Who says investigative reporting is dead?
“Operation Pancake” blows the lid off of L.A.’s vegan restaurant scene Andrew Leonard Jul. 01, 2009 | Felix Salmon calls a 6000-word investigation of whether L.A.’s vegan restaurants are 100 percent authentically vegan “absolutely bonkers.” I’m not so sure about that. The piece seems to me like a pretty amazing example of authoritative investigative reporting — involving industrial strength food testing and fanatical attention to detail. Obsessive perhaps, but if I was a vegan, I’d surely want to know which restaurants were living up to my exacting standards and which weren’t. And I have nothing but respect for seekers of vegan truth who go so far as to call up the Bureau of Food Safety in Taiwan to get the full story on food labeling practices in the Republic of China. I say this as someone who does get annoyed when barbecue guests inform me that they don’t want their veggie burger cooked on a grill that has ever been touched by meat. Those people should not come to my barbecues — I
