Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

bighospitality.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 319 posts

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#221

Post by slothtrop »

deevolution wrote: post #156
slothtrop wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, health and nutrition. Among health nuts many who consume meat advocate reducing intake whilst increasing legumes and veg. Even aping the popular aggregate "blue-zone" diets and the Mediterranean diet (the most researched of all) will lead to more restricted meat consumption than the standard western diet permits. For those who like to heavily politicize diet, this is a perspective that gets buried by absolutist…

Avoiding meat consumption eliminates all dietary cholesterol intake, which is awesome for heart health.

There's also eggs, which aren't 'meat' though have high levels. But yes reducing dietary cholesterol is one of the benefits. Skinless chicken breast has about 91mg cholesterol to 100g of chicken which isn't much. The daily allotted amount recommended by most guidelines is higher than that.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#222

Post by mytailorisrich »

okmokmz wrote: post #220
mytailorisrich wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

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.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#223

Post by okmokmz »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #95
erikpukinskis wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting, under your definition whether something is vegan depends on who is making it. If your family just happens to make a 4-bean salad without meat, then for you that’s omnivorous. If I make the exact same salad, but my family growing up typically would have put bacon in it, then that same salad becomes “vegan food” because for me it’s a contrivance. It’s a relativistic definition of what’s vegan and what…

"Vegan" refers to people, not food. Food is only "suitable for vegans". There are many, many traditional dishes that do not contain meat or even any animal products. I see no reason to suddenly label them "vegetarian" or "vegan". But when people work hard to make a burger without any animal products then it does make some sense to call the result "vegan food" in that it was made specifically to suit vegan people.

> "Vegan" refers to people, not food. Food is only "suitable for vegans".

Partially correct.

Vegan, the noun, refers to a person who does not eat or use animal products.

Vegan, the adjective, means using or containing no animal products.

>There are many, many traditional dishes that do not contain meat or even any animal products. I see no reason to suddenly label them "vegetarian" or "vegan".

They are vegan by definition

>But when people work hard to make a burger without any animal products then it does make some sense to call the result "vegan food" in that it was made specifically to suit vegan people.

Perhaps that is your modern interpretation of what "vegan" means, but it is not accurate. Hummus, for example, is a vegan dish regardless of having never contained animal products, and regardless of whether or not the person eating it is vegan.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#224

Post by saagarjha »

sandworm101 wrote: post #144
mattl wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Ⓤ)

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.

> 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?"

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#225

Post by phonypc »

jl6 wrote: post #199
phonypc wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised by the recent popularity of seitan. Obviously you don't have to avoid gluten to be vegan, but I've always had the impression gluten avoidance is adjacent to veganism. At least for vegans who cite personal health as their primary motivator.

Gluten avoidance is nothing to do with health benefits - it’s a constraint imposed by celiac disease. If you don’t have the disease, there is no reason to avoid gluten.

Ya I'm highly skeptical of avoiding gluten providing any benefit to people without celiac disease.

Many avoid it nonetheless.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#226

Post by slothtrop »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #166
deevolution wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avoiding meat consumption eliminates all dietary cholesterol intake, which is awesome for heart health.

A lot of that has been debunked with regular exercise. Many of the plaques and fatty deposits can be linked directly to high carbohydrate and high processed sugar diets in combination with sedentary lifestyles. That's been shown with the prevalence of putting type one diabetics on cholesterol medications in their upper thirties or lower fourties, as a practice, regardless of any other factors due to free sugars in th…

There is a new-ish study that made waves which suggests dietary cholesterol does have a link to heart disease. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30874756

I take a middle view that too much cholesterol is probably best avoided but I don't think it demands being dispensed with. And just because we "don't need it" doesn't mean there aren't benefits, like a testosterone boost.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#227

Post by okmokmz »

ultim8k wrote: post #31

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.

Sounds like you've never tried well prepared vegan food. If the meal you had was mostly carbs, that's the fault of whoever made the dish for not properly balancing the macros. And obviously plain, unseasoned, poorly cooked tofu will be flavorless. Boil a chicken breast, eat it with no seasoning, and let me know how it is. Properly prepared, vegan food can be just as tasty as non-vegan food

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#228

Post by mytailorisrich »

redthrow wrote: post #213
criddell wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no reason for them to be absolute, is there? If I eat one non-vegan meal every 20 meals, then I think it's reasonable to say my diet is 95% vegan.

Cambridge physicist David McKay talked about the environmental impact of eating vegetarian 6 days out of 7. http://www.withouthotair.com/c29/page_229.shtml There's also the word "reducetarian": https://reducetarian.org/ Using percentage seems perfectly rational.

Eating "Vegetarian", that is no meat, 6 days a week is not the same as being a vegetarian. That's the point.

And here we go, you've dropped yet another labeling term... I'm sure there's an accompanying self-help book.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#229

Post by whenchamenia »

Japhy_Ryder wrote: post #219
SomeOtherThrow wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods? This must be a marketing gimmick; eating animals is very nutritious—it's just not sufficient. However, this is the same as Avacado/acai berry/whatever. I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit.

> eating animals is very nutritious—it's just not sufficient. No. It's not. I like Dr. Fuhrman's equation: H=N/C. This equation expresses the concept that your health (H) is predicted by your nutrient intake (N) divided by your calorie intake (C). There's not a lot of nutrients in meat (all you get really is protein and iron), whereas in vegetables/fruits you get a whole vast assortment of proteins, vitamins, fiber,…

I cannot even begin to point out all the falsehoods in your post. If you made it in good faith, please examine your views, otherwise stop trolling.

Re: Vegan takeaway orders quadruple over past two years

#230

Post by SomeOtherThrow »

geddy wrote: post #190
SomeOtherThrow wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ever notice there are never any animal-based superfoods? This must be a marketing gimmick; eating animals is very nutritious—it's just not sufficient. However, this is the same as Avacado/acai berry/whatever. I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit.

> I have heard milk referred to as a superfood quite a bit. Might have something to do with the billions spent on marketing meat and dairy. Pretty big industries with pretty big financial contributions to our wonderful politicians, for decades now.

While the dairy lobby is 100% real, I haven't seen anything that comes close to an analogue of dairy outside the animal kingdom. The combo of high calorie sugar, protein, and fat is pretty hard to beat without explicitly enriching the food. Even after enriching it's quite difficult to hit that calorie density and have something that you want to drink/eat.

I would probably be fine with replacing it with a lighter version of soylent (it's too thick to serve as milk), but the idea that we drink milk because of marketing, or that they're artificially inflating the nutrition you get out of milk, is laughable.

The plant "milk" lobby, on the other hand tries to trick me into buying their product every time I'm at the damn store by redefining "milk" to mean "that white liquid".... https://plantbasedfoods.org/plant-based-foods-association-te...

> Companies selling dairy alternatives are using easy to understand, clear, descriptive, and truthful language on labels. Our members and others in this category, are using common English words that consumers understand: milk, cheese, yogurt and butter. To our members, and to consumers, these words represent functionality, form and taste, not necessarily the origin of the primary ingredient.

That's bullshit and they know it. If you ask for butter, or cheese, or yogurt at the store and they give you a vegan product you'd be right to be annoyed. They approximate the food only at the shallowest level of perception and are very different foods to work with in the kitchen.

Also, I do like almond milk—just not as a milk replacement.

Post reply on HN