The Delhi High Court recently directed that all food businesses must explicitly specify every ingredient that goes into the food, to ensure that vegetarian dishes are indeed vegetarian. It emphasises that the consumers have the right to know if the ingredients originate from plants or animals, or if they are laboratory manufactured, irrespective of the quantity that goes into the final product. This essentially means that even a speck of animal product would need the label to be brown to indicate its non-vegetarian origins. Does this mean that today’s green label is deceptive? It may not have perceivable chunks of meat but some ingredients may come from animal products not acceptable to most people like me, who religiously follow a vegetarian diet. As I read the High Court’s verdict, many incidents from the past came flashing back to me.

I was on a media trip to Thailand. When our hosts realised that many of us were vegetarians, surviving on salads and banana fritters on most days, they very graciously organised a complete vegetarian formal dinner. A food critic on the trip was offended—how can you offer this to a critic. On the same trip, a fellow blogger said that how can a vegetarian be a food blogger or a critic? This was my introduction to the hierarchical position of non-vegetarian food in the food media circles. No wonder, our lifestyle magazines are full of non-veg foods, absolutely ignoring my favourite maxim—isn’t everyone a vegetarian? We all consume plant-based food; in addition, you may also consume animal-based food. In India, it would be fair to say that even those who do consume non-vegetarian food, do not do so on a daily basis. A large number of people eat it occasionally, many consume it only outside their homes, or follow a vegetarian calendar like on Navaratri. So, if you look at the percentage of people who consume non-vegetarian food, it would be far less than that of non-vegetarians in the census.

At a global conference, a panel of the most celebrated Indian chefs discussed the business of food. When asked about the paucity of vegetarian dishes on the menu, they confessed that there is nothing called pure vegetarian food. They even cited a case of a chef who tried keeping the ladles used for vegetarian food separate and could not keep up. Since then, I have avoided eating at all kinds of fancy places that excel at making food look good, ‘instaworthy’ as they call it. But coming back to the Delhi High Court order—would it apply to the high-end hotels and kitchens of restaurants? If yes, how to ensure that the vessels used for vegetarian and …….

Source: https://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2021/dec/29/the-vegetarian-in-every-non-vegetarian-2400674.html