December 11, 2006

Vegan ghee – in your face haters

by IsaChandra

I always come across doubters saying that Indian restaurants who say they use vegan ghee are lying. Now, a world where waiters just go around lying willy nilly is scary enough but that same world without vegan ghee is ever scarier. But last week I found it, the last piece in the puzzle of veganism. In a little Indian grocery on 1st avenue between 5th and 6th streets, shelves and shelves of vegan ghee! It's essentially palm and soybeans oil and 2.2 pounds cost 5.75, so it might be a good alternative for earth balance in your baking. Here is the photographic evidence:

vegan ghee

After doing some research (googling once) I found that Dalda is a Unilever brand, and I try to avoid anything that Chumbawumba has written songs against, but oh well. Here's the lyrics in case you don't want a bunch of pop up adds.

When you don't want to feed the world
When you just want to feed your bank balance
Wash your guilt away:
UNILEVER WASHES WHITER!
Soap to clean those dirty hands
And a slap for the people who work the land
Unilever
Man-made hunger
Soap in our eyes
John West is the Best!
Old soap opera
No soap reality
Legal slave trade
Domestos kills all known truths dead
Soap to wash the darkest stain
Profit covers up the pain
Of a slow, deliberate genocide
And all the dirt you want to hide
Take the black and wash it whiter
Brooke Bond Oxo
Blue Band, Bird's Eye
Lifebuoy, Sunsilk
Persil washes Whiter!
We make whitewash
We sell whitewash
Consume whitewash
Consumed by whitewash
Somewhere in this cycle there's me and you
What are we prepared to do?

4 Comments
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  • April 12, 2012 at 2:08 pm: P G

    It’s a little odd to call it vegan ghee because in India, ghee by definition means buttery goodness. The butter is essential to its identity.

    If you go to a Punjabi household, for instance, and want to smear something fatty on your paratha, you get ghee. Dalda is just not a good substitute for that, or at least that’s what they’d say. It would be pretty strange to go to a Punjabi household, be offered ghee, and ask for a “vegan alternative,” i.e. dalda, to smear on your roti. They’d look at you askance. If you like the taste of dalda, go for it; it’s just that traditionally in India, dalda wouldn’t be treated as a substitute for ghee when you’re putting it directly on your roti or mixing it with rice. The taste would be too prominent.

    I think this is one of those cases where Americans learn about some Indian ingredient and then attempt to “veganize” it without realizing that the vegan alternative exists in its own right and is used for a distinct purpose.

    I just remember growing up in India (decidedly not vegan), and I know people turned up their nose at dalda. It honestly gets a very bad rap in India. While it had its uses (and was a lot cheaper), it would never take ghee’s place smeared on roti or mixed with rice.

    If vegans here want to and decide to change that, great. Good for dalda. But it’s a little misleading to call it “vegan ghee,” and it’s too bad restaurants advertise it as such.

  • May 6, 2012 at 5:28 pm: vj todeskyj

    to PG, You mention that vegan alternatives to ghee exist, but you list no suggestions. If noses are turned up at dalda, what is typically used as a vegan option?