In what feels like a plot from a Portlandia episode, there’s now a vegan controversy surrounding Happy Dog, the veg-friendly home to hipsters. Wienergate!
The Happy Dog Facebook page erupted with comments from angry vegans in recent days after someone said that while the veggie hot dogs are vegan, the bun surrounding it was not. Prompt the angry social media posts. You’ve been lying to us!!!!!
Admittedly, Happy Dog’s flippant response was not the best damage control tactic, and further, it was incorrect. There are no eggs in the bun — just flour, water, and yeast. But someone thought yeast was a problem for vegans, so voila! the buns became non-vegan and vegans took out their wrath.
This article appears in Dec 5-11, 2012.
Yeast? This is an argument about freakin’ yeast? You can avoid eating animal products, but yeast is a fungus. Why would a vegan have a problem with yeast?
if yeast isn’t vegan, then neither are any species of mushroom.
Shut up you filthy yeast murderer.
I’m interested to read what Happy Dog’s ‘flippant response’ was. Anyone know what they wrote?
Ummmmm…. yeast is vegan. A food called nutritional yeast (which is a tasty, tasty species of yeast) even has a nic name in the vegan community “nooch.” Source of information: I’M VEGAN and have been since 2006.
Not sure what the Happy Dog’s flippant response was. Mine would be, “Kiss my protien enriched buns!” Just saying, you know… flippantly.
I’m an omnivore but am friends with vegans, vegetarians, pescatarians, etc. All of them consider yeast to be vegan and none of them have ever heard that it isn’t. This is too bizarre for words.
Food tribalism and being a douche are rampant in the so-called compassionate vegan community. Doesn’t change my mind about being vegan, but I’m much less likely to give myself that label. I’ll tell people “I don’t eat meat or dairy” and let them figure it out.
But then again, if a restaurant trades on the loyalty of a certain clientele, they should understand that clientele’s needs and wants. That’s just basic marketing and common sense.
So glad I don’t have to deal with any of this BS. I eat what I want, when I want.
Freaken hotdogs ff and tots with beer….
Deal with it….
They’re complaining about STOMACH UPSETS??!! OMG! Get over it already. You’re eating new combinations of hot dogs and condiments. You think the world owes you something for it? It could have been anything. Blame the vegan listing? Whadaya want, Warning Tags on the buns? They’re not bio-degradable, you know! Too many complaints mean too much nit-picking. Happy Dog shouldn’t have given in. It was a wimpy solution to over-reactions. If you are sensitive to ANY FOOD, just about every menu in Cleveland warns you to ask the waiters, owners or your (non-practical joking) friends. Bottom line: Don’t like the Lake Erie waters, don’t swim in it!
You people are all missing the point and flippantly oblivious to the primary point of veganism- compassion. If there are animal products in a “vegan” hot dog presentation, ie, the bun, then there is animal suffering and death in that so-called vegan hot dog. Stop making a joke of this. It only reveals your superficiality and your callous attitude toward life and our fellow beings on this planet.
Jack yeast IS vegan…these idiots complaining are the problem not the restaurant.