https://www.veganfoodandliving.com/news/hellmanns-plant-based-mayonnaise-rebranded-vegan/
This is an interesting example of green nudging. The word "Vegan" does indeed carry a lot of baggage that some people shy away from. If you label the same “Vegan” product as “Plant Based”, there is often less resistance.
@andycarolan I almost always use the word "plant-based" online, simply because people don't yell at you when you say it.
Also, I feel it's easier to win others over. Being truly "vegan" is very hard. For example, in Europe, food products have "E numbers" to describe certain ingredients. Some of those E numbers aren't vegan, and some may or may not be.
I do remember a few, like E120 (cochineal) but really, life is too short.
@andycarolan In France, it turns out that any city with a vegan restaurant is too expensive for us to live in. 😀
However, there's a chain of stores called Bio Coop that's in most cities including our target cities and while they aren't vegan, they work hard on being sustainable, including a cabinet full of a dozen types of tofu, so far all excellent.
Of course, it's all packed in plastic. Half the plastic humans every produced was made in the last 15 years.
1/
@TomSwirly I think it has to be a fairly large city for Vegan restaurants to survive in. Anything like a town, will just gravitate to local foods, and will be mostly immune to dietary diverse foods. I imagine Gluten Free and Nut Free would be similar.
Sounds somewhat positive about Bio-Coop, That's my only problem with buying Tofu... most brands are packed in plastic tubs. The ones in plastic bags + cardboard boxes are usually considerably more expensive and smaller...
@andycarolan I looked it up, the actual name is BioCoop, I had it wrong.
Actually, all their tofu is in vacuum-sealed plastic bag, so at least the package weight is less. One takes what one can get.
@TomSwirly Haha, very true about being yelled at. The word “Vegan" makes some people unreasonably angry 😅
I've definitely stood in the aisles at my local supermarket, searching for ingredient origins on my phone. As you said, some E numbers aren't vegan at all!
At the moment, I feel that it is almost impossible to be truly 100% Vegan while there is animal exploitation happening in the food chain, for reasons of cross contamination, and processes used etc.
@andycarolan One of the cities we were in before this was Blois, and many restaurants that did have vegan items on their menu online had in fact removed them.
It's like the whole thing just some food trend, quickly passed for the next one, instead of a moral and ethical idea to do less harm. Humans just aren't very nice people...
@stevewfolds @andycarolan Indeed, my wife cooks for us, and for our dog, because the great vegan dog food we had in .nl isn't available here.
We aren't actually feeding the dog vegan food out of principle: he's allergic to pretty well all sorts of meat and scratches himself endlessly when fed it.
@andycarolan And as an aside, I do understand why people get angry. Veganism calls their whole lives into question; if someone accepts it as true, it means they and everyone they know having been "living in sin" their whole lives.
I used to think we could at least help save the world with veganism. But now I think it's not saveable, which paradoxically makes me more relaxed, as long as I don't contemplate the big picture of the future.
@TomSwirly Some people are more open to the idea of Veganism than others. Sadly, many don’t see beyond their plate, and can’t make the connection between taking the life of an animal and the meat that they are about to consume.
I am still hopeful that Veganism can have something of an impact, but sadly, I do agree that it's incapable of saving the planet without a greater commitment by far more people.
Andy Carolan 
Tom Ritchford
@stevewfolds