Vegans Are, Once Again, Getting Everyone Else In A Tizzy

Veganism has long had an unfriendly stigma, to say the least. However, many omnivores are easing their toes into the pool by dining at the growing number of vegetarian restaurants and adopting the vegan-before-6 p.m. routine. But the creator of this healthy diet, the famed sort-of vegan and former New York Times columnist Mark Bittman, jumped ship from his plant-based meal-delivery service startup for reasons not entirely known. So where does that leave the rest of the vegans?

Felicity Cloake, a food writer for The Guardian, was assigned to go vegan for a week and to document her seemingly excruciating seven days. In the longest week of her life, Cloake realizes that soy milk doesn't mix as well as that from a cow in her coffee and that a lot of processed vegan meats are a little too salty for her. She also concludes that she didn't feel weak or faint despite her early suspicions.

Strongly opinionated New York Post critic Steve Cuozzo recently aired his grievances about the "hypocritical" vegan community in an example-filled rant. Cuozzo's list of offenders includes Sarma Melngailis, the disgraced owner of raw vegan restaurant Pure Food and Wine in NYC, who was on the run from authorities for skipping out on paying employees of her shuttered restaurant, only to be found when she ordered a cheesy pizza from a Domino's in Tennessee. Also mentioned are Ellen DeGeneres, whose shoe line includes leather boots and sad music man Morrissey, who has likened the consumption of meat to pedophilia and the Holocaust.

We like to keep an open mind here at Food Republic. We know vegan dishes to be great and hearty when done right. Just check out our vast vegan section! We also understand the universal distaste for hypocrites.

So what did we learn today? Vegans, too, can be bad people. Domino's cheese pizza is not vegan, nor are leather boots. And if you partake in these frowned-upon activities, vegans everywhere will shame you and send you death threats and your vegan powers will be stripped by the vegan police as depicted in Edgar Wright's film adaptation of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Oh yeah, and it apparently takes firsthand experience to figure out that when executed incorrectly, a vegan diet isn't all that healthy.