Distinct Lack of Veggie Choices

[admin]

From my own experience I have to say that there seems to be a distinct lack of vegetarian choices in our local pubs and restaurants. I know that that is not true of all places across the UK (and my town is not a huge one) but from the local ones that I have been to, we are very lucky to have as many as say two choices on some of the menus. I find Christmas time particularly frustrating as most of them seem to think that something from the already small veggie selection will suffice, and if you're lucky they may suggest something extra such as a veggie lasagne. I still like to have a full Christmas dinner i.e. roast potatoes (so long as they are not cooked in duck or other animal fat), the other traditional veggies, gravy (veggie of course) and then a meat substitute. They seem to forget that some of us like the roast dinner, we just don't want the meat! I don't want another pasta based meal as a special Christmas meal. It seems like a cop-out that some of these places don't seem to want to make any effort for us veggies, when the main menus have so many meat choices. Like I say, I know there are places that do make an effort and for all those that do, I would praise and thank you, but they do seem to be few and far between Perhaps we should be mentioning the good ones that do give us the choices but unfortunately I can't think of any pubs local to me that do.

[Mr. Spock]

Although I am not a vegetarian, I do commit myself to a strict vegetarian (sometimes vegan) diet at least once a week as part of Paul's MFM campaign. I would agree that even in some parts of the US it is difficult to find a variety of meatless options in local restaurants. From a business perspective, I suppose that it is more feasible to offer such a variety in larger, metropolitan cities where there are more vegetarians than in smaller, less densely populated towns. This is unfortunate, but it seems most establishments won't go out of their way to cater to such groups unless it is profitable (especially since the majority of consumers out there are meat-eaters)... This is one of the reasons why I wish the Linda McCartney Foods line was more widely available...