Looking at indianapolis this is laughably bad:

Joella’s Hot Chicken offers a unique twist on Southern comfort food with a fully vegan menu that includes flavorful plant-based chicken and house-made sauces.

Um… no. Not fully vegan. I think they briefly had one option but idk if that’s still a thing, not seeing it on the menu.

Jasmine Thai Restaurant

🌿 100% Vegan

Delight in an array of authentic Thai flavors with a fully vegan menu at Jasmine Thai Restaurant.

… the picture has shrimp in it, so also not 100% vegan

10th street diner - vegan friendly

This is one of the few vegan only restaurants in the city and is being done dirty here. There’s no option to report it as actually 100% vegan.

Anyway, the project seems neat and could be useful in the future. When i say laughably bad im referring specifically to the AI model being used to categorize these restaurants. I can only assume it was an AI mislabeling these obvious mistakes

Tofu is a general go-to as a meat alternative because of the high amount of protein, the many ways it can be cooked, and for being able to take on flavors well. Basically it’s very versatile. Lots of advice online for cooking tofu for a curry. My general advice is to freeze every block of tofu to give it good texture, then thaw and press. For a curry just think about if you want the tofu to be hard and firm, or more tender as this will impact how it is cooked.

A restaurant near me used to make delicious chocolate cake but shut down during initial covid lockdowns. I love nora cooks but idk why i never thought to check for a chocolate cake recipe. Going to have to give this a try

Edit: i have successfully recruited the MiL to assist next time she visits 😅

I have already excluded animal exploitation by not eating meat. Why would i reintroduce animal exploitation by consuming such a product?

It’s really not that extreme. And in my comment, the part you didn’t quote, i acknowledged some vegans may think the trade off is worth it, but i do not.

But thanks for the disingenuous mushroom nonsense. I love it when meat eaters come into a vegan space to insult me

I will once again and ask you the question you asked:

Wouldn’t you agree that endeavoring to do less harm […] is better than nothing?

Your comment is arguing against itself by suggesting insects are not worth the same level of endeavorment to no harm as other animals.

This goes back to the definition of veganism i shared, where it’s a way of life to exclude animal exploitation, cruelty, and death, as much as possible. I can’t prevent killing every insect, but i can go out of my way to not kill them. I can let my yard grow wild, i can plant plants that create a vibrant ecosystem for various insects. I can let a jumping spider live on my desk and visit me during lunch because it’s not bothering me. This is not an exhaustive list.

Ive already excluded animal meat from my diet, why would i introduce animal exploitation so i can eat lab grown animal meat?

You seem to be thinking on a global scale when you poise your question. I’m not. I’m thinking about me as an individual and my own way of life.

So why do you, specifically, need to consume meat so badly that this need must have at least some level of animal exploitation if not cruelty and death as well? And if you don’t already, are you willing to eat only lab grown meat going forward? If not, why not?

These can be rhetorical questions, mostly because i don’t come to vegan communities to debate or convert non-vegans so I’m unlikely to respond again. But if you’re being genuine in reducing harm then giving some thought to those questions i think will help you better live your beliefs.

What about insects? They are animals.

Lab grown meat / cloned cells are still initially extracted from animals. There is inherent exploitation and/or harm done to the animals. Some vegans may believe this utilitarian approach is ok. I do not.

Veganism isn’t a diet though. It is a way of life aimed towards excluding consumption of things that result in animal cruelty, exploitation, or death.

I’m not vegan because the vegan cheese is good. I’m vegan because i value life and, among many reasons, the dairy industry is atrocious.

You say if they can’t make the vegan cheese taste better then don’t bother, which is also problematic. The OP talks about how it is aimed to be more sustainable and mentions current vegan cheeses might use palm oil. Palm oil can be vegan if ethically sourced but the problem with the industry is that is not sustainable and leads to deforestation.

But even if you are not vegan, choosing to eat non-meat and non dairy alternative foods for even some of your meals can have a positive impact on the environment and your health.

It’s not that people think of it as “good”, they just don’t think about it at all. Most people don’t think about where their food really comes from, and where their demand for meat exists, capitalism maximizes profits.

