I think for meat especially, there's a difference between the stuff people talk about (like premium steaks they almost never eat) and the reality of what ends up on their plates which is a lot less glamorous.
A typical fast food burger just isn't that great in terms of texture, taste, looks, etc. and IMHO almost always disappointingly unsatisfying and slightly uncomfortable afterwards. I'll eat that once in a while; usually because there's nothing more convenient and never because I crave one. For me the cheap and nasty stuff is easy to skip on a daily basis and it's not like I eat the expensive premium stuff that often anyway. I love a good steak, but I don't splurge on paying 3x the other items on the menu when I'm at a restaurant typically. Which is what it takes typically to get a nice premium cut of meat.
I do enjoy cooking with meat but I'll make an effort to make the most of it. E.g. I made a nice beef stew over the weekend. That's a bit of of work and a humble/affordable cut of meat. And very tasty.
If you like Indian food, try having or making a dal. As it turns out, Indians know a thing or two about making very tasty vegan food from cheap/simple ingredients. And this can as nice as some chicken curry with a few chunks of cheap chicken that is maybe a bit overcooked and dry (I've been served that in many Indian restaurants). Those curries actually still taste fine if you don't eat those chunks of meat. And the whole point of heavy spicing in countries with warm climates like India was historically to mask the flavor of cheap cuts of meat that were maybe a bit past their prime. Which is possibly also a reason why vegan food is popular in India. Fridges are a fairly recent novelty too.
And the meat doesn't even add a lot of flavor; they just add it last minute typically. Lots of Indian restaurants usually have vegan or vegetarian versions of most of their curries where they toss in some tofu or paneer instead of meat. The only difference between eating meat or vegan in such places is literally what protein is added to the dish at the last minute. The rest is basically vegan or vegetarian by default.
Anyway, I skip sugary drinks mostly. And I've cut down on my alcohol intake as well. Most of what I drink has basically very little or no calories.
Most of my remaining food challenges are unhealthy snacks, unnecessary carbs and the temptations of unhealthy restaurant food, or late night shopping in super markets and the associated bad decision making.
Restaurants bulk out their dishes with carbs and they make things taste good by adding salt and fats. It's hard to eat healthy in restaurants. So, I try to limit my restaurant food intake. And like with meat, most of the restaurants people visit aren't actually that great anyway. At least where I work, Michelin stars are not a thing for the typical lunch options. Quite the opposite actually. I'm only an OK cook but I can cook tastier/better versions of a lot of the shit I get served in places like that. It's not that hard.
I recently actually started just skipping lunch entirely at work mainly for this reason and I'm training myself out of having a Pavlovian craving for food just because the clock says so. I don't actually need the calories. Or the post lunch dip in productivity. I especially don't need the lousy food choices imposed by that one person that wants to go to the burger place. There's a lot of group thinking inspiring unhealthy choices around lunch time. I took part in that for years. It's stupid when you think about it and I've suffered the health consequences as well. There's a cumulative effect if you do that for a few decades.
My brother worked for multiple (very) good restaurants here in France. I’m always super chocked when I see him throwing a good portion of the butter brick in almost any meal. His dishes are super delicious. His current restaurant is a a very good vegan one and he does the same with plant butter.
> A typical fast food burger just isn't that great in terms of texture, taste, looks, etc. and IMHO almost always disappointingly unsatisfying and slightly uncomfortable afterwards. I'll eat that once in a while; usually because there's nothing more convenient and never because I crave one.
The "Big Mac Attack" is real. I used to get one about every six months or so. Then I would eat a Big Mac, and the attack would be sated, but the GI discomfort reminded me of why I don't get Big Mac Attacks more often.
These days I just avoid fast food. I live in a part of the country that's actually rather persnickety about good food, and there are much fresher options available nearby that are rather cheap. Plus I'm stocked up on low-carb soups, lunch meats, and other yummies most of the time now.
> And the whole point of heavy spicing in countries with warm climates like India was historically to mask the flavor of cheap cuts of meat that were maybe a bit past their prime.
My dad used to tell me stories about roadside chili houses in Texas. They kept a big pot of chili constantly going, and added whatever meat they could find, together with beans, spices, etc. to keep the pot full as the chili was served to customers. Roadkill was, supposedly, one of the most convenient sources of meat for the pot.
