WINNIPEG – Like most burger joints in Canada, the lunch hour is a busy time at Boon Burger Café in Winnipeg.
Every one of the 20 seats in the small restaurant is occupied and another six people wait in line, some impatiently, to place an order.
But unlike many fast food restaurants, where the customers are men in work boots or office employees seeking a quick meal, most of those eating in Boon Burger are women in their 20s and 30s.
However, the gender imbalance at Boon Burger isn’t a total surprise because the restaurant’s owners promote it as Canada’s first all-vegan burger café.
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In a 2009 survey, the Vegetarian Resource Group found that five percent of American women aged 18 to 34 were vegetarian and 12 percent of women in that age group didn’t eat red meat. In comparison, three percent of U.S. adults are vegetarian, meaning they don’t eat red meat, poultry or fish.
The survey was conducted in the United States, but the statistics are probably similar in Canada, said David Alexander, executive director of the Toronto Vegetarian Association.
“There tends to be more women than men, from my experience, that are choosing this diet,” he said. “(But) it’s not overwhelming, it’s not 10 to one.”
John Cunningham, consumer research manager for the Vegetarian Resource Group, said it’s more like two to one.
The organization hasn’t conducted research to explain the gender disparity, but Cunningham offered two possibilities:
• young women pay more attention to diet and health;
• North American popular culture doesn’t respect men who adopt a vegetarian diet.
“One of the frozen food companies came up with an extra large, manly size portion of their frozen dinner,” he said. “(In the ads) they disparaged men who said they ate a salad for dinner as not being very manly.”
That might explain why some men shy away from a vegetarian diet, but it doesn’t explain why his research showed women vegans continue to outnumber men, but by only a small margin, which means more men are vegans than vegetarians.
Cunningham couldn’t explain the disparity, but Karlen Malinowski thought she might know.
Malinowski, 21, who has been a
vegetarian for a couple of years and has worked at Boon Burger for two months, said vegans and vegetarians are motivated by different principles.
She said the ethical issue of raising animals for meat wasn’t a major factor in her decision to go vegetarian.
“For vegans, I think it’s more about ethical reasons. For vegetarians, it’s more about health.”
However, Alexander said the distinction between vegan and vegetarian isn’t that clear cut. The two groups tend to forsake meat and animal products for an assortment of reasons, he added.
“A lot of people will define the terms by a list of ingredients that people do not eat,” he said.
“But both perspectives are about some combination of healthy eating, concern for the environmental consequences of animal agriculture and concern for animals.”
In her case, Malinowski said she didn’t consider those factors when deciding to go vegetarian. She grew up surrounded by beef and pork in her family home in Gimli, Man., but the taste and texture of meat made her ill, even as a child.
“My whole family is meat eaters. They’re Polish, with that whole realm of head cheese and eating pigs’ feet.”
She said she became a vegetarian mostly because it improves her health and well-being.
“I just eat what makes me feel good. That’s where I’m at.”
Jason Graetz, 34, had a similar experience when he was in his 20s, even though he is an exception to the vegetarian gender rule.
Like Malinowski, he grew up in a home where meat was served regularly, but became a vegetarian to improve his health.
“At that age (early 20s), I had really poor eating habits and I didn’t feel good when I ate meat,” Graetz said while eating lunch at Boon Burger with his wife, Alison Harack, and their 27-day-old daughter, Sadie.
Graetz, who grew up in Montreal and was a professional figure skater for several years, didn’t have hardened positions on animal agriculture when he made the choice.
However, he has since developed more sophisticated motives for not eating meat.
“I think more about it now…. I don’t push my views on other people, but I think there is a lack of mindfulness in eating,” he said.
“We think a lot about local foods and organic living. Obviously, the ethical part of it (animal agriculture) comes into play.”
Harack cooks mainly vegetarian dishes in their Winnipeg home, but she isn’t a vegetarian. She will eat meat occasionally. However, the meat she does eat must be organic and locally produced.
“For me, it’s a lot more important to eat organic food,” she said.
“If I’m going to eat (meat), I don’t want to eat something that’s been pumped full of antibiotics. I don’t want to put that into my body…. Whether that (perspective) is correct or not, that’s what I think.”
The couple wasn’t sure if Sadie will adhere to a vegetarian diet when she is older. Graetz said they will probably let her make her own choice.
Alexander said that type of approach isn’t surprising because today’s parents are less rigid when it comes to food.
He referred to Mark Penn, an American author and demographic expert who concluded there are more vegan children in the U.S. than there were a generation ago.
“He linked this to … an increasing trend in parental permissiveness. Parents today are more likely to let their kids decide what they want to eat,” Alexander said.
“So you could have a family today where parents are saying … ‘can I take your order, please.’ ”
Sadie may enjoy similar privileges and power in a few years, but Harack knows there’s one type of food her daughter won’t be allowed to eat.
“We won’t be feeding her hot dogs.”
