To be annoyed that vegan options have replaced vegetarian?

[Sacredhandbag]

It's only a silly gripe in the grand scheme of things but it's bloody annoying.

I've been a vegetarian my whole life but since veganism has become more popular and more and more people are becoming part of the movement (and good on them!) it's like restaurants, cafes and hotels have skipped adding vegetarian options and thought "well vegan options covers both so we'll just add a few of those"

No! I am not vegan. I am vegetarian. I still want my eggs, my cream, my cheese, my butter. I want a stilton and broccoli bake, not a grilled bit of cauliflower!

Afternoon tea (I'm a fan and have one as often as I can) is the worst for it. There's an ordinary menu and then there's a vegan menu and that's it. You order one or the other. I don't want chicken or fish sandwiches but I sure as hell want my scones with proper clotted cream! So I have to be specific about the sandwiches and say I want some from one menu and some from the other. Bloody annoying.

Any other veggies feel the same?

Peak vegan below.

Completely agree. I’ve been vegetarian for about 25 years and I like cheese dammit 😂

I'm vegetarian ( for more than 30 years ) & I find the increase in vegan choices a good thing rather than a bad thing. We now have a few fully vegan restaurants near me that are fantastic ( with no fake meat ). We had nothing like that a few years ago.

I don't like fake cheese or fake meat, but both are easy to avoid. I'm out tonight to a local pub & have just checked my options - a celeriac pie with veg & gravy or a curry. Both vegan rather than vegetarian & both will be lovely hopefully.

It might be news to some restaurants, but even omnivores can eat vegetarian and vegan food. I have been vegetarian for almost 40 years. You would think the choices would have improved in that time.

I seldom eat out, but I do often look at the menus of local establishments, especially when they promise ‘a new and exciting menu has arrived’. Unfortunately, it seems that doesn’t apply to the vegetarian option.

I'm confused, where are you dining? Pork products are generally only in pork dishes. There's no hint of pig in most non pork/bacon/ham dishes.

I can hand on heart say that my chickens mainly don't want their eggs. They lay them and leave them and when my son forgets to collect them, the bloody magpies steal them.

Maybe once or twice a year, one of our hens will go broody and we facilitate her hatching her eggs and keep the resultant chicks as part of our flock. Though the bloody magpies murdered half of the last clutch before they hatched because, you know, they'd gotten in the habit of stealing the hens' discarded eggs. It's the circle of life as Disney said. This year we hope that no unborn chicks will be murdered by magpies as we've been super diligent about collecting all the "discarded" eggs in hopes the magpies will bugger off elsewhere.

I'm also 99% sure our two pet cows don't have much use for butter or cream (they prefer grass) but wouldn't bet the house on the goats not wanting a goats cheese tartlet as those bastards will literally eat anything.

Is it more to do with the storage / preparation/ cooking ?
You can’t prep / store / cook vegetarian food with meat & you can’t prep / store / cook vegan food with dairy or meat.
Offering all 3 means 3 sets of storage, 3 sets of prep area & 3 sets of cooking utilities in case of cross contamination

I must say a lot of the chain restaurants (think zizzi, ask) do pastas that are vegetarian as a base and then it says 'add chicken or pancetta' etc below.

It's the same with the milk and gluten free offerings, they are clumped in together as free from to save on costs no doubt.

You’d be surprised the non pork options are often very limited, but it is more difficult at Christmas.

I agree. I eat a lot of vegan food generally, and I welcome good vegan options, but what I mind is awkwardly veganised things which don't suit it - e.g. a risotto which in my view depends on parmesan.

I'm also 99% sure our two pet cows don't have much use for butter or cream (they prefer grass) but wouldn't bet the house on the goats not wanting a goats cheese tartlet as those bastards will literally eat anything

I'm not vegan so not criticising you using their milk - but they do have use for it obviously it's for feeding their calves.

