I was walking down to DRL from the Drexel trolley stop the other day when my heart leapt at the sight of a food truck:
Burgers, shakes, fries — and more! As if I need anything more! It was love at first sight.
Imagine my dismay when, like Jacob with Leah, I beheld my would-be bride with full clarity:
Now, I know some pretty cool vegetarians, and I guess I can respect that, but this one felt like an attack on my home turf.
What I don’t understand about vegan/vegetarian food is the need to mimic (mock?) meat. This cart offers soy burgers, soy bacon burgers, soy crispy chicken, soy grilled chicken, and soy fish filets. To that I say: it’s all soy. One bean can’t possibly imitate all of those meats, and I don’t want to know what they do to it to try.
If folks really believe an animal-free lifestyle is the best way to go, shouldn’t such a diet celebrate the sufficiency of plants in their own right? The presence of so many meat knockoffs seems, to me, an admission of inadequacy.
When such duplicity exists, people get hurt. People who jump for joy for a food truck that offers real milk shakes, or specializes in great burgers. People like me.
I will note that the vegans and I found something to agree on. Fries! Freshly fried! For just $1.00! Soon golden, canola-soaked potatoes swam through my digestive tract.
I love happy endings.
Tags: food
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October 26th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Making fake meat IS celebrating the sufficiency of plants in their own right. Soy can, in fact, imitate all of those meats, and it can be pretty damn good (see Magic Carpet’s tofu meatballs, or many Morningstar Farms products). Meat knockoffs say, “Look, you can have the same thing without anything having to die or live in abuse for it.”
Maybe you should give this stuff a try and see that it’s pretty good. Soy is protein, veggie are generally pretty healthy (exception of those fries, obviously), and a vegetarian diet is not only better for you personally but also for the hundreds of animals that would be killed in your name. I’m not a huge PETA fan, but the American meat industry is too disgusting to be ignored.
Thanks for telling me about the cart, though! I’ll check it out.
October 28th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
fake meat makes me cry.
December 1st, 2007 at 4:22 pm
[…] my declared anti-vegetarian tendencies, a friend of mine convinced me this week to take a Magic Carpet Foods […]