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Part of the process was to order food, use plastic gloves and contain it ASAP | Photo via Quarrygirl
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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I read that post this morning. Shocking, huh? It's awesome that this new is spreading so fast!
I think it should be noted that only one menu item at Pure Luck didn't pass, and this summary makes it sound as though they failed all together. Some of this is fall out from poor labeling standards on food sold wholesale that does not always have accurate or complete ingredient lists. I hope this information coming out raises awareness to follow the supply chain of where our food comes from. Green Leaves however has always been suspected of blatantly knowing they had non-vegan ingredients and lying about it, and their overload in casein result simply proves those suspicions.
Good point, Gary. I've updated to better reflect that!
GarySe7en: i just wanna point out that with the exception of green leaves, i would be willing to give these places the benefit of the doubt. it may be a complete labeling error or manufacturer miscommunication, and i actually hope that's the case.
i have every intention of following up with these restaurants and suggesting vegan alternatives, because i believe a lot of them mean well.
green leaves on the other hand, is absolutely disgusting. they advertise "casein-free" cheese and even keep a block of "follow your heart" brand vegan cheese to show to customers who inquire. they are BLATANTLY LYING to the community, and i am done with them.
hopefully the other restaurants will change their ways, and something positive will come of all this.
To be clear, it was Thai food restaurants, but the source was *Taiwan*, and that's where they traced it back to.
So in conclusion, is there no standard for being a "vegan" restaurant? Shouldn't the Health Department factor in extra tests before places can call themselves vegan?
Rabbi blessing of Kosher food is subsidized for by the federal government. Perhaps we should be treated with the same respect (wishful thinking, I know)...
Nate, I was just going to make that same comparison.
Most of the vegans I know take their committment to veganisim just as seriously as a religious dietary restriction.
Good work Qarrygirl and friend for taking on an issue that our Health Dept. should have been dealing with.
Rabbis do not bless food!
They inspect the ingredients to determine if they're kosher & if the processing equipment has been koshered.
In a slaughterhouse, they supervise the shochets who do the actual throat slitting.
Nor are they subsidized by the federal government!
You are referring to the so-called "kosher tax" which is yet another vile form of anti-Semitism!
Exactly what I was thinking jrb...
Arent there some sort of standards or codes enforced by health authorities for vegan restaurants? It makes no sense that something like this can happen with something that people are supposed to be eating. Great job by Quarrygirl for getting this out.
My opinion is that a failure of one dish is a failure of the whole Vegan thing.
vegans... plz stick with water :)
just kidding.
Put a fork in Green Leaves
I read this report and it's curious, not shocking, but I think they miss the point.
A person who commits to veganism but subsists off fake meat products is eating the same industrialized, pre-fab crap as someone who eats meat but only goes to fast food places. If your main concern is whether or not there are trace amounts of animal product in the fake meat you eat all the time, you've already got big troubles with your veganism. Fake meat is bad for you, bad for the third-world factory workers who get paid slave wages to produce it, and bad for the environment, not only because it creates industrial waste, but because it is overpackaged.
Eat real food and let fake vegans eat fake meat, don't complain about it when we all knew this was the case from the get-go.
We (and I'm using the royal here) don't subsist on (not off) fake meat products though they are a nice change every once and a while (like In-and-Out fries). When a restaurant advertises something as vegan it should be fake meat or not. There are american companies that also "make" fake meat as well as staples like Seitan, Tempeh, etc. that does not qualify as franken-food.
I eat out very rarely and sometime a nice fake chicken sandwich does the trick - good thing places like Madeline Bistro and Native Foods aren't getting their mock meats from China - they make it themselves.
Cheers,
James
There are also a bunch of places that produce tofu right here in L.A.
You can put down vegans all you want, but frankly I find their committment to the environment, and not harming animals and using them as a food source quite admirable.
I wasn't putting down vegans, I was putting down fake meat. I'm a vegan. And I'm not a "you're a bad person for not being vegan" type, either. I just think that bad food is bad food, no matter what label you put on it, and everybody knows that fake meat is bad food, so why all the sudden outrage?
Also, morrisey, tempeh is not fake meat, it's fermented soy, but be very careful about your seitan. Not all wheat gluten is created equal.