Then there are other issues, like lack of empathy, or just not regarding animals as deserving of life. Some non-vegans may know the source of their food but they simply don’t care.

And then there’s always cognitive dissonance where they might care, but they shove that in the back of their mind and justify eating meat anyway.

All this makes it difficult for a one-size-fits-all approach to educating non-vegans in hope they’ll change their eating habits. It’s not a matter of truth or good, it’s a complex matter of knowing, having the capacity for empathy, recognizing animals as deserving of empathy, and then believing that this information is more important than their desire to eat meat.

I usually make stuff from scratch and follow vegan recipes so i don’t have to “veganfy” a recipe. Like my family loves Nora Cooks in general and there is a great nora cooks pancake recipe . We’ve made that as pancakes but usually go the waffle route. It’s pretty easy to make and leftovers are great in airfryer (ok in microwave). We usually make extra and have leftovers for 2-3 days

If i need to do a conversion on the fly i usually just do a quick internet search, check 1-3 sources and go with the consensus. My search is usually “[x] to [y] substitute ratio” or similar.

For your plant milk i would generally go 1:1 but it would depend on the type of plant milk since some is thinner than others. If you can’t find anything specific then do your best guess and treat it like an experiment, take notes, and adjust next time. For your specific case this post seemed fairly detailed, mentions usually 1:1 but goes more in depth. For the things i usually make though 1:1 seems to work fine for our Almond or soy milk.

Not necessarily, palm oil itself can be vegan since it is plant derived, but the practices to extract it most often are not vegan. There are many things that aren’t vegan that many people wouldn’t think of unless they’re really questioning the production of what they consume. Another good example is that a lot of beers are made with animal byproducts as part of the processing such as fining agents. If you just look at the label you wouldn’t know it’s not vegan unless you know to ask the manufacturer about their process. The same would apply to palm oil since some is supposedly sourced ethically and sustainably. Personally i avoid it because i think a lot of places green wash their process and it is easier to just avoid it than to verify if the palm oil was really ethically/sustainably sourced or not.

There’s many more examples of “gotchas” like this that new vegans with good intentions may not know about. It’s a learning curve. When i was early on in my journey there was a lot of things i didn’t really understand but i just do my best and continually learn.

Sure, and many vegans do end up eating less ultra processed foods. But my point is that eating healthier isn’t what being vegan is about. Vegan isn’t a diet like many people think. It’s a way of life to reduce and eliminate harm to animals

The spirit of veganism is excluding consumption of things that result in animal cruelty, exploitation, or death. There is no requirement to avoid ultra-processed foods

https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism

Two things can make Oreos not vegan:

• some flavors just aren’t (the flavors that are vegan are just accidentally vegan)
• some factories use bone-char sugar.

You can be a vegan but make very sugary and unhealthy snacks. You could then consume that and eat more calories than you burn in a day, and over time you would become overweight.

This means it is possible to be an overweight vegan, and as you mention this is also possible with the processed vegan foods that have become available that make it easier to consume more calories than you burn in a day.

I don’t buy used non-vegan clothes or items but if i already owned them then i will continue to use them. They will naturally get phased out over time

“We need more research to find less painful ways to kill shellfish,” Dr. Sneddon urges.

It’s sad that this is the takeaway and not “let’s not eat these creatures that experience stress and pain”

Yeah i only see 2 paragraphs but it is listed as an 8 minute read/listen. Archive.ph also doesn’t show full article

It wouldn’t be a hard requirement for me for dating, but they’d need to have empathy and willingness to discuss veganism. Long term id expect them to become vegan, not because of me but because they came to know and believe in the vegan philosophy. I just don’t think i could be with someone long term who doesn’t value all life the same way as me.

I think the crux of it is making people care though. If people don’t care about animal well-being enough to become vegan, what is going to make them care about the environment enough to become vegan? The environmental crisis is going to have to get a lot worse before people even consider giving up their precious meat

Conveniently ignores that cage-free isn’t all that better though. And in some aspects worse, since they cut off tips of their breaks, and cage free has a higher mortality rate than caged chickens.