Vegetarian Food in American Restaurants

Most Mexican restaurants have Cheese Quesadias. You can also ask them to make tacos or burritos with only cheese and vegetables. Usually they comply unless they are too busy. Reg. Thai restaurants, I don't know how far it is true, but some say we have to make sure Thai dishes don't have any fish sauce in it. We have to tell them not to use that! Even with plenty of vegetarian food available, it's not easy being a pure vegetarian! Grilled cheese sandwiches are the Best in any American place ( We can't find even that in fancy restaurants) .

 

Apart from types of cottage cheese [ like Indian paneer ], all other cheese is not vegetarian . They have calf-rennet as an ingredient. This is a fatty tissue taken from the leg muscles of young cows, which gives the elasticity and stringy texture to the cheese.
Salads or veggie stir fries are the only safe bet for those looking for 'pure' veg. food , 'cos even soups are mostly made from bones broth only.

 

If the cheese is made in India & the ingredients list specifically doesn't include the words 'rennet' or 'microbial enzymes' or 'animal solids/protein' or even 'gelatin' , then probably it does not contain them. If the cheese is imported, then certainly more chances of it containing non.veg ingredients. Yes , the cheese in Pizza restaurants [esp.mozarella] do contain animal by-products unless they specifically claim that it does not -- which I've never heard of till date ! And Parmesan cheese is the worst of all -- it contains many animal by-products as the original/pure form of Parmesan is rather expensive.

Even the 'gelatin' which I've seen many vegetarians unknowingly use to make trifles, custards, puddings & the 'jello' which is so very popular with kiddies, is made from the collagen from inside pig skin & the boiled & crushed bones/hooves of cattle . It is better to stick to the gelatin made from the popular sea-weed called 'agar agar', as we know it is just a plant & nothing of animal origin lurks in it. Earlier it used to be available only as strands [ looks like vermicelli/semiya ] but now that also is available in powder form for easy usage.

Recently even 'Starbucks' had to withdraw their very popular Strawberry shakes as they were using cochneal -- a colouring/flavouring extract made from the wings of crushed insects !! They were using more of that to get the bright red/dark pink colour & hardly any real strawberries which made a whole army of loyal, vegan customers take up the issue & to avoid litigation, Starbucks has taken the product off the shelf.

Nowadays, majority of eatables outside mostly does contain unmentionable, yucky stuff .... 'cos the food industry have a 'snout to tail' policy :rant-- they have to use the animal from the nose to it's tail !!!! So they grind up the parts which can't be served in a restaurant plate & sell it off to packaged food manufacturers ..:rant

 

McD puts beef fat in their fries. Please be careful.

 

Souplantation lunch buffet has a variety of dishes ranging from vegan,vegetarian and non vegetarian..the best part is its a buffet type and all the dishes are marked clearly with labels indicating the ingredients..

 

Hi Dailyco,

I have tried Chipotle and I love it. We live in south and there is no Chipotle around here. I am so jealous of you guys living in North, as you have lots of vegetarian options to eat out. But whenever we are travelling, we look for Chipotle first. When I was in India and go out to eat, I used to look for 100% vegetarian restaurant only. Now the only option I got is to eat at home or get pizza or sub LOL.