this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023
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One of these cultures has normalised vegan and vegetarianism for centuries, the other is trying to wean a meat-obsessed population.
They are not the same thing, nor do they have the same requirements to reach their end goals
How prevalent is veganism in India? Whenever I look at Indian food, it's butter this and milk that. Sure, there are some very good vegan choices, but it seems to me that Indians love their dairy.
Veganism is actually a fairly new phenomenon in general, a lot of Jains in particular have adopted it. But vegetarianism in India dates back over a thousand years BCE , so yeah, they've got a bit of a head start.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country
About 30% are vegetarian in India. Almost 10% are vegan.
So it's very prevalent, but America likes to pretend we're the only country in the world and that problems are never solved anywhere else.
Where are the Indian vegans? I have only ever met ONE in my entire life except myself.
Try India.
Lol I actually laughed. Maybe it's the beer. But thanks!
Maybe it's a regional difference? I live in South India
Hi 👋
Source: me
Hi!
I don't mean like, online. I've met plenty of online Indian vegans. But still, I find it hard to believe that every 1 in 10 people are vegan. Where?!
I would say about 30% of my Indian coworkers over the years have been vegan.
I think the challenge is that, unlike a lot of Western vegans, they don't go out of their way to talk about it. My second job, I knew day 1 about the white girl who was vegan. It took me 2 years to learn that 4 of my Indian coworkers were vegan since birth. And I only learned it because they learned I was getting into Indian food so they all started bringing stuff in for me to try. Entire meals. Incredible meals. I miss that job, lol.
Exactly, we don't go about our day preaching veganism.
My family loves to announce to the world that I don't drink milk. It's annoying. Idk they're probably in shock or something that someone would choose not to abuse cows. (They're vegetarians, I'm vegan)
Where do you live? I assume outside India? Hmm
Well yeah, very outside of India. I live in the US, though I try not to make my identity about that.
But one thing I've loved about working in Boston is how many cultures I've been exposed to in my life.
Vegetarian? Yes. Vegan? No.
I am a vegetarian. I eat dairy. I don't eat meat and eggs.
Just eat eggs bro it's just a chicken period
Except for the part where they're kept in small cages or "free range" in dirty cramped pens. Luckily it's easier to get eggs from chickens raised ethically than meats. You just gotta fork over a few extra bucks or get the hookup at a farmer's market
We drive 10mph around here because the damn chickens like to "free range" in the road. Those are pretty large pens, the size of a damn town.
The USDA needs to get their pockets out of big ag's hands. Free Range should be Free-Fucking-Range. I get to know the chicken I eat got to run wild 16 hours every day, but many people do not.
Yeah the fuckery that they pull when they list things as grass fed and free range is vile. Then they make a profit on top of it because they barely change anything but charge premium prices for the fancy label.
I'm lucky to have a beef farm in my state that ships locally and actually follows the spirit of grass fed up to grass finished in sprawling pastures. They also do individual slaughter. For eggs we've got a few locals that bring them to the farmers markets on Sundays. Beef is like a once a week thing for us these days and it's usually just ground beef. Chicken and fish are our biggest sources of protein now. I don't really do pork anymore. Can't find any that's remotely close to ethically sourced which is abysmal considering how intelligent pigs are. So I just stopped buying it.
Also, and I'm fully aware this could just be some kinda subconscious bias, but I swear the meat and eggs taste SO much better than the stuff from the grocery. Eggs especially. The yolks are so vibrant and hardly break when being fried. Even the shells seem stronger and less likely to shatter into tiny annoying bits.
Same, got this one road where I always need to be careful about the hens.
Somehow doesn't sound as tasty.
Yeah I have a lot of vegetarian Indian friends, not as many vegan.
Yeah, we're not giving up our dairy any time soon lol.
No one is keen on experimenting with Basundi or Rasmalai without milk.
They have made dairy using a bacteria recently, so animal free dairy may be a thing soon.
If they can make animal-free cheddar and animal-free yogurt that tastes exactly like the real thing, sign me up. Right now, vegan alternatives are... not good.
