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Investigation: L.A. Vegan Restaurants Found with Un-Vegan Food
Part of the process was to order food, use plastic gloves and contain it ASAP | Photo via Quarrygirl
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The two anonymous bloggers at the popular vegan blog, Quarrygirl, went all out and published a large investigative report today, finding that a handful of vegan restaurants, mostly Thai in nature, are in fact not vegan.
Spending their own money--around $1000, they said by e-mail--on scientific industry tests, using strict practices and a positive control, they investigated at least one dish at 17 restaurants with ten passing as vegan. Seven, including a favorite of the theirs, Pure Luck, failed to be vegan when one or a few dishes were tested. Five were Thai vegan eateries (Vegan House, Lotus Vegan, California Vegan, LA Vegan Thai Vegan Joint), which led them to researching their suppliers and calling Taiwanese officials, finding out that real meat in faux meats was a problem with new legislation addressing the issue actually taking effect this week Wednesday. The last restaurant found not to be vegan was Green Leaves in Los Feliz.
Kudos to the folks at the blog for doing this, especially for most appropriately noting that these tests are not necessarily a final conclusion on each of the restaurant's daily food service. "While these tests show some very specific results, and were conducted under laboratory conditions, they are really a snapshot of the moment in time and may not be completely representative," they wrote. "If we were to do the tests again today, would the results be the same? Could conditions at the exact time we bought the food have a bearing on the outcome?"
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