Laboratory tests of vegan restaurants in LA find some aren't | Hacker News Reader

Laboratory tests of vegan restaurants in LA find some aren't

quarrygirl.com

89 pointsmariorz45 comments

The subject matter is interesting, but what I find most interesting is a blog performing real, 'hard-hitting' local journalism, of genuine interest to a very specific social subgroup.

The mainstream media had this idea first, they picked up the story of the New York highschool student who tested Red Snapper in various sushi restaurants and found that it was often Talapia.

That story got repeated in some jurisdictions, now a year or so later someone gets around to doing it with vegan food.

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EDIT:

Sushi from New York: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/22/science/22fish.html?scp=3&...

Sushi from Toronto (reported in Vancouver): http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=4381b...

If you really want a "what food is advertised as isn't what it really is" story search youtube for Vegan Marshmallows. (short: some guy was supplying a 'vegan' gelatin substitute to several groups (not just vegans) and when it was tested it had animal products in it and the guy 'disappeared').

Revealing that some companies/restaurants aren't always truthful isn't a new thing. Certainly not only a year old. It's really as old as investigative journalism in general. Dating all the way back to "The Jungle".

Edit: and what you're really saying is that 'mainstream media' just copied the idea too. And from a grassroots-level at that.

As a non-vegan, these recipes truly baffle me. Why on earth would anyone eat that? Surely there are some nice, simple dishes you can make using fruits and nuts and vegetables, rather than these massively processed soy products pretending to be meat or fish or cheese? Seriously, what's the point?

I'm a vegan primarily for health reasons, so I generally agree with you. I eat mostly 'plant-based whole foods', in the words of Joi Ito.

At the same time, it's nice to be able to eat a variety of foods. Some people who are vegans primarily for ethical reasons rather than health or taste reasons may miss meat and/or cheese a lot (especially in the early stages). In this case, these products provide a substitute for the foods that they may remember and enjoy but no longer choose to eat.

Doug Coupland called these kinds of people "crypto-carnivore". :)

I enjoy meat and veggie food but I draw the line at egg and milk substitutes. Real vegan cheese is appalling and no amount of processing can make up for it. "Soy" cheese that uses milk protein is much better... and there are a lot more simple vegetarians than radical-Shiite vegans. Nor is there always a bright line. I have heard good arguments over whether honey is or is not vegan.

Truth - as a vegan I find the best meals are those which are almost entirely produce based with some simple grains to add texture etc. I am not a "raw food" type but I love well prepared raw food. Even working from home I have a hard time being able to shop and prepare to eat a healthy raw diet so I fall back on frozen veg, brown rice, quinoa, beans and lentils.

Eating out is always going to be a compromise if you really care about what goes into your body. I would prefer to reserve it for when I am out of town or special occasions - but even then what is more special than actually taking the time to cook yourself?

Yeah, I always thought faking meat with vegetables has a certain amount of hack value, but people who are serious about a vegetarian diet are better off mostly eating cusines that are designed to be vegetarian, to get the proper nutrient balance. True veganism is really hard, because you can't really trust processed foods.

From the food hacking perspective, it'd be cool if someone did the opposite: fake vegetables using meat. Making beef have the taste and texture of a carrot would be pretty impressive.

Depends on what you mean by 'processed' too. There are some very rich flavors that can be produced just by throwing cashews into a food processor/blender. I don't think that many people would say that throwing nuts through a blender would really 'processed'. (I really think that a lot of people just see 'processed' as some block box where ingredients go into a factory and come out the other side somehow 'tainted', but how and why they are 'tainted' is absent from the discussion)

This is going to have some pretty big reprecussions for the restaurants in question. A few years back the same thing happened on the east coast when someone ate a vegan philly "cheese" steak at a vegan joint and swore down that it could NOT be vegan. They ordered one to go and utilized their campus laboratory to discover that, yes, it had casein in it. Turned out that the supplier of the restaurants vegan cheese had not been entirely honest. It looks like the same thing is happening with a lot of these cases. Most people source their vegan "meats" from central import supermarkets and the people doing the translation seem to be leaving out a few crucial facts i.e. "this vegetarian fish contains fish" etc.

