I’m vegetarian. Western food is so focused on meat that people often have no idea how to make a meal that doesn’t contain it. My mother once asked me how to make a vegetarian version of Chicken Parmesan. So keep the tomato sauce, cheese, and spices, but swap out the chicken with pasta. Congrats you’ve made vegetarian Chicken Parmesan. I like to call it Spaghetti.
90% of “vegetarian versions” of dishes are just the dish without meat. 9% of the remainder are the dish with black beans and/or mushrooms
That’s because most meat dishes are just vegetarian and vegan dishes with meat added to them.
Those 90% “vegetarian versions” are insulting to vegans because they are not balanced meals. Ya’ll still need protein. A plain salad with no high-protein veg is not a meal. The same salad with croutons made with butter is just insulting ignorance.
I recognize your name and we haven’t seen eye-to-eye in the past, but I’m gonna side with the vegans on this one here. Restaurants need to get their heads out of their asses about what a vegan meal is.
Flip-side. If you have a high-protein vegan meal and you just plop a steak on top of it, that’s also not a well-balanced meal. The term often used is “heavy” (if not just “unbalanced”).
I mean personally I’d sub it in for something with some protein, though you definitely don’t need nearly the amount you get from a piece of meat.
And there’s a lot of alternatives for many different prices. I remember how people used to berate me for being vegetarian while growing up, telling me I’d die and whatnot.
Still here, after nearly thirty years.
