As I’ve noted before in this column, it’s astonishing just how quickly vegan cuisine is evolving now that technology is on its side.
The internet, social media and helpful apps have propelled what was considered a cult-like activity into the mainstream, with a huge uptake in knowledge and information-swapping and of course, ever-evolving recipes that acknowledge the needs and desires of the whole vegan community.
Most of the impetus for this food revolution is coming from teenagers and young adults, and that’s probably the way it should be. But as is typical of any schoolyard or university environment, the emphasis on the ‘now’ can neglect an informative perspective on the past, and how we got here.
It’s rare to find a young vegan with much knowledge or interest in the history of food, or any real idea of where the majority of the food they eat comes from, and that’s a crying shame.
If there were a major economic meltdown tomorrow, or a major war that involved the dominant countries, where would New Zealand vegans and vegetarians get their essential nutrients if imports were jeopardised? We grow many of the vegetables we eat here, but our soils are low in several important minerals including selenium and iodine, which we need to get either from imported produce or supplements.
We get the majority of our protein from pulses and their derivatives (tofu, for instance) but almost all of these are imported, as are nuts and rice. When you get right down to it, vegans are a very long way from the idea of living a sustainable lifestyle, because they’re so very reliant on products imported from around the globe.
And if you’ve any doubts about how vulnerable we are to world markets, just look at how the price of cashew nuts has more than doubled in just one year. And don’t even get me started about food miles.
Vegans, however, seem to be happily oblivious to these rather important concerns. Shouldn’t we be stealthily developing a completely sustainable, New Zealand-grown philosophy to go with our food ethics? Not only does this make sense on an ethical level, but if we figured out how to grow all those ingredients locally, then we’d be protected in the case of international travesty.
It’s all too easy to forget that our colonial ancestors came here dirt-poor from an England that could barely feed them. Their food was largely vegetarian because they just couldn’t afford the meat that the aristocracy chowed down on. In the Aotearoa of the 1800s there were few real sources of protein, and that’s why having land for the first time was so important to these peasants, as it meant that they could own sheep and cattle and eat them as their main food source.
I’m in awe of young vegans who are revolutionising the way the world thinks about meat-free food, but many of them would benefit from a crash course in how their ancestors lived and ate and why they ate what they did. Tofu didn’t grow on kauri trees, Linda McCartney hadn’t invented her frozen meals, and raw food cuisine had yet to be invented, so meat was literally a necessity for survival.
Perhaps it’s time to think about the possibility of a future international catastrophe, and to figure out how to make the availability of local plant-based food sources guaranteed for all time. Who’s up for the challenge? (GARY STEEL)