This is another great reason to source your food locally. When you are having to trace the contents of what is going into your mouth across state borders let alone oceans you're going to have some difficulty.

One of my long term plans is to open a restaurant which sources everything locally (with in the county) - it will be inherently vegan but will not champion that so as to not turn people off of the concept but rather push the idea of healthy food supporting local business and thus the overall food security for the community.

It's actually better to eat food that is seasonal than local. Case in point, if you buy local tomatoes during the winter they are grown in a greenhouse that burns more energy than shipping tomatoes up from Mexico.

I recently found out that most (maybe all?) rice that's grown in California is grown in an area where they need to pump the water uphill to irrigate that area. Energy/greenhouse gas-wise it's more environmentally-friendly to import the rice from India.

Load of people seem to think that 'local' implies something like a small town and therefore must be better and/or closer to the earth or something, but that's not always the case.

I agree about seasonal eating patterns and I guess that is implicit if you are eating local organic (i.e. no crazy hydroponic winter tomatoes). Living in utah that would mean the winters would bring a lot of grains, canned/bottled fruit and vegetables from the growing season etc. How does a fresh vegetable stew with some home made bread not sound good?

On rice - I actually tried growing rice in my apartment using 5 gallon buckets one suspended in the other so that there is a constant supply of water in the bottom (I think the term is self watering container). I just threw in some soil and tossed a hand full of organic brown rice and it sprouted within the week! I am not sure how much I could have grown had I taken it past that point but I was surprised that it even sprouted!

That's actually pretty cool that your tried to grow your own rice. My comment is mainly because I know there are a lot of people out there with only partial knowledge of the reasons behind things like 'local'. Some people think "it's not being shipped in from Mexico or Columbia so it's obviously not using as much energy" while others just do it to try and support local business. But that first group is grossly misinformed.

Casein is a huge problem. I went to the nearest grocer (a Safeway) and looked at the ingredients in all of the "vegan" cheeses and psudo-meats. All contained casein or some ambiguously named "milk protein".

Also, soy protein (isolate and concentrate) is harmful and is contained in a wide variety of additional vegan foods:

http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2005nl/april/050400pusoy.htm

Bottom line: For best results eat foods in their natural state or as close as possible, with minimal processing.

I'm assuming by "best results" you mean "the greatest probability of not consuming any animal products whatsoever"

For the "best results nutritionally", you're probably better of eating animal products, including ones that have been cooked.

http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2008/09/15/he_co...

Quite the contrary (that research makes the common logical error of assuming that just because something may have conferred a selection advantage over eons of evolution, that it does so today in a world with no calorie/nutrient scarcity). See the following thread and article:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=676446

and

http://www.amazon.com/China-Study-Comprehensive-Nutrition-Im...

There is also an alternative theory that "Man's ability to digest starchy foods like the potato may explain our success on the planet"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6983330.stm

So does this mean that a diet rich in potato is best nutritionally? Of course not. In evolutionary times whatever could deliver the most calories was 'best nutritionally'. Our inbuilt instinct to follow this path has most likely lead to the current obesity epidemic. To work out what is the best diet for our current circumstances you need to actually study how different diets impact health. And the results are clear - the best diet includes little or no meat (excluding fish).

Count yourself lucky. In South Africa chicken counts as the vegetarian option.

I used to work with a guy that insisted meat didn't count when he was outside the country. He was traveling abroad for business or vacations at least 100 days of the year.

I have been on a "gluten-free" diet for a couple years now. This means that I have to carefully inspect the ingredients list of everything I eat, something that I didn't really do before. The results are unappetizing to say the least. Even worse, sometimes potentially harmful ingredients are not necessarily listed, or are listed by some rarely-known name.

