McVeggie: To Eat or Not to Eat Of course, we at Vegan Street didn't know whether to celebrate or cringe when we saw that the New York Times restaurant critic, William Grimes, wrote a short piece about the launching of McDonald's new vegetarian burger, the McVeggie, on May 30. The McVeggie, which is being market researched at select Manhattan franchises, marks McDonald's first attempt to genuinely compete for the American vegetarian market. Grimes, who spent much of the article ruminating on the uniformity not only of the taste and shape of McDonald's fare, but also of the plastic, shiny decor, wrote about how this lack of variety was exactly what Americans sought in the 1960s and still seek near the beginning of the millennium. Apparently, with the creation of the McVeggie, McDonald's doesn't break from this model. Grimes describes the veggie patties as looking like the regular hamburgers, even with "little bits and chunks that actually have striations like beef muscle." He describes the taste as being bland, and the texture "spongy." Overall, he was wholly unimpressed with the McVeggie, remarking that even the most "militant vegan" wouldn't derive pleasure from it. Grimes, no champion of the vegan cause, is apparently under the misconception that vegans regularly settle for mediocre food. The reason why we at Vegan Street didn't know how to react to the news of the McVeggie finally making it onto American soil is that it's both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, the fact that the world's largest purveyor of animal flesh is recognizing vegetarians as a viable enough market to try to tap into speaks volumes about the how much our movement has grown. This is a testament to our strength as consumers. On the other hand, do we really want to financially support this phenomenally wealthy and phenomenally vile corporation? On yet a third hand, don't we want to reward industries that are recognizing alternatives to the standard Western diet of animal-based foods? And, while we're juggling all three of these points, let's add a fourth for good measure: do we really want to financially support this phenomenally wealthy and phenomenally vile corporation? (Okay, that point was used earlier, but it deserved repeating.) It was interesting, though, to see McDonald's foray into the wild world of vegetarianism documented in the New York Times. Hopefully by the time the McVeggie has made it into McDonald's nationwide, our movement will have found some strategic answers as to whether or not to support the evil clown.

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