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Everyone has a different way of expressing their vegetarianism socially, and oftentimes, a mere public statement of dietary choices calls forth an explanation of the motivation behind these choices. Over the years, I have noticed that I created standard answers to most of the questions I get asked about my vegetarianism. Here are some examples:
Q: Why are you vegetarian?
A: I grew up vegetarian, and as an adult, I resonate with the ethics of not consuming animals, so I’m continuing to be one.
Q: Why don’t you eat eggs?
A: The idea that an egg could have become an animal makes me not want to eat them.
Q: Are you fine just picking out the meat from a dish and eating it?
A: I would be uncomfortable with that.
Q: If someone was eating meat next to you, would you leave?
A: I have no problem with that; as long as I’m not eating meat, I don’t really care about what others eat.
Q: How can you watch those cooking competitions where they use meat? Doesn’t it make you uncomfortable?
A: Not really, I’m not eating it. I watch it more to see what kind of cooking techniques and food combinations professionals seem to come up with.
Q: Meat just tastes better and more flavorful. How could you be satisfied without it?
A: I guess because I’ve never eaten meat before, I don’t have anything to compare what I eat with. Whatever vegetarian food I eat seems to taste fine to me.
Defining or justifying your diet to others is a common thread through all my participants’ experiences. They all confess to having been asked why they are vegetarian or why they eat specific foods and not others. I like to think of this communicatory exercise as creating your personal justification script. Similar to creating a dietary threshold, your justification script comprises the language, concepts, and philosophies, you recite to people when asked, “Why are you a vegetarian?” or “What can you eat?”
When I asked Vijay if he called himself a vegetarian, he said, “Well, to describe to other people what my food choices are, I’m not left with much of a choice except…do I think of myself as a strict veg? I don’t even give it a thought. It's only when I have to communicate what my preferences are…” Specifically, in Vijay’s case, vocalizing what he chooses to eat and not to eat reinforces the public’s perception of him as a vegetarian. Labeling his dietary identity had never been on his mind when living in India. It was his experience growing up in India, that vegetarianism was common, and no one asked for further explanations. Moving to the US, however, and traveling to other parts of the world, he now has to take the onus of explaining dietary choices. When engaging in these types of conversations, he begins associating himself with a wider collective of vegetarians (Jabs et al. 2000). Because the label “vegetarian” has specific connotations in the US, some people question whether their justification script will seem overbearing, inconvenient, or be dismissed in a social setting, whether this be ordering food at a restaurant or attending an office event (Campbell et al. 2022). Vijay finds it easier in some situations to just figure out what to eat on his own rather than explaining his dietary choices.
Divya grew up in California surrounded by people who didn't understand why she would only eat vegetarian food: “They would always say you're missing out. That's something I heard very often. But I never felt like I was missing out. It [meat] seems like just something that other people would enjoy, and it's just not something for me. I'm just always seeing vegetarian food, and I've always just loved vegetarian food, and honestly, the more I look at the meat, the less I want to eat it.” She recounts that in her younger years, she was underconfident about expressing her vegetarianism and unsure whether people would be accepting of it. Now, her justification script stresses the fact that she has never been curious about meat and encourages others to try the vegetarian food she grew up with before dismissing it. For her and others, like Savitri and Bharti, being vegetarian is part of their chosen identity, and they feel emboldened to share their dietary choices with others.
What I noticed in myself and my participants is that the justification script is just that, a script that one tries to follow. It’s not watertight, and sometimes the justification is simply, “I’m used to it.” Going into this project, I expected that everyone would have a clear motivation for being a vegetarian. The ethnographic reality so far is that sometimes diet exists out of habit.
