Want to make a vegetarian hopping mad? Here’s how…
You’ve probably heard Judge Judy’s expression: “Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
Here’s a new variation on that: “Don’t show me pork ribs and tell me it’s tofu.”
VegNews–a magazine and website for vegetarians–was recently caught using stock photos of dishes that contained meats, passing off the photos as vegan.
And their vegetarian readership hit the ceiling!
The New York Times reports that vegan fury was vented on blogs, twitter, and Facebook. One irate vegan wrote on the VegNews website that it was awful “to have craved any of the foods featured here, because now I feel I was craving animals.”
This I don’t get at all. If vegans don’t like the idea of viewing and craving meat dishes, then why go to great lengths to bend, shape, and hammer tofu until it looks, smells, and tastes like all variety of meats?
What I DO get is that readers felt mislead. VegNews editors really should have realized they were betraying a trust. But they did the right thing by owning up to their gaffe and apologizing for it.
Still, I have to like this comment (edited for length) posted on the VegNews website by a reader named Kayla: “We are STILL complaining about this?!? THE RECIPES ARE VEGAN. Who cares what the image is? It’s a freakin’ picture!! This is the reason why so many meat-eaters think all vegans are whiny/preachy/annoying idiots!”
Actually, Kayla, we don’t think that about all vegans. Just the whiny/preachy/annoying ones.
Source:
“Vegan Promoter Uses Photos of Meat and Dairy Items, and Fury Follows” John Collins Rudolf, New York Times, 4/18/11, nytimes.com
