As a devoted vegan flower-power child, this week is a frustrating but popular event that makes me want to cut off my ears. I understand that the week of March 18-24 is one that is greatly loved and supported by restaurants and Haligonians. Sure, it’s great exposure and competition for restaurants. But constantly hearing what kind of flesh sandwich you can’t wait to devour is extremely vomit inducing and hard for me to get my head around. I can understand that this week is one where people come together and bond over meals and get deals that allow them to have a cheap beer with their flesh sandwiches, but like WTF. I know that there is a demand for vegan/vegetarian burgers, and yes I know they’ve been minutely included in this event, but why isn’t there a vegan Burger Week where I can celebrate how wonderful plants are and not be HIGHLY excluded from this event? Feeling like the only vegan in Halifax is one thing, but why can’t we all just chill and bond over plant burgers with each other, y’know? —Passionate Groovy Vegan Chick
This article appears in Mar 17-23, 2016.
I think you vegans should go right ahead and have a week for your food, have three. I guarantee that none of us “flesh eaters” will try and stop you, or bitch about it. Just don’t get to upset when you’re not able to convert anyone. Peace and love OP.
I think there would totally be a vegan burger at some of these events/vendors if there was a demand for it. Most vendors would be adapting to the market to remain successful, and it’s just likely the overall demand isn’t there yet.
No One, NO ONE! is stopping you from gathering with your daisy sniffing, tree hugging, moon-beam worshipping love children friends. Go right ahead and gather around your dirt-burgers and speak to the world-unity of Peace and Love.
Personally, I’m going to stick with my flesh-burger, smothered in fried onions and dripping with cheddar cheese….. forever wishing that if only it was made from Unicorn. That would be the only way it could get any better.
I don’t know which sounds less appetizing “Flesh Sandwich” or “Plant Burger”. I can understand vegetarians but giving up cheese? Couldn’t do it.
A vegan burger is like decaf coffee, a misnomer that taste like crap. OB, you should be like me and join PETA (People Eating Tasty Animals).
Around 4% of the population of Canada are considered vegetarian and probably a lot less are vegan. If it was viable it would have been done. Conversation over. Feel free to pitch your idea to restaurants and see how you make out but I guess you don’t want your feeling hurt with the truth.
VEGGIES HAVE FEELINGS TOO, YOU CRUEL MONSTER!
Drink water, save an animal and a plant!
Vegan here. No resentment for burger week. Flesh eaters can fill their boots. Do I feel left out? No. Because the only plate I care about is the one in front of me.
Everything about this is why people have a hate-on for vegans.
I know, Cranky. And it’s us non-preachy vegans who suffer the brunt for the actions of a few misguided souls who feel the need to enlighten others.
Agree completely, Oceanchick. I know a few and they’re normal regular folk and fun to party with. Its the ones who bring a born again zealousness to the table that ruin it.
Also, a non-meat burger can taste pretty damn good if its done right.
BTW, a Vegan Food Week would be a loverly thing.
Perhaps someone with more free time than I is up to organizing it. It would be a fine way to introduce something to people who might not otherwise have such a good chance. The surprising thing about vegan cuisine is that it is not made from weird ingredients. It can just simply food that many non-vegan people already eat that contains no animal products. Hummus and pita: vegan. Roasted root vegetable salad: vegan. Many soups, e.g. hot and sour soup: vegan. Even good old home made PB&J: vegan.
Non-meat burgers can indeed rock, Cranky, but you’re right about the being done right part. I’ve come across some pretty nasty stuff being slapped between two halves of a bun trying to call itself cuisine. I’ve even created some in my attempts to craft something decent.
Loved and disliked some of both meat and veggie burgers. Room for both in the wide wonderful word of eating. It is all in the ingredients and the magic a good cook does to them.
At least animals have a least a chance to get away. Poor fruits and veggies can’t move and don’t have a chance of escape.
I love vegan meals. They make an awesome side dish when served with rib eye
You vegans will never thrive in a world where there’s bacon. Mmmmm….crispy pig flesh…..
Speaking of food, a guy walks into a diner and sits at the counter.
He asks the server, “Still servin’ breakfast?”
She says yes, so he says “Then I’ll have two eggs-runny on top and burnt on the bottom, five strips of bacon – well done on one end and still raw on the other, two pieces of toast – burnt black around the edges, and a lukewarm cup of coffee.”
Indignantly the server says, “We don’t serve that kinda stuff!”
The guy says, “Funny… that’s what I had in here yesterday…”
Factory farming animal cruelty is the #1 reason many vegans give up the delight you speak so temptingly of, Anna. Bacon is often cited as the most difficult of all the meats to let go of. For good reason, It tastes soooooooooooo good. We see this enjoyment in it’s purest form here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtMVMNST_g…
(so friggen cute)
Passionate Groovy Vegan Chick, You’re definitely not alone being a vegan in Halifax. Check out ‘Halifax Vegetarians/Vegans’ group on facebook. It’s a very active group of like-minded people.
To the meat eating people commenting here, who think eating meat and other animal products is ‘a personal choice’ — Watch a nonhuman animal bleed to death, after they’ve been ‘humanely’ stunned by a captive bolt gun (cows, and pigs), or by an electrical shock in a water bath (chickens) in front of you, and then ask yourself if you still think it’s about personal choice. If your meal had a victim, it sure isn’t a ‘personal choice’.
‘To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime.’ ~Romain Rolland
Well said Oceanchick about caring only for the plate in front of you.
sansdessein, I realized from the beginning that my diet is my own business and extend that courtesy to others.
I gave up meat when I came to the realization that I could not reconcile the awful reality of factory farming with my feelings about animal cruelty and still feel good about having meat on my plate. We all know the realities of factory produced meat. It is up to others to live with their own choices. It is not my job to enlighten or convert anyone.
No matter what is on your plates this weekend Happy Easter to all.
Using the requisite judgemental and condescending tone of an entitled and perpetually offended special interest warrior, PGHC manages to judge all of those that don’t subscribe to her lifestyle on one hand and complain about being excluded by those very people on the other. PGHC, please remember that you CHOSE to be vegan, and have therefore excluded yourself, not the other way around. If you’re so offended by the lack of a Vegan Burger Week, then get off your ass and start one instead of whining. I’m sure you could find scores of people like yourself that could gather at a local Vegan restaurant and pat each other on the back while looking down on those of us who enjoy meat from your moral high ground. PGHC you are the worst kind of person; the type that expects everyone to accept and cater to your lifestyle choice while refusing to do the same yourself.
Who disliked “oceanchicks” happy easter comment? Weird.
There’s a weird one in every crowd, willie_j. Usually it’s me.
“Around 4% of the population of Canada are considered vegetarian and probably a lot less are vegan. If it was viable it would have been done.” Only ~10% of EnVie’s customers are vegetarian or vegan. If your theory is correct, EnVie would have shut down long ago.
I’m disappointed there was only a tiny percentage of vegan burgers in this city. Then again, most restaurants have nothing to offer vegetarians/vegans except for French fries and lettuce (we take so much pride in our local restaurants and very few chefs can offer a single calorie dense vegan option on their menu??) Then on top of it, I had to listen to people having orgasms and taking selfies with their burgers. I’m happy it’s over. I did get the Foggy Goggle burger. It was delicious.
you say “why can’t we just love one another?”, and then hate on carnivores?