This new edition of a guide to vegetarianism published in 2001 reflects changes in society over the past twenty years with advice on how to deflect conflicts, locate vegan foods at markets and restaurants, and prepare favorite meals at home.
Vegan foods are much more available than they were back then. Vegan bacon is being made from mushrooms, eggplant, tofu, carrots, seitan, coconut and chickpeas. Grocery aisles are overflowing with plant milks made from oats, macadamias, almonds, rice, soy, and even hemp. More restaurants feature vegan menus, especially with the decolonization of Indian and Oriental cuisines and the rise of COVID-era takeout.
And yet the hostility toward vegetarianism by the meat eating public endures and the percentage of vegans in Western nations hasn’t grown much. You’ve seen the signs and bumper stickers:
Eat low on the food chain. Barbecue a vegetarian.
I like animals. They’re delicious.
Vegetarians welcome… to watch us eat steak.
Dealing with the animosity and understanding it was a major reason for the first edition of this book, and the second. “In these pages you will find advice suggesting that in most cases we should not engage with meat eaters who want to discuss our decisions to be vegetarian or vegan,” Carol J. Adams explains.
“I know this advice goes against our instincts. I suggest that our veganism causes a crisis for meat eaters. In their responses, they want to make us responsible for ending this crisis because they blame us for catalyzing it… I advise stepping aside. Let is be their crisis; we resolved ours already.”