The weirdest thing for me is that when I was young I used to live off fast food. A few Jack in the Box burgers and I was good to go (my girlfriend at the time looked at me somewhat strange the first time I asked her how many burgers she wanted). But now when I eat a fast food burger I just don't feel very good afterwards. Curious how many others also seem to get the same thing. I always thought I was just being a bit more snobby than when I was younger and it was some sort of psychosomatic thing.
Part of it is age. Part of it is, I think, the fast food companies are lowballing what they can get away with serving in order to keep costs down. It's said that some Diné (Navajo) refer to Burger King with a word that means "just enough food to get strength from". I think that's the fast food joints' specialty: compromise the food till it's barely enough to tolerate and derive nourishment (calories) from to sell the stuff cheap and quick to a ravenous but indiscriminate clientele. With the passage of time comes more efficient ways to produce less delicious or satisfying food, so BK today is not as good as BK 30-40 years ago (which in turn is less good than BK shortly after its founding). Some burger joints e.g. Whataburger can differentiate themselves with higher quality, but they don't achieve the volume of McD's, Burger King, Wendy's, etc.
Man, as an Indian, this is hard to read. You're spreading a lot of misinformation about Indian food.
> Which is possibly also a reason why vegan food is popular in India.
First, while there are a lot of tasty Indian vegetarian dishes, vegan food is decidedly not a cultural thing. We use butter and ghee pretty commonly in food: definitely not vegan. India is the world's largest milk producer; also not vegan. That dal you refer to will often have a "tadka" of ghee and spices on top. The "dal makhani" - another popular restaurant dish - literally means "buttered dal".
And the reason pre-cooked meat pieces are added to curries in restaurants is that we need to get the food to you in 5-7 minutes. We can't cook it leisurely for 25-30 minutes in the gravy like we would do at home. It's called "mise en place" in the restaurant business.
> Lots of Indian restaurants usually have vegan or vegetarian versions of most of their curries where they toss in some tofu or paneer instead of meat.
If it's India, you're talking about, you're unlikely to find tofu being used in a restaurant. Paneer is made from milk, so...not vegan. Maybe restaurants abroad do it differently.
> And the whole point of heavy spicing in countries with warm climates like India was historically to mask the flavor of cheap cuts of meat that were maybe a bit past their prime. Which is possibly also a reason why vegan food is popular in India.
OK, this annoying canard is the worst. [1] Spices and meat used to be both historically expensive. A bit of research will tell you that. You know, that whole "spice trade" thing. Malaysian, Singaporean, Sri Lankan, food also use spices and they're not vegetarian cultures at all. (For that matter, only some 30% of Indians are vegetarians, despite the stereotype, but that's a discussion for another day.)
TL;DR India has lots of good vegetarian food, but hardly any of us are vegans.
Hi, thanks for this cultural sharing. I don't understand something about Indian culture -probably because of prejudices- and would be glad to know more. Hindus in India venerate (or respect?) cows such a way they let them live in free roaming. Also they eat a lot of ghee and milk derivatives. Where does those milk comes from ?
A. Is it ok to eat a cow if someone else raise the cow?
B. Is it ok to eat milk raised by someone else
C. Is it ok to 'milk' a stray cows while they looks skinny?
D. How do they regards the calves needed once in a while for milk production?
E. Does Hindus only eat chicken (and so) but no milk while muslims eat everything?
F. Where goes the dead free roaming cows cadavers? Is there enough vultures?
Note I'm not trying to find logical incoherencies or logical fallacies, I'm very aware there's many think that can been seen as inconsistant or very consistent depending on your knowledge on a subject - which is never 100% reachable.
> And the reason pre-cooked meat pieces are added to curries in restaurants is that we need to get the food to you in 5-7 minutes. We can't cook it leisurely for 25-30 minutes in the gravy like we would do at home. It's called "mise en place" in the restaurant business.
Some years ago I fell into a Youtube rabbit hole of British Indian Restaurants. (Actually most seemed Bangladeshi) In Britian Indian cuisine has a far more "takeout" status. Hence BI restaurants started to deconstruct popular dishes into components which can be prepared in advance and combined into different dishes. It may not be original but I found the process of adaptation rather fascinating.
(Here in Germany it seems rather worse. Also takeout status, but I suspect a lot of takeout orders are simply microwaved stuff.)
