gb problems but people I know who have had them say they’re excruciating.
Jeffro
@singfoom:
I know, right? I had to read it three times to realize it was a real thing.
And you think morticians have a hard time getting dates…”So, enough about me, what do you do?” “Oh, I uh, I’m a bile farmer.”
(Of course in DC they’d still just make the Fox News assumption like we did)
Brachiator
Wow, I live in Southern California (with an In-N-Out within walking distance), and I didn’t bother to follow the story, because the whole thing seemed so silly. But the angry anguish is absolutely unnecessary.
In-N-Out almost has a veggie burger. It’s called a grilled cheese sandwich. But their operation is set up to do burgers and fries, that’s it. They don’t even do hot dogs. You don’t go to King Taco for quiche. You don’t go to In-N-Out for veggie burgers. What, praise Jesus, would an “animal style” veggie burger be like.
I think that a place that did regular burgers and veggie burgers might be a hit. On the other hand, you would have to keep the grill areas separate to make sure there was no cross contamination. And customers might not even want the same grilling utensils used for the veggie (or meaty) burgers.
Somebody set up an eatery with a more diverse menu next to one In-N-Out burger. They are slowly going out of business. Someone else may certainly be welcome to try Mighty Veggie-R-Meaty. They are welcome to it.
Jeffro
@NotMax:
That, or exercising one’s option to not stop at In-And-Out Burger. Can’t be all things to all people, people! ;)
Peter
No. for multiple reasons.
Hillary Rettig
@Brachiator: although cross contamination is an issue plenty of places manage to handle it – Chipotle and Blaze Pizza come to mind. At Chipotle they have separate serving utensils for each ingredient. At Blaze they ask if you want them to switch gloves before putting on the vegan cheese.
But I guess it’s easier for them b/c they are heathen businesses. ;-)
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: I’m addicted to Yorkshire Tea. Red label. It’s a blend. I want my tea orange brown after the milk and sugar have been added. The gold is good too but the red is a stronger flavor. Unfortunately it’s bags of little pieces. I tried ordering it bulk assuming it would be full leaf, but it was just a giant 2lb bag of what is found in their bags.
If I run out of that it’s Irish Breakfast but I have to use more bags per cup.
pacem appellant
I have no beef with In-n-Out’s burger offerings. I order the grilled cheese, animal-style, and fries. I might be a vegetarian, but I’m not that fond of veggie burgers. And I don’t know how InO will make a veggie burger “fresh”. I recommend to the petitioner that she not dine at InO. There are lots of good vegan and vegetarian options in LA.
Keith P.
Careful what you wish for. If you want to see what happens when you go healthy, look to Chick-Fil-A. No more cole slaw (“superfood salad” now). No more breakfast spicey chicken biscuit because they sub’ed it out (rather than just add to the menu) too. But you can always eat greek yogurt, cranberries, and walnuts and pretend it’s fried chicken.
burnspbesq
People who mess with SoCal cultural icons rarely come to a good end.
schrodinger's cat
@Brachiator: McDonalds in India has a vegetarian section IIRC. I have been to an Indian McD once that was more than 10 years ago.
Anonymous At Work
The issue with the In-n-Out petition wasn’t that it was asking; it was demanding that one be added NOW. Saying, “We like In-n-Out’s offerings and sensibilities and would like a vegan patty added to the menu” would have been good, and, although I only occasionally eat vegan patties, would have signed.
What it said was that In-n-Out were horrible people for vegan-blocking vegans who wanted to eat at a grilled-meat-centric place and that it was a horrible and active injustice to not immediately add vegan patties.
pacem appellant
@NotMax: If you ask for a veggie burger at In-n-Out, they’ll give you a sandwich w/o meat. And you can even ask them to hold the cheese. It’s my daughter’s favorite. That, and the fries and shakes.
Major Major Major Major
It is kind of a big ask to ask a place that literally makes two food items (three if you include shakes) to add one more.
ETA: “And another thing! You can’t play racquetball in this squash court, it’s inconsiderate, they should add more paint!”
singfoom
@schrodinger’s cat: Non-veg, but the McDonald’s Chicken Maharaja Mac was pretty good when I had it 10ish years ago as well. I think there’s a difference between a global brand like McDonald’s making concessions to local dietary choices versus asking a regional American business to install additional grills for veggie burgers to avoid cross contamination. I’m with everyone else on this thread, if you want something vegetarian, order the grilled cheese or go somewhere else.
