Vegan Thread?

[confettine]

Since we have a gluten-free section, I think it'd be cool to have a vegan one. I'm not personally vegan, but I found many delicious recipes and I'd like to find more, share some, discuss it. It could also serve to anyone with a lactose intolerance.

 

[Ian]

Good idea!

Yeah, that sounds like it could be useful for some of the members here (I think it may have been suggested before too, when it was a little quieter) - I'll go ahead and add it now .

 

[Trellum]

I agree, there are many people out there who are into the vegan lifestyle, I think this would attract those people to the forum. I'd also like a section entirely dedicated to salty/savory pastries.

 

[connie]

Quite a lot of what I post up is 'vegan' given I am allergic to dairy (and vegetarian), but not everyone will remember that vegan is no honey or eggs as well.
How are you going to identity what is vegan? Where will you draw the line? I just ask because obviously things like sourdough bread are vegan, but are also perfectly at home in the bread section and I don't know where a line would be drawn so to speak.

 

[Ian]

Quite a lot of what I post up is 'vegan' given I am allergic to dairy (and vegetarian), but not everyone will remember that vegan is no honey or eggs as well.
How are you going to identity what is vegan? Where will you draw the line? I just ask because obviously things like sourdough bread are vegan, but are also perfectly at home in the bread section and I don't know where a line would be drawn so to speak.

We could add a guidelines post to the gluten free and vegan sections with some advice on what those sections are about and some common ingredients that may catch people out if you're not eating that diet yourself. I think most people participating in those sections will be on vegan/gluten free diets already, so will have a good idea on what would be suitable (then again, I'm sure there will be plenty of variation between individuals).

 

[Tina Nord]

I would love to see a vegan thread as I am looking to take meat out of my diet...altogether at some point in my life

 

[connie]

I would love to see a vegan thread as I am looking to take meat out of my diet...altogether at some point in my life

Taking meat out of your diet is not vegan though, sorry. From experience , I have often found that few people understand the difference between vegan and vegetarian!
I know it is a simple difference (well simpleish) but from a vegan forum I am on the number of times I have seen and reported supposedly vegan recipes that have egg in them (and it is not just egg, there are plenty of hidden issues though I am guessing that they would not be as major an issue here on a dedicated baking site) has been silly.

We could add a guidelines post to the gluten free and vegan sections with some advice on what those sections are about and some common ingredients that may catch people out if you're not eating that diet yourself. I think most people participating in those sections will be on vegan/gluten free diets already, so will have a good idea on what would be suitable (then again, I'm sure there will be plenty of variation between individuals).

Don't get me wrong, I am for a vegan section, but it is more a case of where you draw the line. Guidelines would be exceptionally useful, but you could need to dig deep. Shellac for instance is often used as a crispy coating on chocolates, it is a beetle secretion. A lot of red food colouring is made from crushed beetle shells, nether are vegan (in fact one is not even vegetarian but a lot of vegetarians don' know this!)

My main 'issue' falls with items that are 'naturally' vegan rather than adapted to be vegan and it becomes a case of where do you post them, do you mark them as vegan in the title thread. Can you add (to the site as an option) tags that people can tick to categorise things? (Apologies, I was an IT Engineer and am horrendous at thinking these things through still from that side of life!). I am just thinking things through (sadly). I know I have posted quite a few recipes that people are simply not aware would fall under the vegan category and would shy away from if they were marked vegan, but would be helpful to be marked vegan if someone was looking for a dedicated vegan recipe for a visitor. Like I said, it is a case of where do you draw the line, the cake might be vegan and no-one be aware and enjoy it.

Just some ramblings from a bedbound (almost) vegan who has probably had too much morphine today....

 

[Ian]

Yeah, that's the difficulty with a vegan section - but if vegans post whatever they would be happy to eat, then it's up to more/less strict vegans to modify the recipe slightly . We couldn't enforce hard rules for this (well, unless someone posts beef burritos in there ).

Your thought about tags may be a better idea than the separate section, I'll have a look at what options are available in the software and perhaps that would be a better way to go (tags for vegan, gluten free, etc...). I saw your thread reports about the 2 recipes that could be classified as vegan, I'll leave them where they are for now until I've investigated the tagging possibility.