I am still in a state of shock right now so excuse me if this post is a little disorganized. Two days ago quarrygirl.com, a popular Los Angeles vegan blog, posted a story about running a lab test on 17 different vegan restaurants in the LA area to see if they are really vegan as they claim to be. Apparently, it costs them $1000 in lab expenses, so mad props to them for making this sacrifice for the vegan community. You can read the whole article here.

I can’t say enough times how impressed I am by the work that went into this. The article reads like it came out of a scientific journal. The two anonymous bloggers detail step-by-step the lengthy process that went into this, and all the precautions that they took to make sure the results were as accurate as possible. The results? Shockingly enough, 7 of the 17 restaurants tested positive for traces of either shellfish, eggs, or casein (a highly addictive milk protein). Here is the chart of their results:

The results rank the foods based on the amount of the non-vegan ingredient:

Negative: 100% vegan

Positive: Trace amounts were found, could be caused by shared equipment with non-vegan foods, or restaurant employees not washing their hands

High: Contains non-vegan ingredients

Overload: Contains a significant amount of non-vegan ingredients

What is going on here? Are our beloved “vegan” restaurants trying to pull a fast one on us? After reading this post, I would conclude in most cases the answer is no. It turns out, that most of the restaurants that failed the test are small family-run vegan Thai restraunts, which import their vegan ingredients from Taiwan or China. In these countries, ingredient labeling is much less stringent than in the US. Often times the smaller additives are left off the label. There are also errors when it comes to translating the ingredients into English, yikes!

Another cultural context to consider is that “vegans” in Taiwan are mostly just vegetarians for religious reasons (Buddhism). So in Taiwan, it is much more acceptable to have eggs or dairy in their fake meat products. So taking everything into context, I would call this a miss communication or a glitch in the system rather than an all out fraud.

Sigh…… After finding out this information, I can’t say that I will never eat fake meats again, because my intention is to eat vegan to the best of my ability, meaning I know that I occasionally eat trace amounts of non-vegan ingredients through no fault of my own. However, I will think twice about visiting the restaurants which tested “high” or “overload”.  I am also comforted by my choice to eat mostly raw because I know that the veggie-meats, regardless of how good they taste, are a processed food, and should not be consumed on a consistent basis anyways.

For me, this news just gets me more excited about getting more into raw. Stay tuned to my raw adventures!