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: The Turkish grocery store in my area sells lots of different teas. I picked up some loose leaf tea from Pakistan recently, it is very good.
NotMax
@pacem appellant
Well, there ya go. Never been to one.
Tried Five Guys for the first time on the recent NY trip and was singularly unimpressed, with the exception of the mushrooms as a topping, which were superb. Probably the first time set foot in any fast food place in over a decade.
WereBear
I’m not getting out of the boat. I did a post on my cat blog once on not feeding cats vegetarian and have yet to recover. (To be fair, my own fans agreed with me. But there were some drive-by trolls that made me moderate as a new policy.)
schrodinger's cat
@singfoom: I only had coffee, I agree with you about In-and-Out burgers and I also think there is too much pandering to vegetarian fee-fees in India.
Hillary Rettig
@singfoom: just for you
Hillary Rettig
@Anonymous At Work: I honestly thought the petition was just ordinary petition-speak.
LAO
My best friend in high school was a vegetarian and we went to McDonald’s she would order a big mac without the meat. The look on the cashiers face every time was very funny, she would have to repeat her order several times. I thought it was pretty ridiculous. And as an aside, she got married right after college, became an evangelical christian, joined the quiver fill movement and had like 8 kids that she homeschooled. We are no longer close friends. I’m not saying there’s a connection, but…
Pogonip
@Keith P.: Here in West Deplorable, doctors’ offices still have fax machines. “The doctor isn’t in today, can you fax it so he can look at it tomorrow?”. “I’ll see if I can find a time machine that’s not too crowded.”
I remember the first fax I ever sent. 1989. It inched through with all the speed of a sleeping snail. I remember wondering why we were doing it since I could have walked it over quicker.
pacem appellant
@NotMax: We have a five guys near us. I’ve only tried their french fries, which I really liked, but obviously I’m not the one to judge their burger offerings.
Hillary Rettig
@WereBear: a huge point of controversy among vegans, many of whom love cats. there are apparently some vegan taurine and other supplements out there but being a dog person myself I don’t really get involved.
Pogonip
@WereBear: Why would anyone want to feed a cat vegetarian? That makes no sense.
oz29
@Major Major Major Major: Yup. Although I would also echo Anon at Work’s comment: she isn’t so much asking as she is demanding and threatening with a good, old-fashioned “large corporation hates the little guy” press campaign.
Mary G
Have you ever looked at an In-n-Out kitchen? They are tiny, cramped places with no room for another box of napkins, much less a whole additional cooking surface and extra fridge. I’m sorry, no signing by me.
And you can’t have my dairy products either. If I had a nickel for every person who has told me that my RA would magically disappear if I’d lay off dairy, I’d be a billionaire. I’m sorry, been there, done that multiple times, FALSE. False like Trump’s not a racist.
schrodinger's cat
@Pogonip: Only grass fed and free range vegetarians for the couch lions.
NotMax
@Pogonip
Faxes have been around since the 1930s and while no longer as prevalent still can serve many useful purposes (as well as avoiding the extra step and time of scanning documents and formatting for internet use). IIRC, the Pope faxes personal correspondence to avoid it being on the web as e-mail, for example.
WereBear
@schrodinger’s cat: Soylent Green for cats!
greennotGreen
Not a vegetarian, but I don’t eat pork or beef. Several years ago I visited my cousin in NC, and she said, I want to take you to this restaurant for lunch, Five Guys, which I had never heard of. They served hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and fries. I had a cheeseburger without meat (I don’t remember that it was any cheaper.) A memorable meal, but not a good one.
Of course, sometimes you try and it doesn’t work out. A friend was visiting from NYC, so I took him to a local restaurant with really good Southern cooking (since I live in the South.) He ordered a club sandwich.
Keith P.
@Pogonip: Yeah, that’s where I’m getting ticked off – the assumption that it’s no big deal for me to send out faxes (well, I’m also ticked off that I have to have someone else install Visual Studio for me, and they keep failing at it). I had to explain to them just today after getting still more documents requiring signing (in PDF, which has electronic signing, but they are not using it!) that every time I get one of these, I have to go get cleaned up (working from home), go drive (in Houston in the afternoon while major road construction is going on) to a fedex to print and then fax it. Every time, and this is about the 3rd batch of documents.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: So the pope has better security measures than Hillary.
This campaign has absolutely ruined my ability to think. Lol.
chopper
yeah, i’m sure the dairy industry is going to just up and disappear forever any day now.