Yup - life long veggie here. The new fancy Mexican near me only does vegan - so no cheese on nachos/quesadillas - been replaced with…jackfruit 🤨

That's nice. But you're not supplying British supermarkets & restaurants with eggs & dairy products, they're generally being supplied by industrial levels of animal exploitation and cruelty. Most people are fine with that, some are conflicted and some find it unacceptable.

Nobody is going to change their position unless they come to it themselves.

YANBU! DD is vegetarian but also has a serious nut allergy. She avoids vegan food like the plague as it often contains nuts (not just sprinkled on top where you can see them, but very much hidden, like creams made of cashews, cashew hot chocolate, etc). She sometimes wonders if she as a vegetarian, should go back to eating meat because she can’t risk having the vegan options!

This really annoys me as I am vegetarian but intolerant to soy and vegan alternative dairy products are almost always soy based! I want a vegetarian option when I go out, partly for the taste but also so I don’t get an upset stomach.

I read the menu. It sounded great.

What do you think I’d do, drive 90 minutes to a place I’d booked 4 weeks ago, having checked the menu online AND having had similar options before that weren’t vegan… then find out last minute they’d swapped butter for some other crap and go home instead, with no birthday meal for DG? Jesus.

It’s perfectly fine for vegetarians to have a moan on AIBU. It’s not peace in the Middle East and fixing climate change in here, it’s griping about bins and neighbours parking.

Go take your sanctimony to a different part and Mumsnet if AIBU topics are too petty for you.

I bloody love a vegan burger now and then #fuckbeanburgers misses point of thread

@TheElvesLongSleeves I'd have thought that there would be more vegetarians than vegans. When eating out in a group, it is often a mix of people who are having a meat-free meal. Some will be avoiding meat because the meat isn't kosher or halal.
All these people are offered a vegan meal but none are vegan.

Another long term selective eater here, actually pescatarian. We started off making our own vegetarian options years ago, before you could buy so much ready done veggie stuff. When it suddenly became very “fashionable” to embrace a vegan lifestyle, as opposed to doing it for ethical reasons, there was a huge shift to produce more vegan options, and vegetarian products sort of disappeared from shelves and fridges/freezers quickly. Noticeably, vegan products were made to “taste, look and smell” like meat products more, so you would get burgers that bled, options that just tasted of…meat🤢 Some absolutely awful. We have gone back to making our own veggie style food nowadays, using mainly good quality vegetables and fruit, grains, spices, herbs. So I fully what you mean around vegan options.

I agree! Depending upon where you go, the options are also now often full of fake meat or plastic cheese and not an imaginative main dish made with actual vegetables! Ideally there would be a vegan and veggie option as many of my meat eating friends also eat the veggie option if it’s wholesome.

On the flip side when I’m commuting for work, I do think the lunchtime options for sandwiches and salads at Pret/M&S etc have become more imaginative and tasty.

I've noticed the odd place that only does vegan sandwiches, but that's all. If I don't like the choice, I go elsewhere but generally if they're made of granary bread, have salad and protein filling is likely to be tasty, that's fine (I'm pre-diabetic though so can't eat refined carbs and anything with veg is good for me!

It always struck me as odd that vegans or vegetarians would eat food that has been ultra processed to look like bacon or meat. If eating meat bothers you that much why on earth would you eat something that mimics it? By all means have a veggie burger - local cafe used to sell a veggie burger that consisted of lots of veg like potatoes, onions, brocolli etc and it was breadcrumbed - delicious!! Not a reconstituted meat-like consistency burger in sight! Or go for a plate of veg or salad that looks like it should!
That said when work used to lay on lunch for functions - the request would go out for numbers of veggie/vegan/meat and invariably the vegan/veggie options went first because the meat eaters would 'sample' them along with their options. Now that isn't on!!

I don't think it's odd - if people like meat but don't eat it for ethical or health reasons it makes total sense.

@LookSerious , I usually check the menu before I eat out and will sometimes check if they will do something especially (e.g. could a dish be made with no mushrooms). When you get there, nobody knows about it and someone ends up with no food, or a side dish.