If you wish to have good control over what you're eating, whether that means avoiding gluten, casein, animal products, soy, etc; your best bet is to prepare all of your own food. Don't eat out, don't buy preprepared foods at the market.

Disclaimer: I'm not quite disciplined enough to follow that advice, and I know that I end up eating small amounts of gluten. It's a trade off between stress and nutrition, I guess. Since vegans usually don't get sick by eating trace amounts of non-vegan food, my advice is to just deal with it. And be happy that you don't have a lot of real food allergies (unless you do, of course).

I guess the 'real' issue here is whether or not restaurants are knowingly using non-vegan ingredients and lying to their customers (i.e. committing fraud) just to turn a buck.

Restaurants lying about what is really in their food should tick _everyone_ off vegan or non.

Vegan and vegetarian always fascinated me why do they, or you if you are among them, seek out normal foods that should not fit their diet, such as lets say vegetarian hamburgers bacon etc.

Or even from the article why are they searching out quesadillas, cheese pizza, pancakes things that me seem to clearly not be vegan other than that they may have found a way to make remnants of them.

It just seems counter-cause to me.

What makes a pancake inherently something 'not vegan'? The ethical concerns which led me to veganism in no way removed pancakes from my desired diet. As such, I make them on a regular basis.

Just because somebody doesn't eat meat doesn't mean they don't like the concept of the meal in general. I make vegan versions of tacos, hamburgers, chicken salad, and egg salad because I like everything else about the meal other than the animal product. If I can substitute the animal for a plant based alternative I can enjoy the meals I've always loved, why wouldn't I?

pancakes: milk and eggs is why i say it isn't vegan from the pictures the vegan pancakes are not what I would call pancakes and maybe there is another way to make them though

I can understand lets say tofu salad or tacos, things that the meat isnt really the ruling taste I do not understand tofu burgers, cheese pizza, quesadillas.

Thank you for your reasons though.

For pancakes, you can use soy/rice milk and substitute apple sauce for the eggs - this works in most baked foods also.

Did not know that :)

Before my wife went vegan, we never had milk/whole milk around the house and soy/rice/almond milk works in pancakes even when using eggs.

There's some pictures of vegan pancakes here, and to me, they appear indistinguishable from pancakes with animal products.

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=22912210

Allergen free, gluten free, vegan pancakes

Many people are vegan due to ethical concerns. If I'm only vegan because I'm appalled at the livestock industry's treatment of animals, but not that I necessarily have a problem with eating meat, what then?

You can't say that _everyone_ is vegan and/or vegetarian for the same reasons. Some people try to eat organic 'free-range' meat because it's certified to not have the animals pumped full of chemicals, others because they want the animal to not be mistreated.

That said, why is it that you can't boycott and/or not eat something while eating a substitute? A (admittedly bad) analogy would be to boycott the RIAA by _not_ buying/listening to Britney Spears, but then buying/listening to a similar-sounding independent artist. You're saying that person is a 'poser' because they don't completely boycott anything that even _sounds_ like an RIAA-signed artist.

Vegetarian here, former meat eater. When I eat fake meats it's not because I want to pretend I'm eating meat, but because I like the taste or texture. I like to fry tofu in a frying pan and simmer it with kung pow sauce - that doesn't mean I wish it were chicken.

Products are labeled "mock chicken" or "veggie beef" to help in recipe substitution, too. It's a code that this form of processed veggie protein is suitable for recipes that call for ground beef, or taco meat, etc.

PS - when I first converted I loved Boca burgers because they tasted just like McDonalds burgers. Now I hat them... because they taste just like McDonalds burgers.

This reminds me of the schoolgirls in New Zealand who tested Ribena and found it contained almost no Vitamin C: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/27/schoolsworldwide...

If people ate 9 to 12 servings of fruits and vegetables a day, or better yet, ate only/mostly fruits and vegetables as their entire diet, they wouldn't think they need supplements like Ribena to get their Vitamin C, as well as a host of other nutrients.