I'm actually well aware of this and didn't mean to offend people. And 30% is actually quite a large percentage.
I actually make ghee myself sometimes from butter (easy and a lot cheaper than buying it from the super market).
A lot of (british) indian restaurants use cooking oil instead and I'm well aware that that's not the same as what people in India would consider Indian food and that something like a Tikka Massala is not actually a thing you'd find in a proper restaurant in India; which is a country I've never been to and would love to go to to experience the food.
But anyway, a lot of these restaurants use cooking oil because it's cheaper and because it makes everything they cook with that vegan by default. Which at least in places with a lot of vegans is a nice feature.
Here in Berlin, finding decent Indian food is a bit of a challenge in any case. Germans are hopeless with spicy food. And I know only a few Indian places that add more than homeopathic amounts of chili. Most of the Indian restaurants in the more touristy spots are owned by one family and those aren't great. I've gotten some tips from Indian colleagues over the years for better options.
Anyway a lot of dals indeed don't use a lot of spices or flavoring. And that's just sidestepping all the different regions and food styles. Which are a thing as well of course.
As for Malaysian/Indonesian style cuisine; I'm Dutch and got exposed to a lot of the Dutch Indonesian food which, similar to British Indian food is not really that authentic. Lots of meat in there indeed. And quite spicy.
I think for meat especially, there's a difference between the stuff people talk about (like premium steaks they almost never eat) and the reality of what ends up on their plates which is a lot less glamorous.
A typical fast food burger just isn't that great in terms of texture, taste, looks, etc. and IMHO almost always disappointingly unsatisfying and slightly uncomfortable afterwards. I'll eat that once in a while; usually because there's nothing more convenient and never because I crave one. For me the cheap and nasty stuff is easy to skip on a daily basis and it's not like I eat the expensive premium stuff that often anyway. I love a good steak, but I don't splurge on paying 3x the other items on the menu when I'm at a restaurant typically. Which is what it takes typically to get a nice premium cut of meat.
I do enjoy cooking with meat but I'll make an effort to make the most of it. E.g. I made a nice beef stew over the weekend. That's a bit of of work and a humble/affordable cut of meat. And very tasty.
If you like Indian food, try having or making a dal. As it turns out, Indians know a thing or two about making very tasty vegan food from cheap/simple ingredients. And this can as nice as some chicken curry with a few chunks of cheap chicken that is maybe a bit overcooked and dry (I've been served that in many Indian restaurants). Those curries actually still taste fine if you don't eat those chunks of meat. And the whole point of heavy spicing in countries with warm climates like India was historically to mask the flavor of cheap cuts of meat that were maybe a bit past their prime. Which is possibly also a reason why vegan food is popular in India. Fridges are a fairly recent novelty too.
And the meat doesn't even add a lot of flavor; they just add it last minute typically. Lots of Indian restaurants usually have vegan or vegetarian versions of most of their curries where they toss in some tofu or paneer instead of meat. The only difference between eating meat or vegan in such places is literally what protein is added to the dish at the last minute. The rest is basically vegan or vegetarian by default.
Anyway, I skip sugary drinks mostly. And I've cut down on my alcohol intake as well. Most of what I drink has basically very little or no calories.
Most of my remaining food challenges are unhealthy snacks, unnecessary carbs and the temptations of unhealthy restaurant food, or late night shopping in super markets and the associated bad decision making.
Restaurants bulk out their dishes with carbs and they make things taste good by adding salt and fats. It's hard to eat healthy in restaurants. So, I try to limit my restaurant food intake. And like with meat, most of the restaurants people visit aren't actually that great anyway. At least where I work, Michelin stars are not a thing for the typical lunch options. Quite the opposite actually. I'm only an OK cook but I can cook tastier/better versions of a lot of the shit I get served in places like that. It's not that hard.
I recently actually started just skipping lunch entirely at work mainly for this reason and I'm training myself out of having a Pavlovian craving for food just because the clock says so. I don't actually need the calories. Or the post lunch dip in productivity. I especially don't need the lousy food choices imposed by that one person that wants to go to the burger place. There's a lot of group thinking inspiring unhealthy choices around lunch time. I took part in that for years. It's stupid when you think about it and I've suffered the health consequences as well. There's a cumulative effect if you do that for a few decades.