I've tried a few types of coconut-based yogurts that were tasty. I'm not a fan of almond milk, so didn't like those varieties as much. On the cheeses though, completely agree! I had one that was tolerable, but definitely falls in the "not good" category.
Were the coconut-based yogurts sweet? Because I don't want sweet yogurt. I want yogurt I can put chives in and put on my falafel (for example).
The vanilla flavored one was a bit sweet, but that's how I generally prefer it. I usually am throwing berries and granola in there too so admittedly can't give you an unbiased recommendation! I think there are plain flavored ones either almond or coconut milk based, which might be more of what you're looking for.
Yes, this is why I think we take the wrong approach considering things as animal free substitutes. That’s a high bar.
Meanwhile I’m perfectly happy dipping my veggies in hummus instead of cheese dip. Not as a substitute but as a different choice that is good on its own merit
I can live without cheddar cheese. Maybe. But I need my yogurt.
Brave Robot! I tried it recently, it was good!
I saw a milk that claims to be just that on the shelves. Incredibly expensive and (from what I hear) nowhere near the same taste.
The problem is that animals and plants do "what they do" with incredible efficiency. If you want to do exactly what some evolved thing does best, you probably cannot come close to matching it with technology. A century of aircraft design and planes are not in the same league as birds regarding flight efficiency.
If animal-free milk goes the path that animal-free meat is, they may well be reaching the upper bounds of efficiency already, nowhere near close enough to replace natural animal and dairy.
Which is a bit of a shame (as a meat-eater). I think having outside competition that could truly stand on its own would help reduce the corruption of big ag.
Not necessarily true - evolution (and simulating evolution) is great at finding local maxima/minima, but not as great at moving out of those in the case where the local min/max is not the global min/max. So, for example, birds might not be the optimal way to do flight efficiency, but between birds and optimal flight efficiency if there's a region of worse flight efficiency of any real size (more than you could vault in a couple generations of lucky mutations) then evolution will never find it because the intermediate steps to get there will be selected against too heavily to jump the gap.
I don't think I entirely disagree with you. I was generalizing the real phenomenon that we are unable to engineer competing mechanisms to those found in the wild.
That said, "region of worse efficiency" tends to happen all the time. The accurate argument would be a "region of untenable inefficiency". A legless bird that evolved the ability to fly its entire life from hatching to death is an unlikely evolution. Not coincidentally, finding ways to keep something up in the air longer-term than birds do is something our engineering is capable of.
Man I haven't tried Basundi, is it available in Haryana by any chance?
I don't know man, I'm from Mumbai. Check on swiggy for restaurants in your area.
Or you can make it on you own. The recipe is simple, it just takes long time to make because you need to boil milk to make it thicker.
https://holycowvegan.net/vegan-rabri-recipe/
It's not vegan so much as veggie. They definitely respect those cows they get the milk from though.
Quite popular, in my city it's quite hard to find meat in the popular restaurants. And these places are quite old and we'll know.
Most foods don't have any form or trace of meat or eggs, although milk and related items are very widely consumed.
It's vegetarian and not vegan.
This is what people don't get, if you've been veggie for years then you don't need meat substitutes, these products are for normies trying to cut back or give up while they break the cultural training.
I've been vegetarian for... more than a decade? I love meat substitutes and generally prefer having the substitute present in meals (either as the main thing, like a burger, or as an inclusion). I do agree that meat substitutes are a fantastic way of reducing meat consumption for meat-eaters, but that doesn't mean you need to do away with it completely once you're in 'full veg' mode
Maybe. While I do sometime choose the plant-based meat, thinking of it as a substitute was my initial reluctance to try vegetarian food. Back then, I ridiculed the idea of a “veggie burger”, but really liked grilling a “black bean patty”. Did you realize Mac and Cheese can be vegetarian? “Greek veggie dip” is horrible, but I love hummus. I always loved various potatoes, but it was quite a revelation that you could spice them up and use them as a meal. My latest infatuation is Halloumi or Paneer - don’t ever call a nice grilling cheese a substitute for anything.
At least for me, it is easier to choose foods for their own value, rather than suffer with a substitute, r a variation “without”. I’m not a vegetarian and have no interest in it, but I will choose what looks good to me at any given time, on its own merits