If everyone was vegan would restaurants survive

[meepmoop]

I was reading about a protest at a steakhouse and wondered if everyone became vegan would many restaurants/eateries survive?

Obviously there are vegan restaurants but would there be enough variety to keep others going?

I'm not vegan myself or against it the thought just popped in my head

The highest density of calories are in nuts and oils and not meat produce (apart from obviously fat you can extract form some meats).
Ah yes, almonds - rather a catastrophic water resource footprint
and palm oil - splendid stuff

Thank you but I'll stick to my grass fed beef raised in areas where the soil cannot be ploughed.

Huh? It's demand for meat that's leading to deforestation worldwide. But not in Scotland

I haven't read the whole thread.

last week I was having my hair done at the local salon and was introduced to the lady besides me who had recently closed her vegan restaurant,
She said she had lost lots of money during the time she had run it and selling it on was the only option, ok so it's a niche market but it very much suits the area here , I'm not vegan but I am a foodie and their food was delicious so had visited on a number of occasions, it was popular and seemed to have regular footfall and good reviews , so I would say in the unlikely event that either she was very lazy or very useless at being a business woman it's a difficult restaurant type to survive

What makes you think vegan food can't be varied enough to support a number of restaurants without repetition or overlap? (Or conversely, think how many pubs/restaurants the average town has which all serve a Sunday roast - the same Sunday roast menu - and seem to do fine.)

I'm ex veggie, now back to being an omnivore, but even I could put together half a dozen "dinner party quality" vegan dishes - so think what a professional chef could put together.

Thank you but I'll stick to my grass fed beef raised in areas where the soil cannot be ploughed.

It's still a huge carbon cost:
The research also found grass-fed beef, thought to be relatively low impact, was still responsible for much higher impacts than plant-based food. “Converting grass into [meat] is like converting coal to energy. It comes with an immense cost in emissions,” Poore said."
www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth

@Talkinpeece if you’re ONLY eating beef from small scale farmers in unploughable areas, you carry on. That is at least sustainable, and a cow goes a long way. But globally beef farming is causing far more deforestation than palm oil? Yet all this uproar about palm oil but everyone’s carrying on eating beef...

Dunno how that ? seeped in

WalnutToast
If cattle and sheep farming ceased in marginal areas, what would you have those people do for a living?

Buffalo
Production of foodstuffs for feed lot beef is indeed pretty indefensible.
Meat should go back to being an expensive luxury.
The western obesity crisis is due to eating too much too often.
Westerners should seek to walk more lightly on the earth
and veganism and vegetarianism have a small part to play
but only a small one

• pigs and chickens are the most efficient method to get rid of food scraps
• eating the pigs and chickens is the best way to close the circle on that food chain.

If anyone's interested in the actual numbers, this
www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-06-01-new-estimates-environmental-cost-food# is a good summary of a recent study in Science which looked at the environmental impact of different foodstuffs.

This is the "headline" paragraph:
"They found large differences in environmental impact between producers of the same product. High-impact beef producers create 105kg of CO2 equivalents and use 370m2 of land per 100 grams of protein, a huge 12 and 50 times greater than low-impact beef producers. Low-impact beans, peas, and other plant-based proteins can create just 0.3kg of CO2 equivalents (including all processing, packaging, and transport), and use just 1m2 of land per 100 grams of protein." (Note that they do distinguish between high impact and low impact beef production.)

I'd need Floradix daily if I didn't eat some heme iron. Floradix would make good profits.

There could be just as many restaurants as now, but selling nicer and more ethical food. Plenty of cuisines are vegan or adaptable to being vegan. There's no need for meat at all actually

I know lots of vegans and we out together often... most places will make a vegan dish and there are loads of vegan restaurants in London...

@Strokethefurrywall I find that people who call being vegan a 'plant-based diet' are usually bigger wankers than other vegans. V pretentious

Only the ultra poor are vegetarian or even vegan in Asia

Across the whole of Asia, it's certainly true that most people eat meat. However, it's also true that there are large regions in India where being vegetarian is absolutely the norm, e.g. in Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab. Vegetarianism certainly isn't restricted to the ultra-poor in those states - quite the contrary. Traditionally, people from the lower castes are more likely to rat meat than those from the higher castes.

My son is dairy and egg allergic. As a result I have discovered so many delicious vegan foods.
Pizza Hut/Zizzi/ Pizza express do amazing vegan pizza.

Indian vegetable curries and samosas etc can be delicious.

The best cakes I have ever had are vegan ones.

We treat ourselves sometimes and go to an ice cream parlour that does vegan ice cream sundaes and vegan crepes

alexa
Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab
Link me a menu from a restaurant there that is vegan .....
just that my local Punjabi place has a mean line in goat

Traditionally, people from the lower castes are more likely to rat meat than those from the higher castes.
This typo made me laugh.

I'm not a vegan though and I only eat plant based foods.

I still wear leather shoes, eat honey, occasionally local eggs from chickens I can see are treated the way chickens should be, and if I'm out and there's no vegan option, I'll eat a goats cheese salad and pick out the cheese.

As ever on this site, die hard vegans will go hell for leather (literally) if I were to call myself a "vegan" because veganism is about far more than food is it not?
But I eat only plant food and don't eat dairy, gluten or processed foods. So plant based, not vegan.

It's not hard.

Talkin, I'm talking about vegetarianism, I haven't made any claims re veganism.

And yes, lots of Punjabis eat meat, I'm not arguing otherwise. However, if you go to my husband's village, you'll be hard pressed to find people who even eat egg.

I believe Rajasthan has the highest rate of vegetarianism across the country.

@Talkinpeece there are nuts and oils grown in our climate, you don't need palm oil or almonds, you know it but for the sake of argument decide to pick up on two which we should reduce consumption of. Ever heard of walnuts, hazelnuts, linseed, rapeseed?