How could we implement vegetarian listings on menus?

I’ve seen a “V” or a code symbol on some restaurant menus; also a heart for heart healthy dishes.

@janbb – That “V” is pretty common here as well.

I would feel perfectly comfortable with a restaurant offering an ingredient list for each meal, but only if it included the caveat that none of the dishes are made in a separate kitchen, and nothing is guaranteed.

When your add in meatless, vegetarian, vegan, heart healthy, gluten free, kosher, halal, low carb, whatever… That’s a lot of symbols, and if you add one it’s only a matter of time before someone bitches to have their special diet’s symbol added.

And the last thing we need is a restaurant being sued because they put the wrong label on a menu and someone got real butter on their flax seed pancake.

How about sections on the menu for vegetarian and vegan, like there are sections for steak or pasta? I think it would help to have a description in each of those sections about how that restaurant defines and prepares those dishes. That would provide clarity for those who are serious about their food, and it might educate other diners.

@tedibear I love that idea! That sounds like the most workable.

@Uasal You are probably correct, what a shame : (

@hominid and @janbb You guys are in the Northeast right? I’m in Southern California, with all of the hippie health nuts in Los Angeles, you’d think we’d see these V’s all over the place, but you don’t.

Some restaurants are notorious for lying about their ingredients too, which is a real bummer. We went to a Thai restaurant and one of my friends is deathly allergic to fish. She asked whether or not there was any fish sauce in the dish, or any fish stock in the soup. She got a quick, “No.” and that’s all. When my friend mentioned to the wait-person that she could go into anaphylactic shock and die if there was fish in the dish, the wait person decided that there was indeed fish in the dish. Not sure why it took the threat of death to simply answer the question honestly.

Of course, it still irks me that some people think that fish is a vegetarian item.

Some restaurants do have a vegetarian section on their menus, it’s more difficult to find a vegan designation. It would be great if more restaurants had vegan items!

Some cities are much better at it than others. I think if more people started asking for vegetarian and vegan options the waiters might start giving that feedback to the managers and owners.

I remember when I first moved here I googled vegan restaurants and some of the listings simply were restaurants that vegans had some dishes to choose from.

I’m disgusted by how hard it is to find vegan or lower fat and cholesterol foods.

@JLeslie I am lucky to live near quite a few vegetarian restaurants, and a much smaller number of vegan restaurants. Those I don’t have to think about, but most of the time, I’m dining with people who are not veggies, so we don’t go to those places. That’s where I really need to have the inside scoop. I don’t mind asking questions, but I don’t like to cause a scene, and more often than not, the waitstaff has no idea what the terms vegetarian and vegan even mean.

I still have relatives and co-workers that ask me, after me being a vegetarian for 25 plus years, if I eat fish. Even though these same people have asked me that question umpteen times.

Where I live, it’s common practice to have entire sections of the menu dedicated to vegetarian and vegan menu options. But then, where I live, we also have a lot of restaurants that are strictly vegetarian and vegan.

But knowing how well the sections work, that’s what I think should be implemented everywhere that gives people those options, because it prevents people from having to look through the entire menu for a little “V” that might otherwise be missed.

Like others here, I’ve been to quite a few places (mostly Asian restaurants, though also many Mexican places) that separate things out; beef, chicken, pork, vegetarian… so it’s not like having a sectionalized menu is really all that uncommon. I’ve also seen a few places do just the symbol, occasionally with a different mark for items that are vegan as opposed to merely vegetarian. Of course, that is assuming that the place isn’t 100% vegetarian (or even vegan) to begin with.

@JLeslie “Some cities are much better at it than others.”
Very true! Seattle is excellent about having at least a hundred places catering to nearly any lifestyle choice, dietary or otherwise.

@jerv I was in Seattle many years ago and the food was very good. Go to Mississippi and you aren’t going to find many vegan restaurants or many food options for healthy eating.

@Kardamom Aren’t you in California? I’d think food options for vegetarians are very good there.

What problem is this solving? Over here, restaurants have either a vegetarian section or meals marked (v), (vegetarisch) or with this rather standard logo. Identifying vegetarian meals is not difficult at all, and that without explicit education or what not. If restaurants feel they need to cater to vegetarians, it is rather straightforward to do so using just language :)

I find the biggest difficulty is getting something vegan. Butter is on everything and so many waiters are clueless.

I’ve told the story of ordering steamed green beans and when they were served to me I cut still see a little if the hunk if butter before it melted completely. When I ordered it the next time I said not butter and it still had the butter. I assumed it was a simple mistake, but when I said something to the waiter he said, “the spices are in the butter.” So what?? So you still give me the butter I didn’t want? Oy. Now I know to say no butter, not even if the flavoring is in the butter. That’s just ridiculous in my opinion. I just want plain ol’ green beans. Why is that so hard?

In America they add cheese to almost everything also.

I’m pretty disgusted in restaurants lately. I often leave feeling regret about what I are even when I thought I had ordered in a conservative manner.

@Kardamom You rude overbearing vegetarian bitc, Oh you didn’t want that. :) Most places here in the Northeast have veggie sections of the menu, or you could ask your server. They bend over backwards to accommodate people in most of the places I like.

@Kardamom: ”@hominid and @janbb You guys are in the Northeast right?”

Yes. But I’m not sure how “vegetarian” some of these dishes are. People are certainly more food-conscious here today. But when I was a vegetarian (lacto-ovo) from 1991 to 2000, I would have experiences like this quite often….

me: Is this dish on the menu vegetarian?
server: Yes. There’s very little meat in it.

or…

me: Does this dish contain any meat or meat-based broth?
server: No. Absolutely not. We use chicken broth.

