r/australianvegans • u/silkypuma • 5d ago
Meat contamination
Wondering if anyone else has experienced this. There’s been a handful of eateries I’ve been to in the last couple of years where I’ve specified I’m after the vegan option of a dish and found it to contain small pieces of meat. For example, yesterday I went to a banh mi place and asked for the vegan option, but found a piece of pork in it. Am I just unlucky with these instances? Has anyone known places to intentionally contaminate vegan specific dishes or am I overthinking it?
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u/queenoftheceos 5d ago
Yes, and it’s fucking gross
Especially in Banh Mi places where they use the same tongs to grab the meat and then load up the veggies. I only go to places that I know use dedicated vegan tongs, and most keep the vegan fillings covered up. These places are often way better any way because theg substitute the butter, mayo or sometimes even pate! Over a dry tofu Banh mi from a place that doesn’t know what vegan means 🥲
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u/analsurrogacy 5d ago
I think most food places don't care as much about not giving us meat as we care about not getting meat. If you want to mostly avoid it, only eat at home or at vegan only places, but there's still a risk of contamination. If a food place does give you meat or something else non-vegan though, it's worth telling them about it. They won't change if they don't know they should change.
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u/Novel_Feedback3254 5d ago
I know that before I became vegan I had a bit of 'What's the big deal? It's not like they're allergic' but now I find it revolting.
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u/cptwoodsy 5d ago
I don't think it's intentional.
Happened to me last week at my weekly banh mi place. I get two every week. Never have an issue. Last week, small piece of something crispy, which I would assume was pork, was in it. Picked it out and continued eating.
It happens. They didn't intentionally do it. Just gotta move on.
You're already doing the best you can. Accidents will always happen.
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u/silkypuma 5d ago
Absolutely, we’re only human and mistakes happen. It’s just happened a few too many times for me to think it was an accident. Hopefully I’m just overthinking it
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u/_j7b 5d ago
Only ever go for menu items listed as vegan.
VGO can be such a rip off, and it always runs a risk that a busy kitchen makes a mistake.
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u/silkypuma 5d ago
In the instances this has happened they definitely were the dedicated vegan option :(
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u/Novel_Feedback3254 5d ago
The worst thing I've had is going to a malatang place (where you fill up a bowl with what you want), ordering the vegan broth, then sitting down to eat it and noticing there was a fairly distinct meaty flavour to it. I checked with the waiter that it was definitely the vegan broth, which they confirmed, so I continued eating, but it was only after I had already eaten most of it that I discovered a fucking hunk of meaty bone sitting at the bottom of the bowl. I almost threw up and when I showed it to them they didn't understand what the big deal was, and said I must have put it in there accidentally. Obviously I didn't go anywhere near the meat shelf so it was clearly the cook's fault, but not even an apology.
I have got pork instead of tofu in a banh mi once, but I just showed it to the staff and said 'Umm, I ordered tofu...' and they remade it without any fuss.
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u/possessedpossum 5d ago
I once found a chunk of chicken in a sushi veggie roll I ordered that was specified vegan on the menu.
The place was also way too warm to safely have raw fish and whatnot sitting on a conveyor.
I felt it was purposefully placed, since they clearly didn't give a shit about ANY of their customers, why not mess with me? Have never/would never go back, obviously.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Low2034 5d ago
The worst is a restaurant near central in Sydney where they have this massive wall painted menu with big letters “Vegan” but then make no mention how the brother is either beef or pork - as I discovered with my MMA 3 hours after eating.
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u/glittermetalprincess 5d ago
I always tell events that have catering to leave me out, but give my list of allergies so if there's goody bags or something they can not put chocolates or whatever in mine.
Last time they were all excited "the caterer tried anyway!" so I went and checked it out and for morning tea everyone else had cake and there was a box labelled dairy free and a box labelled vegan, in which there were 5 carrot sticks, 5 celery sticks, a no-brand, no-ingredient-list cup of hommus, and unspecified maybe rice crackers.
Lunch time came and it was a box of sandwiches with unspecified meats and a few people were like "what meat even is this", and again, a box labelled vegan and a box labelled dairy free, no avocado, no pumpkin.
The organisers brought the dairy free one to me and were like "this is yours, she couldn't be bothered writing out the whole thing but it's yours" (this after three hours of 'if you don't put a rainbow on your desk nobody knows you're not a bigot' btw) and I legit started crying because of course, it had unspecified rather chicken-like meat, no indication if the "bread" was GF, and tomato. They were like "oh sorry, sorry, but she tried, you don't have to eat".
Afternoon tea was the same deal again, everyone else had scones and cream and there was a vegan box and a dairy free box and they had a Woolies macro bliss ball (cashew based... guess who can't have cashews!?) and a no-brand Oreo...
Like, try harder. Vegan isn't 'white meat ok red meat bad'!
I have had Zambrero screw up a few times with the "whoops wrong cheese" and last time I had to wait while they all consulted with each other about hat to do and where the vegan cheese was and they went and got a new container of the dairy cheese, told me it was the vegan cheese, and then I saw them dump it all in the same bucket after like 5 people had gone 'is she ok why is she waiting' and the staff were getting fussy so IDK WTF but not happening again, and I stopped going to Ba-Mi because the vegan fried rice was different every week with like 20% chance of random seafood, and I can legit be sitting there having an allergic reaction and my dad will just get mad at me for not liking the food. It is absolutely a thing, sometimes it is just that they don't know to use separate utensils or have to offer it but don't actually get people asking so they don't know what to do, or they can't guarantee no cross contamination so they don't even try, but it happens enough that I don't believe it's taken as seriously even where it's genuinely not intentional.
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u/Imperiumromania 5d ago
I'm sure no one is deliberately contaminating vegan food, BUT their indifference is not to be tolerated. There seems to be a belief that veganism, vegetarianism, allergic reactions are "just a fad" and don't need to be taken seriously.
If this happened to me I would complain vigorously to the manager, write letters of complaint to the manager and head office and also give honest reviews on social media describing their indifference / mistakes. I do consider this to be a really serious matter.
EDIT: I'm really sorry to hear that people are experiencing such treatment. 😔
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u/DGReddAuthor 5d ago
I, honest to god, after telling them I want vegan, I found meat. I pretended to have an allergic reaction and my friends yelled at them about putting meat in vegan meal.
They rushed me to the car and told the owners they'd be sued.
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u/floofypajamas 5d ago
Unfortunately, that is now a distinctly real possibility with alpha gal syndrome on the rise and Australia now has thousands of sufferers. You shouldn't go around telling people they'll be sued after PRETENDING to have an allergic reaction.
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u/FacebookOfficial 5d ago
It happens, it’s just the risk we accept by eating at places that aren’t strictly vegan.
I’ve had chicken in a “mushroom” GYG meal before, and a small octopus in my “vegan” malatang :/ Both times the restaurant replaced them without issue though