The statement, "you've already got big troubles with your veganism" reads as a swipe at vegans who are out of sync with your labor and environmental views. Do I read wrong?
No, you read right. However (and not to get too preachy), if one's concern is for the lives of animals, I take exception to the exclusion of humans (laborers) in that equation, as well as to those who believe there is some disconnect between animals and the environment. I guess my main misconception is in thinking that other vegans view the world as holistic, where the treatment of food animals is only one part of a greater concern. If that's not the case, I'm sorry for being so presumptuous.
But obviously no one is perfect, including the people at these restaurants, many of whom I know, who I believe are not (in almost all cases) trying to dupe anyone into eating trace amounts of casein, egg, etc. I think that they are wrongfully going to see a decline in business at a very difficult economic time due to quarrygirl's report when they're actually out there trying to do the best they can to keep this city as vegan as possible. I just think this report has a yellow journalistic tint to it and could lessen the already spare number of advocates vegans have in the restaurant business.
Let's not hurt each other, let's help each other.
Sorry if I misread the intent of your comment John.
If you could recommend any websites or data on vegan mock meats, and what to look for, I would appreciate being educated about it. I certainly don't want to use something that is potentially worse than real meat.
Umm, well it seems the best restaurant of the bunch seems to have passed. Phew. Boo ya.
http://www.atasteoflifellc.com/"> Taste of Life
@GarySe7en : You defend Pure Luck by insisting that "only one menu item...didn't pass", but isn't that one item too many? If an establishment is going to advertise themselves as "vegan" isn't it their responsibility to make sure everything they sell fits that label? If we were talking about peanut allergies, I'm not so sure a restaurant selling "only one" peanut-free item that has peanuts would be acceptable.
@johnnixo : "A person who commits to veganism but subsists off fake meat products is eating the same industrialized, pre-fab crap as someone who eats meat but only goes to fast food places"
Absolutely true, which is why "vegan" is defined as "someone consumes no animal food or dairy products". Having an animal-free diet doesn't preclude someone from being an unhealthy, socially-irresponsible douchebag.
Pure Luck is a great restaurant that offers a menu quite unique in the vegan options of L.A. and one mess up does not make them worthy of pitch forks. Not every restaurant has the means to do chemical testing of every single thing they buy for their kitchen and higher up the supply chain there are issues with labeling standards. Pure Luck may have made an honest mistake. They have not been given a chance to defend them selves over this yet and I'm sure they will be looking into the matter. I would hate to see them go under for one mistake. I'm vegan my self, and have been vegetarian for 8 years, eventually going vegan.
I agree. In addition, the only "fake meat" Pure Luck uses is the aforementioned soy "fish" fillet. Everything else on their menu uses tofu or jackfruit "carnitas" which is made in-house.
There's a lot of leeway in the post that was linked to. Some restaurants appear to be using contaminated products or products from Taiwan with unlabeled animal products, while some (*cough*Green Leaves*cough*) are knowingly using non-vegan products.
i just want to say AGAIN that i truly believe pure luck made an honest mistake. i will continue to eat there, just not their fish (the only "mock meat" on the menu).
we gave all the restaurants a chance to defend themselves in our follow up post that was posted this morning. we reached out to each establishment via email, and only two (m cafe and the vegan joint) wrote back.
anyways, all this talk is making me want a jackfruit torta from pure luck.
peace out!
Irresponsible investigative blogging is what this is. If you want to pick on a specific eatery, go right ahead, no problem. But to establish yourselves as "professionals" - being vegan and having $1000 to spend on tests - and then not following up with additional tests is just wrong. There could have been any number of reasons your tests results came out the way they did. I once was told I had class 3 cancer and needed a follow-up test to verify it. The second came back negative. I did not have cancer, but it still rocked my world for a while because some lab had goofed up my tests. These bloggers did not consider what this kind of report can do to a restaurant.
The bloggers refuse to identify themselves, yet go about to blackball a few restaurants by name, without considering the repercussions to lives, livelihoods or the community as a whole. Wrong. wrong. wrong.
And, we wonder why the mainstream media questions a bloggers' validity.