Man,there are a lot of raw foodists chiming in on this article.

I'm not vegan, but now I have to wonder what contaminants are in my food.

Have a read of The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and you'll be wondering even more.

I'm not a vegetarian or vegan (meat is too tasty), but that book in many ways changed how I shop for food.

Why would a vegan blog do this in the first place? Presumably the vast majority of vegans are so for ethical reasons; they can't possibly be allergic to anything that has once been part of an animal. In which case, veganism (?) is basically the definition of "what you don't know can't hurt you."

I applaud the blog for their investigative journalism, but all they've really done is taken restaurant choices away from a group that already has a smaller number of places to eat.

Right? Am I missing something?

Does opening the box kill the cat?

What about people that are vegan/vegetarian for ethical and/or religious reasons? While it won't 'kill' them, people are making money by lying about a product to their customers (fraud). Is this a good thing?

Wouldn't you feel pretty violated if you thought that you were making an ethical choice, only to have the person helping turn out to be a cheat? (e.g. killing someone to put them out of the misery only to find out that they still had a desire/will to live)

An even better example would be if you were boycotting the RIAA by buying music from an independent label that claimed they weren't part of the RIAA. Only to find out that .5% of their profits really were going to the RIAA. Wouldn't you feel violated if all that time you thought that you were doing a good thing boycotting the industry, but you weren't entirely? Obviously it's better than if you were buying directly from big name labels like Sony,etc but you're still going to be pissed off at being misled.

Allergies are not the only non-ethical reason some people choose to avoid certain foods, and it's also not a all-or-not situation. Those who are concerned with high levels of "bad" cholesterol, risk of colon cancer, too much "high-quality" protein, etc... may look to decrease or eliminate certain foods such as meat, milk or egg.

Also, I wonder if you think that "what you don't know can't hurt you" applies to other ethical concerns. If you're government tortures people but doesn't tell you, does that insulate either them or you from any ethical responsibility? Would you also believe, in that hypothetical case, that a journalist who brought the story to light only served to weaken the people's faith in the government, or is there value in uncovering deception which prevents people from exercising their ethical choices?

I wonder how many vegans and vegetarians are also pro-choice and how they reconcile that inconsistency.

I debated whether or not to respond since you just sound like flame bait, but I guess I'll respond...

Vegan/vegetarian is a description of a diet, _NOT_ a philosophy. People can go vegan or vegetarian for a number of reasons: 1. boycott poor treatment of animals in the livestock industry 2. health concerns and/or allergies 3. dieting/losing weight 4. ethical concerns (not wanting to kill things) 5. religious practices

I'm sure there are many more. Pro-choice does not necessarily run counter to any/all of those. But even if you don't agree with someone's decision you can agree that they had a right to make it, no?

Edit: Just to add that years ago 'vegetarian' used to describe what 'vegan' now describes. But there are a lot of people nowadays that have given up meat, but not eggs/dairy so 'vegetarian' as a term has grown to largely describe those people.

Well, the thought just popped into my head because of the sites subtitle "meat is murder" (clearly someone who is vegan by reason #4) and the fact that the article deals with establishments in L.A. which people generally tend to associate with a less conservative political view.

Concerns about the results aside I found it wonderful that the people who carried out the experiment, while not producing a bulletproof scientific analysis, were very thorough and kept to the stated aim to have a fair scientific trial. Blinded randomization, repeated measurements, and further information about those tests would have been interesting to see, but the article manages to largely avoid jumping to unwarranted conclusions. They asked a fair question; performed systematic, documented experiments; and then produced compelling research to support their theory.

Altogether it's a testament to using science to explore everyday questions.

Reminds me of this story: http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSN26324168... (Where two teenage girls found out that Ribena (Blackcurrent) Juice didn't contain any Vitamin C - despite advertisements to the contrary. GSK eventually admitted 15 breaches of the NZ Fair Trading Act.

http://failblog.org/2009/06/29/bulletin-board-win/

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