Hillary Rettig
@Mary G: businesses have a way of adapting if it’s profitable. (Based on my second entry I assume In-n-Out and lots of other food businesses are looking at vegan market.) That said, I’m sorry both about your RA and about the fact that cutting out dairy didn’t help.
lowercase steve
I am a vegetarian and the cross-contamination thing doesn’t bother me because it is not for religious reasons. It is not like meat is “unclean.” I don’t want to spend money on meat and thus support the meat industry. So I can happily buy a veggie burger that was cooked on the same grill as meat because my dollars are not going toward a meat product regardless.
Hillary Rettig
@lowercase steve: me, too. I tell people I’m not a “molecular vegan.”
Gemina13
I love dairy. I’ve tried the alternatives. I’m sticking with milk. Not only is it the only civilized way to drink tea (Earl Grey and chai–yum), but the rest of that crap tastes oily or fishy to me. Drink all the extruded nut oil you want; I’ll enjoy my ice cream, whole milk, and real butter.
Mnemosyne
@Hillary Rettig:
Actually, it’s probably easier for them to handle because they’re low-volume businesses. In N Out does an enormously high volume of business, to the point where they have an actual person walking from car to car at the drive-thru because it’s more efficient than having people talk to a squawk box. There are huge lines at every hour of the day.
So, yes, demanding that they clean off the grill and get out a new set of utensils every time someone wants a vegan burger could be a big problem for that efficiency.
Calouste
@Pogonip: Some vegetarians and vegans are just as fundamentalist as some evangelical Christians. Reality be damned.
Felonius Monk
If you want a veggie burger go to a restaurant that serves them already, there are thousands. Who in their right mind would want one from In-N-Out in the first place. Sorta like going to McDonald’s for a Lobster Roll.
Ripley (Whiskey Fire version)
I work in healthcare IT. Faxes are still considered more secure than email, when it comes to sharing Protected Health Information. To be more accurate, the transmission is considered more secure; the papers lying about in the office is another story.
There might be some legal hoodoo involved, as well, but I can’t speak to that.
Mnemosyne
@Hillary Rettig:
You must not live in Southern California. We have a LOT of molecular vegans out here, and man do they never STFU about it. They really do demand that their food be cooked on separate cooktops etc to avoid contamination from meat or dairy.
I’m lucky that my friends who went vegan for their health are *not* molecular vegans, so they’re happy to order the vegetarian burrito with no cheese or sour cream when we go out.
ETA: In N Out probably will offer a vegetarian or vegan patty at some point and yay if they do. But the local molecular vegans will still bitch that it’s not good enough. It’s what they do.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: What the hell is a molecular vegan?
singfoom
@Hillary Rettig: I’ve tried dairy free cheese and such. IF this product was identical in every single way to cow’s milk such that I could not pick it out in a blind taste test, I still wouldn’t pay double the price of milk for it.
Now would I try a product with the attributes as I describe above for the same price as milk? Sure. Would I give it to my kids? Nope. I find the idea of the dairy industry going away fantastical. If others want to be dairy free, let them be, but not me.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m riffing off what Hillary said at #47. It’s the people who can’t have even the hint of any type of dairy or meat having been anywhere near their food, ever. They’re like the strict kosher followers who have separate sets of cookware for meat and dairy.
So, a normal vegan would be happy if I cooked them a nice vegan marinara sauce and pasta for them at my home. A molecular vegan would demand to know if I had ever used any of those pots to cook meat or dairy.
lowercase steve
@Brachiator: There are a ton of burger places in NYC (including shake shack) that offer veggie burgers without maintaining separate grills and utensils. Most vegetarians, I think, are not of the “no contamination” kind (in NYC at least). Those folks are generally doing it for religious reasons and only eat at pure vegetarian restaurants.
That said, NYC has a critical mass of vegetarians such that most places (burger or otherwise) try to offer a vegetarian option or two for a main course (more pressure on the sit down restaurants of course since friend groups will choose where to meet based on vegetarian options since there is always that one vegetarian friend). Outside of major cities (and even in cities depending on neighborhood) there may not be sufficient economic pressure to do so though given density and different characteristics of local population.
schrodinger's cat
@Mnemosyne: Your molecular vegans sound like Jains to me.
Brachiator
@Hillary Rettig:
Seriously, it’s more that many of the In-N-Out setups are very small and crowded. They are mainly grill areas, with some room for the fries baskets and the soda machines jammed in. I don’t think they have a Biblical mandate to serve only burgers and burgers, world without end, amen, but the petitioners are kinda loopy if they think that the eatery should absorb extra operational costs on a whim.
