Vegan restaurants in Israel: health, environmentalism and mainstreaming

ABSTRACT

As the number of Israeli vegans grows, so do the restaurants that cater to them. In this context, this article looks at how vegan restaurateurs in Tel Aviv construct discourses on veganism. Rather than emphasizing the uniqueness and distinctiveness of veganism, these restaurants tend to contextualize it as part of two complementing discourses: the discourse of health and the discourse of environmentalism. By contextualizing veganism in discourses external to the dining sphere, restaurateurs see the consumption of vegan food as individual acts that actualize communal responsibility, translating it into good citizenship, but detached from ethical considerations for animals’ wellbeing. At the same time, restaurateurs engage in the “mainstreaming” of their restaurants by concealing their vegan identity and/or serving imitations of animal-based foods. This action dilutes the potential to critique the dominant social food norms embraced by a neoliberal economy that encourages consumption.

KEYWORDS:

• Veganism
• restaurants
• health
• environmentalism
• food movement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. An Arab dish consisting of meat cut into thin slices, stacked in a cone-like shape and roasted on a slowly turning vertical rotisserie or spit.

2. A spicy fish stew with tomatoes.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Liora Gvion

Liora Gvion is a qualitative sociologist whose areas of expertise are the sociology of the food and the sociology of the body.