The new dietary restriction landscape

Raymond Chen

Non appetit, the modern quandary of preparing a dinner for people who all have different types of dietary restrictions. Depending on whom I invite to dinner, I may have to put together a meal that conforms to one or more of the following restrictions: low-fat, pescetarian, vegetarian, nondairy, non-pork, non-beef. (Yes, many of these categories overlap.) To the best of my knowledge, none of my dinner guests have had nut allergies or been gluten intolerant.

I remember telling a story once and mentioning that the subject of the story was a vegetarian. The person I was telling the story to (who is from an older generation) asked, “Are they so poor that they can’t afford meat?” Because in an older era, people were vegetarians because they had no choice.

Raymond Chen

Follow