There are a lot of vegetarians in Southern Cal, but oddly enough, not very many veggie burger places. They just don’t seem to stick. There is also not a consensus about what a good veggie burger should taste like. Coming back to In-N-Out, I don’t know that their current condiments would satisfy the vegetarian crowd.
But hey, maybe In-N-Out will give it a try.
WereBear
@Keith P.: It is like business has become a system of how to do things in the most inefficient possible manner
bluefoot
@Pogonip: Many doctor’s offices still use fax machines. It’s more secure than any other type of electronic transmission of documents. Here at my biotech/pharma company, any patient-related documents are transmitted via dedicated fax.
Mart
@Felonius Monk: This seems to be the number one response – why don’t you go somewhere else you idiot? So veggie boy (me) is at a factory and the group breaks for lunch. Since we are short on time the group leader says let’s go to the In and Out. This has happened many times over the years – usually McDonald’s but you get the idea. I am kind of screwed then. Or they order lunch in and there are no veggie options. Or I get into small town late at night, and the only stuff open is burger joints. Burger King has an awful microwaved veggie burger, Culver’s has an almost decent veggie burger, but at least I have a choice.
Also too, your children will all die horribly of global warming (Al Gore told me). So why aren’t you promoting and eating plant based protein?
lowercase steve
@Mnemosyne:
Reminds me of the Simpsons quote, “I am a level 5 vegan. I don’t eat anything that casts a shadow.”
KithKanan
@Hillary Rettig: One of the selling points of In-N-Out for their fans is that unlike other fast food chains, they don’t adapt much. Essentially, their menu and methods of preparation haven’t significantly changed since they opened in the 1940s.
central texas
How does one “milk a gall badder’? Feed the bear oils (vegetable, of course)? But then how to recover whatever it is that is the product to sell from the effluent?
Mnemosyne
@Mart:
They do have a vegetarian option at In N Out — they’ll make you a grilled cheese sandwich or (as someone mentioned above) grill you a bun with tomato and lettuce. (Their buns are AWESOME, so don’t knock it until you try it.)
What they don’t have is a vegan option, and that’s what some people are demanding.
Roger Moore
@Pogonip:
Fax machines are allegedly more secure, which is a big deal for HIPAA reasons. As a practical matter, medical practitioners can’t include any protected medical information in a conventional email. They can send you an email that your test results are finished and you need to look at them on their secure website, but they can’t include them in the email. But fax machines are apparently considered a secure way of sending PMI, so medical people still depend on them.
Origuy
A friend of someone on my facebook feed is a fruititarian. I don’t know if it’s for health reasons, or because he won’t eat anything that requires killing the plant.
JGL
@Mart: In N Out actually has a fantastic veggie option – one of the best grilled cheese sammiches out there. What they don’t have is a vegan option other than a side of fries.
But again – the issue your report seems more to be that your co-workers/group leaders should be more accommodating. I don’t go to McD’s and demand sushi. I don’t think all pizza joints to have gluten-free dough. Veggie burgers are frankly one of the worst options at most places anyway – better to get a side salad & some fries and cut your losses if only a McD’s is open. Also, travel with protein bars or snacks. My husband has a variety of dietary restrictions due to some medical conditions – I now always have some kind of protein bar and/or nuts/snack mix in my purse. You adjust, the rest of the world has their own shit to handle.
Mnemosyne
@KithKanan:
It still cracks me up that their “value meal” is the exact same price that it would be if you ordered the burger, fries and drink separately. They just call it a “value meal” to make ordering go faster.
WereBear
@Origuy: Sigh. So was Steve Jobs. A genius who knew jacksquat about nutrition.
KithKanan
@Mnemosyne: Well, they don’t actually call it a “value meal”.
At least, the menus I remember all say “Ordering as easy as…” for the numbered combos.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Extremely OT.
For you, because of the references to you know who.
Roger Moore
@Brachiator:
My gut feeling is that’s because there are enough real vegetarian options that people who want vegetarian foods don’t need to ask burger places to accommodate them. It’s nice for restaurants to have options so you don’t have to eat at a vegetarian restaurant to accommodate the one vegetarian in the group, but I don’t think it makes sense to ask every restaurant to do that- especially not ones like In-N-Out that are really focused on meat based dishes.
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
The giant evil bank now known as JP Morgan Chase was co-founded by Aaron Burr.
Coincidence? I think not.
