Anywho, when you are back in Austin, Texas, among the many vegan/vegetarian restaurants I recommend Mr Natural and Mothers. But Austin, like SF, has a lot of good options…

On the one hand, when I’ve had meatless meals, I’ve had people ask if I’m a vegetarian — as though, if one does not eat meat with every meal, it must be the case that one never eats it.

On the other had, I’ve noticed (at conferences and such) that, while meals with meat are typically labeled by the type of meat, meals without meat are typically labeled “vegetarian”. As in, “Do you want the chicken or the vegetarian?” It’s asymmetrical. It implies that only people who self-identify as vegetarians would want to eat that dish. More practically, it’s just not enough information to be useful. For me, “Chicken or broccoli?” and “Chicken or ratatouille?” are NOT the same question. Similarly, imagine if the question was “Meat or vegetarian?” — we could expect that people might answer differently if the meat option was “chitlins” vs. “filet mignon”.

To me, it’s unfortunate that vegetarians/vegans have made an identity out of their dietary habits — and, in response, some meat-eaters have done so as well. (See the glut of recent advertising campaigns for fast-food restaurants emphasizing how “real men want meat” and the like.) I have no problem with the human consumption of animals raised and slaughtered humanely, consistent with health, safety, and environmental best practices. I would think this should be the ideal compromise position. Instead, we seem polarized to a position that says “Animals are co-equal with humans” and another that says “I eat whatever I want, and you shut the hell up”. It would seem far more productive have a conversation about humane, environmental, and health standards. I would hope that even people who would prefer humans eat no meat would like to attain at least good standards of the aforementioned, and even people who eat would could agree on that as well. But instead of a conversation about our impact on animals, the environment, and our health, we’re stuck in a shouting match. What a waste.