Plant-Based
Mar. 12th, 2024 06:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo Veganism- the word not the practice- has existed since 1944. It was coined by Donald Watson and Dorothy Morgan- later a married couple- for their magazine The Vegan News. Watson took the first and final syllables of Vegetarianism and rammed them together. Veganism, he wittily explained, was "the beginning and end of vegetarianism".
There wa always a suggestion of fighting talk about it- and the fact that there's a star called Vega and anyone or anything hailing from there (like the aliens in Carl Sagan's novel Contact) is rightly described as Vegan- contributes an accidental overtone or undertone of spaceiness.
Ailz and I have been talking about this. Clearly Vegan is the established term and isn't going to fade away any time soon but really we'd rather be using the less aggressive term "plant-based". A lot of the manufacturers prefer it too as it's less likely to put off customers.
"Plant-based" implies a certain latitude- which, I sheepishly admit, we now allow ourselves. Yes, we base our diet on plants but once in a while we'll allow ourselves a nibble of proper cow-based cheese or a meal of fish and chips. I love sea-food, I love a cheese sauce- and if a restaurant has something on its menu that includes these two elements I'm not going to be choosing the worthy but boring plant-based burger.
I still draw the line at meat- and I'm sparing with dairy. I have eaten cheese today and a couple of little cakes made by a Friend- that probably contained butter (I didn't enquire) but my two main meals of the day were homemade vegetable curry and- for supper- mushrooms on toast....
There wa always a suggestion of fighting talk about it- and the fact that there's a star called Vega and anyone or anything hailing from there (like the aliens in Carl Sagan's novel Contact) is rightly described as Vegan- contributes an accidental overtone or undertone of spaceiness.
Ailz and I have been talking about this. Clearly Vegan is the established term and isn't going to fade away any time soon but really we'd rather be using the less aggressive term "plant-based". A lot of the manufacturers prefer it too as it's less likely to put off customers.
"Plant-based" implies a certain latitude- which, I sheepishly admit, we now allow ourselves. Yes, we base our diet on plants but once in a while we'll allow ourselves a nibble of proper cow-based cheese or a meal of fish and chips. I love sea-food, I love a cheese sauce- and if a restaurant has something on its menu that includes these two elements I'm not going to be choosing the worthy but boring plant-based burger.
I still draw the line at meat- and I'm sparing with dairy. I have eaten cheese today and a couple of little cakes made by a Friend- that probably contained butter (I didn't enquire) but my two main meals of the day were homemade vegetable curry and- for supper- mushrooms on toast....
