Vegan Food Has a Reputation Problem. Here's Where It Comes From.

The reason people don't trust vegan food is that a lot of vegan food has been genuinely bad.

I say that as someone who makes vegan food for a living.

I've eaten at plant-based restaurants where the meal felt like an apology. Limp tofu. Grain bowls with no fat and no acid and no reason to exist. Everything slightly undersalted, as if flavor was somehow not part of the plant-based ethos. Dishes that communicated very clearly that the person making them cared more about the ingredient list than whether you enjoyed eating it.

That version of vegan cooking — food as medicine, comfort as compromise — did real damage to how people think about this whole category.

I came at it differently. I cook vegan because I believe in it and because it makes me feel good and because I think it's one of the better things you can do for your body long term. But I would not feed someone joyless food just because it checked the right nutritional boxes.

The burrito has to actually hit. The pasta has to be creamy in a way that makes you not think about what's not in it. The curry has to smell like something you want to walk into when you open the front door.

If someone opens a Jonas' Kitchen bag and isn't immediately glad they ordered it, I've failed — not as a health food provider, but as a cook. Those are different things and most of the bad vegan food I've encountered confuses them.

The nutrition case is real. I track macros on every meal. I care about protein and fiber and the things your body actually needs. But that's not what makes someone order a second week. What makes them order a second week is that the food was good.

Sad vegan food is a choice. It happens when people decide the why of a meal matters more than whether it tastes like something. I don't make that trade.

See what Jonas is cooking this week →

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