To y’all 220 million vegetarian desis: Is your favorite Asian restaurant’s idea of vegetarian food ‘yes, it has veggies too’? Do you marvel at how many ways some insidious bastards work meat into veggie dishes (pepperoni in pasta salad, rice cooked in chicken stock)? Are you sick of throwing away soup you bought without parsing the ingredients like a copy editor? Bored of restaurant menus that read meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, meat, sprig of parsley?
Soon, you may also have to check whether your PC is made from animal products. Researchers are turning chicken feathers into computer motherboards:
To turn feathers into a usable product, they are first plucked from the birds at chicken-processing plants and then the hot, wet feathers are immediately hauled to Emery’s plant. There the “undesirable parts” like chicken heads, feet, windpipes and fecal matter are sorted out from the truckload of feathers. “They’re not a nice sight, to put it mildly…”… Emery converts the feather fiber into keratin mats that resemble paper towels. They are then placed into a mold, layered on top of one another and infused with a soybean resin that hardens and forms the composite. The material is then put through the circuit-printing process to become a circuit board.
This gives new meaning to the expression ‘my new machine really screams.’ Ironically, the same people who think Gandhi, Jim Morrison and John Lennon drinking their own urine is disgusting, think eating cows fed chicken poop is perfectly ok.
But things are looking up for those who steer clear of digestive recycling: instead of ordering mu shu, you can now order Moo Shoes.
that’s why i go grocery shopping alone– i need time to study every ingredient list. even though i’m nearly a speed-reader, it’s still time-consuming.
and yes, yes, yes to your litany of veggie woes. the internal list of delis i can’t be a patron at (same knife used to cut flesh sandwich used for weggie sandwich), pizza places i won’t risk again (thanks for the chunk of ham under my plain) and restaurants that don’t get it (since when is fish paste vegetarian??) grows tediously longer by the day.
at least you’re in new york. in DC i still find the random place that serves NO VEGETARIAN DISHES. not a one. fun!
“Moo Shoes?”
“MOO SHOES?”
gurgle
What pizza place puts chunks of ham underneath the plain? That’s disgusting.
Anyway, when I was first breaking into my veggieism, i used to sneakily enjoy getting egg and cheese off the same deli grill that just fried the bacon, but feel really bad about it. now, i just cut myself a little more slack. i think (my) dietary rules should be about health, love, and balance, not control (which it is too often for me).
saurav, i think they were just uber-sloppy…their line was, “uh. sorry. must’ve fallen off the ham and pineapple pie next to it.”
whatever. just get your haram nastiness off my dinner. eee-yuck. i noticed it before i consumed it, so yay me. i can go to my grave w/o ever touching the other white meat. 😉
Anna, I suggest that for try out an an Italiasn Sausage with white steamed rice and red onions. If that doesnt work, you should try out sheekh Kebab with naan. The above two will surely end your veggie only diet and then you can do grocery shopping in minutes 😉
Word, Anna! like when the guy at Subway gets all huffy if you ask him to change his little plastic gloves? Saala, you’ve just been petting the capicola, don’t you think that defeats the point of my veggie sub?
I finally just found a subway with all desis and they totally get it. Big shout-out to NY Burger who has a rockin veggie burger PLUS a separate line chef to cook it on a separate grille and handle it away from the meaty stuff. love that.
saurav, i think they were just uber-sloppy…their line was, “uh. sorry. must’ve fallen off the ham and pineapple pie next to it.”
That’s really sloppy. I think you’re right not to go back to that place for multiple reasons. By the way, pork is really good.
The only moral issue I’ve ever had with a pizza place is really blatant homophobia. It was a real dilemma because they made, by far, the best pizza in the neighborhood.