KithKanan
@Mnemosyne: That said, yeah, I remember that cracking me up for a while when I did the mental math and realized that.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Flashes by fairly fast, but the one dude in breeches appears particularly – um, er – happy to chat with the guy in the suit and tie.
Mike E
Char Grill is a treat here, if just for the fries…I haven’t been in over a year tho.
Best meatless patty for me is the gardein chipotle black bean and corn…it’s the reason my cholesterol dropped 30+ pts
Mnemosyne
@NotMax:
You gotta be careful with tailoring when you do your period cosplay.
True story: we have a huge costume contest here at the Giant Evil Corporation every year, and one of the “group costume” entries was a bunch of people as Lady Gaga and Her Monsters. Lady Gaga was portrayed by a man and, well, he found out the wrong way that there’s a reason male professional dancers wear a dance belt to prevent, er, show-through.
NotMax
@Mnemosyne
Slightly more amusing because if the institution used an acronym it would be BoNY.
humboldtblue
@Mnemosyne:
They’re quite simply, gold mines.
I’ll echo the other statements that demanding a burger joint provide a non-burger options is just silly.
I love InO but rarely visit because those sonsofbitches decided that the wastes of southern central Oregon are worthy of a goddamn restaurant instead of THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA COAST. They have forsaken their own brethren and sisteren for the weird, oddly smelling yokels from up there and leave us empty, hungry, unsated.
Bastards.
In other words, the closest InO is Santa Rosa four hours south.
Pogonip
@Hillary Rettig: I still don’t understand why feeding cats would be controversial among vegetarians or why you would give a cat vegetarian food. He would probably refuse to eat it anyway.
Starfish
I DON’T UNDERSTAND ANY OF YOU MILK IN YOUR TEA PEOPLE. Tea does not need any additives. It does not need fruit pieces. It does not need sugar. It does not need milk.
We have given up milk and most other dairy, but cheese is my downfall. I like soy milk better than this coconut milk garbage that my husband likes to buy. Soy milk is a little thicker, and you can curdle it for baking purposes.
Pogonip
@Starfish: I do not like the sweet tea served in restaurants. It tastes like they used a pound per glass.
GOOD tea doesn’t need doctoring. The really cheaply made brands, like Lipton, can use a little help.
David Parsons
@NotMax: It depends on just how paranoid they are about cross-contamination. The evangelical vegans won’t go to in-and-out in the first place, and that will leave the people who are content with ordinary kitchen hygene (In my experience grills are cleaned pretty regularly during the working day so that you don’t get cross-contamination between the different things cooking even if they’re all ddm; there might be homeopathic amounts of meat cinders on the grill when the vegan burger is prepared, but tbh if you’re in a restaurant that serves meat and/or dairy, EVERYTHING is going to have homeopathic amounts of meat and/or dairy in it.
@Pogonip: You shush. Sweet tea is the elixir of the G-ds.
David Parsons
@Felonius Monk: FYI
JR in WV
@schrodinger’s cat:
Darjeeling for me! I also like Oolong Chinese pretty well, and, really most of the high teas.
With regard to eating healthy and caring for cows and chickens, what does mistreatment of captive wild animals under conditions that are quite illegal in this country have to do with the American diet? Besides blowing up hysteria over bad things happening somewhere else, things that we have little or no control over? Things that 100% of people who grew up in America are repelled by, things that don’t happen here because we protect our wildlife, for the most part.
We have eagles and herons poaching from Koa ponds, when the birds were endangered just a few years ago. Deer are a huge danger to drivers, when they too were once in danger of becoming extinct. We have wild kingfishers right here, and barred owls, and many kinds of hawks…
But all of this, while interesting, has nothing to do with the diet of the American consumer. If you want to be a vegan, that’s good, I’m glad you have found a diet that makes you happy. If you want me to be a vegan, go away, leave me alone. Really, if you want everyone to be vegan, I think you have a lot of gall interfering with others’ food habits.
I loved milking our cow, and our cow loved being milked. Our chickens were fond of me, because I brought them corn.
I have many friends who farm, and we still live on the farm where we kept dairy cows and chickens and bacon on the hoof. I don’t much care for pigs kept the traditional way, penned up and fed in a trough. Free range pigs, kept in really big fenced in lots with woods and fields, on the other hand, are clean, smart, interesting critters. But you need lots of land, and really good fences.
eclare
@schrodinger’s cat: Chai with milk. Nothing beats it. Although all tea is better with milk, lived in London for 6 months, a great lesson.
