 Vegetarianism
has a bad rep: Many people still think vegetarian cuisine is boring,
unhealthy, and eccentric. People make jokes about tofu and yogurt, and
too many vegetarian recipes highlight (yawn!) eggplant, zucchini,
artichokes and plain white rice. And over-steamed vegetables are the
new Kings of Bland -- as tasteless, colourless and wilted as the
dreadful boiled vegetables they replaced, and as unappetizing as food
can get.
If we're going to get rid of the farm factories, the grotesque abuse of
farmed animals, and the massive waste and destruction of Earth's land
for monoculture animal feed, we need to be bold, aggressive, and create
some buzz about meat-free diets. The failure of vegetarianism to go
mainstream has three causes:
- Lousy marketing -- With mad cow and the bird flu, there was a huge opportunity to make vegetarianism the prevalent human diet, and we blew it.
- Public ignorance
-- Most people don't know what it's about, and believe the myths
perpetrated by the meat and dairy industry, and even by some health
professionals.
- Lack of imagination and innovation
-- We need to use a lot more creativity to transform the food
production, processing and distribution industries if we hope to
supplant (pun intended) meat and dairy products as the staples of
quality Western cuisine.
Here are ten steps the industry, and we as citizens and consumers, could pursue to take vegetarianism mainstream:
- The first thing we need is a new name.
Vegetarianism misrepresents and under-represents meatless cuisine, and
veganism sounds like a disease. And don't get me started on lacto-ovo
and other hyphenated vegetarianism, which gives meat-free eating an
almost cult-like aura. Although I'm one of many to have gone (mostly)
vegetarian but not yet vegan, that's only due to lack of appetizing
options, and I believe we must strive to eliminate all animal products
from our diet. So I think we need one name for a meat- and dairy-free diet. It needs to be positive -- what it's about rather than what it's not
about. Even "animal-free" is too negative and political. Yet it must be
unambiguous ("fresh-food" and "healthy-food" are too fuzzy). And it
must be appetizing, short and
sweet. None of the existing terms meet these criteria. My suggestion,
and the term I use for the rest of this article, is botanic foods, (and those that eat only plant-based foods would then be botanivores), but I'm sure some creative minds could come up with something better.
- Teach people that grow-your-own botanic food is free.
Everyone loves a bargain, and growing your own fruits, vegetables,
legumes, nuts, herbs and spices costs almost nothing, gives you
bragging rights ("this came right out of the garden this afternoon"),
and gives you better-tasting foods. What we need, for those that live
in inhospitable climates and cities with no garden space, is
techniques, tools and plant varietals that let us grow edible plants
indoors or on balconies. That could also cut down on the need for
herbicides, insecticides and oil-based fertilizers. We need to make
gardening easier without making it unnatural.
- Make botanic substitutes available in bulk.
Most vegetarian meat-substitute products now in the stores are sold in
tiny portions, over-priced, over-processed, and over-packaged. Just as
you now buy a whole turkey, a five-pound tray of ground beef, or a
whole side of pork, you should be able to buy their botanic substitutes
in large quantities that are inexpensive and can be used easily in any recipe, not just the ones in the vegetarian cookbooks.
- Educate people that botanic foods are easy and quick to prepare. Pre-prepared foods are proliferating not because people are lazy, but because they are too busy to prepare and cook meals themselves. Many
botanic foods can be served (and are delicious) raw, and an arranged
medley of raw foods -- fruits, nuts, legumes, berries, salad-stuffs,
vegetables -- with appropriate garnishes and dips and sides (wild or
brown rice, potatoes, breads) can be visually stunning, very
nutritious, and quick to prepare.
- Invent and celebrate botanic sauces.
The master chefs of France learn first and foremost how to make great
sauces (many of which are meat- and dairy-free), yet much 'traditional'
vegetarian cuisine is terribly plain. We need to learn, and teach, the
making of great botanic sauces, chutneys, dips, soups and other blends
that add zip, variety and depth to botanic cuisine. The three most
popular flavourings in the world -- vanilla, lemon, and chocolate --
are all botanic.
- Merge the best of international botanic cuisine.
Much Asian cuisine is vegetarian, but there are meat- and dairy-free
staples in almost every cuisine on the planet. In my opinion, for
example, the Scandanavians make the world's best breads. And there are
plants in Africa that most of us, to our impoverishment, we have never
tasted. Botanic cuisine needs to be a fusion cuisine, not a substitute
for any local ethnic cuisine.
- Smash the myths and go on the offensive.
We need to counter the myths, propagated by meat-addicts, the meat and
dairy industry, and quite a few health professionals, that a botanic
diet is unhealthy. There is overwhelming evidence that a botanic diet
lowers risk of cancer, heart disease, and a host of other diseases that
are endemic in our society, and this health improvement far outweighs
the shortage of iron, zinc and B12 that may occur in botanic diets (and can easily be remedied by supplements in any case). And we need to start learning and telling (loudly)
the truth about meat -- the preservatives, antibiotics, chemicals and
other crap in it, the dangers of food poisoning, bacterial infection,
Mad Cow and other animal disease infection, not to mention
arteriosclerosis and other diseases associated with animal fats. Fruit
and vegetable farmers should be countering the meat and dairy industry
propaganda in their own ads.
- Invent new substitutes for dairy and meat products.
Many people have gone vegetarian but not vegan because some of their
favourite foods -- cheese and ice cream for example -- still have no
equivalents that are as palatable as the dairy originals. We need more
research into this, because it's a major stumbling block -- people are
willing to go botanic, but not if it involves sacrifice. And we should
be cautious about over-reliance on soybeans for substitutes -- too much
high-sodium soy (like too much of anything) is not good for you, and
monoculture of any kind is fragile and economically unwise. I read
recently that the number of species and varietals of most commercial
plants (fruits and vegetables) has dropped by 60-95% in the last twenty
years (can't find this again on the Web -- can anyone help?) -- which
means that new plant diseases could decimate crops much more easily.
Whose dumb idea was it to have everyone in the world eating just one
specific varietal of broccoli -- don't they realize that biodiversity
is critical to ecological resilience and evolution?
- End agricultural subsidies.
I've talked about this before. Without these subsidies we'd have much
less meat eaten, much less land given over to animal feed production,
and much less concentration of farm ownership. They're an abomination,
we all pay for them, a handful of rich corporations benefit (and use
the profits to brainwash us into eating their unhealthy products), and
economies all over the world are distorted and bankrupted by them.
- Educate people that a botanic diet can help you lose weight.
If nothing else catches the eye of most dumbed-down, meat-addicted,
unhealthy consumers, the promise that a botanic diet can be delicious,
nutritious, and almost painlessly take off the pounds (provided the
foods eaten aren't all starches and the sauces not too oily) should be
enough to get people on the bandwagon.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
