I've always been skeptical of the food desert phenomenon.
Colin Spencer on why people hate on vegetarians:
Although the right to eat in any style one likes has not been a much-discussed issue, at least in huge public forums, vegetarians — along with people whose eating styles differed from the norm for religious reasons — were long treated as a minority, especially, notes Spencer, since the advent of Christianity.See also this piece:
He’s written that the story has long been one of “persecution, suppression and ridicule,” because vegetarianism is “not simply a criticism of meat-eating but a criticism of power … Not to eat meat, or to frown on the captivity and killing of animals, went to the heart of society.”
“The people who want to shift to a more vegetarian diet find they face physical constraints and mental constraints. It’s not very accepted in our society not to eat meat.”
Look no farther than the second New Yorker article in the same issue to slam vegans:
Upon joining CouchSurfing, you are instructed to compose an online profile, delineating your philosophy and mission, the skills you can teach others, your favorite music, movies, and books, and so much else that you might as well be applying to college... I’d selected Fielding and my other hosts after scrolling through hundreds of profiles, winnowing out those whose narratives included the words “party,” “vegan,” and “free spirit,” and the phrases “I believe in the journey,” “Never stop learning, never stop loving,” and “Burning Man.”
On a more practical vegan note, don't be intimidated by claims that it's too hard (also from the Times article above:
Substitutes like almond milk and rice milk can shock the taste buds, and vegan specialty and convenience foods can cost two to three times what their meat and dairy equivalents do. And new vegans quickly discover that many foods in grocery stores and on restaurant menus have hidden animal ingredients.The first statement is irrelevant (you don't need specialty or convenience foods) and not really that true; the second one is entirely accurate. In the case of supermarkets, you have to be vigilant about reading ingredients (recall my warning about Trader Joe's soy cheese), and even I can slip (bought some veggie sausage patties with egg white in them, also at Trader Joe's). Restaurants are rough, this is true.
The article goes on about adjusting to tastes and substitutes, and my advice there is to quit chasing after 'fake' versions of the foods you know (I grabbed the sausage patties as a once-in-a-while thing, to serve with a homemade, delicious tofu scramble that I bet would convince an egg-eater (F., for one, is sold on it)).
As with many things in life, this is an area in which to go with the Times rather than the Post. Don't Dionne and Gerson sound positively, bipartisanly tortured by their low-carb delusion?
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Jonah Lehrer on creativity:
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