LeonS
Not that I care what they choose to serve, a veggie burger is fine by me, but In and Out is one of the few fast food chains where you would even be able to tell the difference. I’ve often though McDonalds, Burger King, and most of the lower order fast food joints might as well go veggie. It would be cheaper, healthier for patron and planet, and I highly doubt there would be any noticeable difference in the product.
And Taco Bell or Del Taco? I’m pretty sure you could put *anything* soft enough in those burritos and tacos.
Of course there would be a huge outcry from people who couldn’t tell the difference blindfolded because BEEF!
pseudonymous in nc
It’s a bullshitty piece because it confuses and conflates water sources, so, sorry, vegans who make that comparison are just wrong.
Cows have legs. They can move. Almond groves can’t. Cows are pretty adaptable. Almond groves aren’t. So you can put cows in places where there is good pasture and good rainfall. (I was on one of my walks tonight near some extremely well looked-after cows nomming away on a very rich pasture.)
Almonds for commercial production grow in a very restricted area that is susceptible to drought; almond trees need years of constant watering to be productive. Almond groves require millions of bees brought in for pollination. Almond milk products require water and incur shipping and storage costs: if they’re perishable, lots of that goes down the drain.
Almond production in California is like strip mining in West Virginia, and every dairy farmer converting to almonds is a greedy fucker who will expect first dibs on water during shortages and to be bailed out at taxpayer expense when the drought kills the trees. And almost certainly will vote for Trump.
Agorabum
@Mnemosyne: in n out is based on fresh ingredients never frozen. So to do a veggie patty, they would need to make their own.
That is tough when everything has to be fresh. I don’t see it happening. Besides, the stores are always busy and they already have veggie options. They won’t add anything. Their whole mystique is that the menu never changed.
JR in WV
I do want to say something about dairy farms. There are good ones and bad ones. Near the place we visit in SE Arizona, on Kansas Settlement Road, there is a 12,000 acre dairy farm.
Sounds good, 12,000 acres is a huge space. But the cows, 15,000 of them, are confined to less than 200 acres – the vast acreage is used to grow intensively irrigated grasses like timothy and alfalfa. Cow manure is handled as a liquid in lagoons, and sprayed onto the fields.
The stench is horrible. The owner of the farm was forced out of farming in Iowa because of his terrible practices. There is another farm like this just SW of Hatch NM. The actual cows are over a ridge from the road, but you can smell the tell-tale stench even at night.
People living near the AZ farm are screwed because their houses are worthless – no one would ever buy them. There’s a big mansion by the road, the “owner’s house” which stands empty, completely ready for occupancy, but deserted, except when they need to pretend there’s no reason not to live there.
I’m sure there are lots of other farms with the same disgusting treatment of cows, over crowded, poor sanitation, stench of rotten manure. Actual cow shit lying in a pasture doesn’t smell bad at all, and it isn’t unhealthy. A giant pool of liquid rotten cow manure is nearly as bad as an ocean of pig shit. Horrible. Unhealthy.
No one here would defend these factory agricultural practices, if they visited such a farm when it was warm (which is all the time in SE AZ or SW NM) because the poor health practices are so obvious. But there are organic dairy farms, and even ordinary dairy farms which pasture their cows, and love their cows as more than meat machines. Like farms that belong to the Cabot co-op.
These factory farms are owned by greedy industrialists with no regard for the people who work there, or the cows that live there. They might as well be operated by Trump.
I mostly drink organic milk, as it contains concentrated essence of what the cows eat, so I want them to be eating the best cow foods. It isn’t as inexpensive as regular dairy milk, which is OK when I can’t make it to the stores with organic milk.
Just making it clear that I do not support factory farming when it comes to dairy, or hogs. Both breeds of animals deserve a decent life without standing in their own shit. And eggs from free-range chickens, who get to see the sun and walk around in fresh air.
Sirkowski
Soy and almond milk tastes like melted ice cream. Gross.
Silver Wolf
The lions will suffer a worse fate. Being relegated to last place in the NFC north.
lethargytartare
@Silver Wolf:
Not if John Fox has anything to say about it.
Annamal
New Zealand is not particularly vegetarian friendly (really, trust me on this) but Burger Fuel, our local home grown success does amazing vegetarian and vegan burgers:
https://stage.burgerfuel.com/nz/our-food/burgers/gourmet-vege-vegan
The V twin vege is wonderful (really great aioli ).
Also their chicken is free range and their beef is halal (they’ve expanded pretty extensively out into the middle east).
Not sure why so many people are whingeing about asking a business to cater to a wider market, they either will or they won’t.