On “Meatless in the Midwest,” vegetarians have an issue with perception as much as meat

• NY Times
• This story won’t stop showing up on my desktop.

This is, in some ways, a post addressed to A.G. Sulzberger. But it is, in many ways, a post that has very little to do with him. His essay this week in The New York Times, “Meatless in the Midwest: A Tale of Survival,” has sparked no shortage of responses in the two days since it ran. In it, Sulzberger relates his disappointment in the vegetarian and vegan scene in various Midwest communities, chief among them Omaha and Kansas City, Missouri.

Today, in this space, I’d like to suggest that Sulzberger’s piece is not a result of geographic bias or any actual issue with the establishments of the Midwest; instead, it’s an issue that plagues too many vegetarians — the perception that there’s just not anything for them to eat.