On Vegan “Friendly” Food

This day didn’t really go as planned and I ended up leaving my client early (her mother died!) and going to see Fracture, an entertaining film with a fabulous home in it (better than Cameron Diaz’s in The Holiday, which is actually similar to my house). I then went to dinner with my husband to a new Chinese restaurant, and while we were waiting I meandered into "Lovable Puppies," a puppy mill store where people driving Range Rovers go to plunk down $1,500 for a purebreed puppy. I waited for maximum attention to ask the owner where the dogs come from, not that it matters, as millions are euthanized each year in shelters, 25% of whom are purebreeds. I was dressed very nicely and spoke well and without a hint of anger. I acted ignorant and merely asked if all of that was true.

But back to the Chinese place. It has an entire page of "Vegan Friendly" entrees, which logic would tell you, contain no animal products. Au contraire. Vegan friendly means, as far as I could tell, that the entrees might like me. That’s the only conclusion I can make. Most contained eggs in some form or another.

All they had to do was say "vegetarian," and that would have been honest and solved the problem. But instead, they create an oxymoron that leaves you feeling like you’re being duped. Because I was a bit riled from my puppy store moment, I chose to wait and will call tomorrow to alert the management of their labelling issue.

Note to restaurant owners: Vegan is not a noun that can be modified in such a way that makes it more or less vegan–either it is or it isn’t. "Essentially vegan" isn’t vegan, nor is "vegan friendly." But unless we educate restaurateurs, kindly and clearly, we’ll keep getting mixed messages and accepting mixed messages about what’s acceptable to us. We must express our gratitude that we’re finally being served, and gently offer constructive solutions to the kinks and missteps that are an inevitable part of consciousness raising.