Misconceptions
Misconceptions
It was a common experience among my participants to field misconceptions about vegetarian food in terms of nutrition and variety. Participants like Gayatri, Bharti, Divya, and Jyoti found themselves in situations where they needed to share that the vegetarian food they grew up with was diverse. Gayatri said that she, “...had to really sit people down and say, coming from India, I can eat a different dish, breakfast, lunch every single day for 365 days without ever repeating it, like that's the kind of choice that we have as vegetarians. So when you have that, you really don't have to satisfy your taste buds [with meat].” In this way, she doesn’t feel that being a vegetarian corresponds to a lack of choice. In Divya’s experience, many people dismissed her love of vegetarian food and questioned how food made from only vegetables can taste good. She went on to say this:
“I think that's just a fundamental lack of exposure to good vegetarian food, honestly. Even my boyfriend, for example, his parents didn't know how to cook great vegetables. They would have their meats and their carbs, and they would have some veggies. But the veggies would be just plain boiled vegetables. They weren't special; they were just this thing that they were forced to eat, I feel, to get their nutrition. It wasn't that they were necessarily trying to make it really yummy. It was just something you had to do. I feel like that concept about vegetables has proliferated throughout, and I see that people think vegetables are just something you have to eat, or something to accompany the main star of the meal, which is meat. Like it is not something that can be the star itself.”
Much of Indian food is tailored to vegetarianism, and the same recipes, or rather, cooking techniques, have been passed down from generation to generation (Sen 2014; Davidson 2003; Krishna 2019). South Indian cuisine itself is culinarily diverse and broad (Sen 2014), and it is with this context that immigrants in California see vegetarianism in a culturally coded manner. Divya is happy and content, making and eating paneer kathi rolls, even though meat varieties do exist, likely because it is a complete meal (flatbread, marinated paneer, sauces, toppings) rather than a component of a meal that has been taken out to make it vegetarian.
Another common misconception that my participants shared was the lack of protein in a vegetarian diet. Pooja, and Savitri explained that they prioritize nutritional parameters when choosing what to eat with their family. Pooja makes sure that her plate has lentils, tofu, or dairy to ensure she is getting enough protein. Savitri focuses on a balance between fiber and protein using ingredients like eggs, yogurt, lentils, beans, cruciferous vegetables, and leafy greens. When I asked Divya about the topic of protein in a vegetarian diet, she echoed the same foods, but went on to question whether the social media obsession with a protein-high diet might be overexaggerated:
“I do feel like sometimes the American concept of eating protein is a little bit exaggerated, you know? For me, I haven't noticed a difference in my body, energy, or health when I'm lacking protein. I don't really notice it. I think I'm used to living with slightly less protein compared to an average person. Even with milk, the milk industry in America got blown up because they wanted to sell milk. So the whole idea that you need to drink milk for the calcium has now been proven to be over-exaggerated. I have a feeling that it's the same thing with the meat industry as well.”
What is interesting here is that Divya’s response to misconceptions about nutrition for a vegetarian goes beyond merely proving that she is healthy. It dissects the source of the misconception and encourages one to think about how standards for health and nutrition are constructed. She echoes larger ideas about how diet choice and the food and health industries are connected. Circling back to Gayatri’s pride in the variety that Indian vegetarian food has to offer, a valuable line of further research would be to question if the food and health industries’ interactions with immigrant foods leach them of the nutritional labels they have/had before immigrating.
Examples of Protein Sources
Examples of Protein Sources
Mung Bean Sprouts
Split Hulled Mung Bean
Paneer
Nuts
Yogurt
Moth Beans
Black Eyed Peas
Tofu
Food Philosophies
Food Philosophies
Being asked questions about a chosen diet can force or nudge one to investigate their own beliefs. Here are some of the philosophies that my participants constructed for themselves.
“I’m getting into the philosophy that I’d like to eat something that belongs to the earth, like the plants, and has a connection to the earth. Growing my own vegetables has made a huge difference, and going to the farmers market…I’d much rather go to a farmers' market to pick up my produce than to grocery stores. Just the connection with the land, the earth, and you know, I just feel like the vegetables have so much nutrients in them. It's more like a philosophy of being a vegetarian, and I just enjoy gardening.”
Meenakshi
"I think I've consciously said that I would not eat meat because just the concept of killing an animal to feed myself just seemed a bit unnecessary and cruel. Since I have grown up in a vegetarian household, plus being an Indian, I think we have a lot of vegetarian choices, so I feel like I have plenty of choices to make, and I've grown up fairly healthy. I had a balanced diet, so I don't really feel a need to explore beyond that. I can get by without being cruel and killing an animal. I'd rather use that sort of rationale. But I know that I was able to make that choice because I grew up in a vegetarian household. Because that's what I was exposed to as a kid.”
Gayatri
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