I’m not sure I see what the solution is here, unless the customers were provided with a complete ingredient list of every item on the menu. And I don’t think that would be practical or desired necessarily. In a way, I think the best way to handle it would be for passionate vegetarian-friendly restaurants to find their own ways to advertise their food in a way that will appeal to individuals who eat a particular diet. Restaurant dining overall involves a bit of gambling overall, and the game is a bit more risky for limited diets, such as vegetarians and people with food allergies.

I’ve been shifting towards a more vegetarian diet again recently, and have definitely come across some challenges when trying to determine a food’s contents. But in a way, this is ok for me. Being more aware of what I’m eating – and having to put more effort into the process – can only be a good thing.

I also live in the northeast and see this often in restaurants.

What I would also love to see (even if in a separate menu available upon request) is a menu with the most frequent allergens (dairy, gluten, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, corn, tomatoes, citrus), and whether the dish could be accommodated to not contain certain ingredients.

For example, I recently at a local allergen-friendly restaurant. They were great about labeling vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free… but worked with me to be dairy, soy, corn and rice free. Most places, though, even if they claim that they can make certain accomodations, come across as so ignorant that there is no way I can trust them. (see @hominid above)

Again, making claims that things are insert ingredient free just opens up the restaurant to lawsuits when an inevitable mistake or cross contamination occurs.

It’s not the restaurant’s responsibility to manage your diet or your allergies.

I remember hearing a story that Taco Bell once had to pay to send a devout Hindu man to bathe in the Ganges after they gave him a beef burrito instead of a bean burrito.

Personally, if that’s true, I say shame on the judge, because the man’s first clue that he might get a beef burrito was the presence of the words “Taco Bell” on the sign.

There is a huge difference between the known likelihood of cross contamination (which is printed on every menu, by the way, and serving a meal with an ingredient known to be offensive/harmful to the patron.

There is always that awful story Jelly Judi tells about a relative of hers who specifically asked if a dish had peanuts or anything peanut (I seem to remember that it was some sort of dressing?) stressing she is allergic, and the waiter said no. Her relative died in the restaurant that day.

@hominid The quotes you wrote made me LOL.

Yeah, parts of the Northeast seemed to have a bit of trouble with the whole vegetarian thing, though there are areas like where I grew up with a lot of “back to nature” types where it was easy to find meat-free food. Veganism was practically impossible though; you don’t live someplace where cows outnumber people and cheese is a source of state pride without dairy in just about everything that you don’t make yourself. Seriously, you’re better off wearing a Yankees cap to Fenway. You can avoid meat, maybe even eggs and gluten, but the dairy is inescapable.

@Uasal You forget; Taco Hell recently got in trouble for having too little animal product in their filling to legally qualify as “beef”.

@JLeslie After the last couple times I was in the South, never again! It doesn’t surprise me though. Even if I wasn’t familiar with how they are down there, the statistics on obesity give some hint as to how they eat down there, and pretty strongly imply that their idea of “healthy eating” is deep-frying margarine sticks instead of butter.

It seems to me that if you were able to convince restaurant owners that indicating vegetarian and vegan dishes on their menus with appropriate marks would actually increase I think you’d be in pretty good shape. It’s always about making a profit, isn’t it?

And if restaurant chains started doing it, it would really catch on.

I remember talking to a restaurant owner once about his gluten free menu. He said that he had to hire a nutritionist to help him with the menu. That could be a deal breaker for many restaurant owners.

Sorry, I meant this:

If restaurant owners understood that indicating dietary distinctions (such as “Vegan”, Vegetarian”, “Gluten Free” etc.) on their menus would have potential to increase their business, they’d be more inclined to do it.

@snowberry Then it becomes a question of demographics, just as larger cities tend to have more diverse cuisine than small ones as there are more members of each group. For instance, here in Seattle, there are enough Muslims (a demographic you don’t see much in the US) to support a fair number of Halal delis.

If only a few people want something, it is less likely that it’d be worth the added effort and expense to alter their lineup.

In NYC it’s common to have “V”, “VG” or some tokens(with a guide somewhere) like a carrot next to vegetarian/vegan items .
While I like a lot @Uasal‘s idea of listing ingredients, it can be tedious to read everything just to determine whether there’s an animal in there, or animal products.Scanning for the icon you want is a lot easier.
I’ve even seen some menus with tokens or initials for vegan, vegetarian, dairy, Kosher, Halal… all on the same menu. I think that’s quite convenient.

I’m just going to add that for people who are vegetarian or vegan for health reasons, what would really help us is listing the nutritional information including cholesterol. Only animal products have cholesterol. It is possible for there to be animal ingredients and no cholesterol, so that would not help vegans for humane reasons. I find it really annoying that so many restaurants have taken the time and paid the money to supply nutritional information and often cholesterol is not listed. I want at minimum fat, cholesterol, carbs, protein, sodium, and total calories listed when I look at the nutritional information. If there is additional info to that then great, but that would be my minimum. If they only give total calories fine, but if they are going to list fat and carbs, please list the cholesterol too.

Oh, I wasn’t saying to list the ingredients in every menu (I’m the “suprise me” type) but yup have an ingredient list available for those who need it.

I question the utility of ingredient lists just because there’s some people out there that are vegan enough that even vegetables grown in a field fertilized with manure qualifies as “animal product”. You’d also have to list the source of each ingredient as well as every detail about how it was grown and cultivated. While uncommon, there really are people that fussy.

Those people have forfeited their right to dine in public.

Next will come a group preaching that any vegetable that was pollinated by a living creature (bee, butterfly, hummingbird) is a product of slave labor.

@Uasal Agreed. The Simpsons satirized that sort of fussiness in one episode by having a character claim to be a Level 5 Vegan; they wouldn’t eat anything that cast a shadow. Every movement has a few that take it way overboard; such is human nature.