The Greenhouse

Nog Shine

02:37

-1

Q: How can components of a packaged food item exceed the net weight?

In some packaged foods, the added weight of its components (like sugar, protein, carbohydrates) exceed the weight of the total item. Example:- 1 pack of Chocos Cereal has net weight 30g. But its components like Total Carbs + Sugar + Protein exceed the net weight of 30g. How can the component's...

labeling

Please don't say this is on-topic and specific to Vegetarianism.

Having no questions is better than off-topic questions.

many closed questions were nominated for reopen. All of them are off-topic. Quality is important even when we have 2 or 3 questions per day.

Nic

02:54

@NogShine Do you think all of these questions should be closed? Because none of those are specific to vegetarianism. We should be consistent, one way or another.

Nog Shine

@Nic Not all should be closed. Some of those questions are about only vegan or vegetarian dishes. Some are borderline on-topic. But above one is nothing related to Vegetarianism.

One reason for allowing off-topic questions was lack of questions. that made users and reviewers allow borderline and cooking questions also. Some didn't VTC as dupe even when they know it is a dupe.

Nic

Are vegan and vegetarian dishes eaten only by vegans and vegetarians? Don't non-vegetarians also eat tofu, soy, and cooked vegetables? Those things aren't exclusive to vegetarians.

Ram was asking about the label on a vegan food so doesn't that make it relevant to vegetarians?

Nog Shine

@Nic The question is something else. Not about Veganism or Vegetarianism.

Nic

Ram is clearly trying to live a vegan lifestyle and he asked a question about a vegan food. The only guideline we have on our on-topic page is "How to stay healthy living while living a veg*n." and his question was pretty relevant to that.

Nog Shine

How is knowing components of a food a question about Veganism or Vegetarianism?

Nic

03:07

@NogShine How is avoiding worms from eating raw veg about veganism or vegetarianism?

Nog Shine

@Nic I would say that is off-topic because the other similar question is also closed but now it is reopened.

Nic

Then vote to close it.

Nog Shine

But others think it is on-topic.

Nic

And all the others.

Nog Shine

One thing is clear. There will be nothing off-topic for the site if we allow everything with Vegn in it. Anything Vegn in it can't be about Veg*n lifestyle.

Nic

03:11

If you want to contribute to the community consensus about whether these questions are on-topic then please add your thoughts on Meta. We really do need to clarify this as it is our site.

Nog Shine

12

Q: Define on-topic and off-topic reasons in the help center

One of the reasons on which many users are confused is on-topic and off-topic. If you once look at our meta home page, you will see that many questions are like Are questions about X on-topic here? Are essential oil topic questions on-topic here? Are recipes related questions on topic or ...

discussion feature-request scope

Multiple sites share scope. One question can be on-topic on cooking.se but it doesn't make off-topic here. The question should have something very much related to vegetarianism but need not to be specific to site.

Nic

@NogShine Yes I've seen that post. You've asked the mods to update on-topic reasons in the help center, but that hasn't happened because we don't yet have agreement about what is actually on-topic. We need to hammer out a better definition and I believe this is the place to do it.

@NogShine Not sure why you're talking about sharing scope here... is there some other StackExchange site that would be a better fit for asking about understanding nutrition facts labels?

Nog Shine

23 mins ago, by Nic

@NogShine Do you think all of these questions should be closed? Because none of those are specific to vegetarianism. We should be consistent, one way or another.

@Nic I am talking about this ^

Nic

ah okay

I'm still thinking about Ram's question about labels

Nog Shine

I don't know a site which is suitable for that. There should be some site.

Nic

03:22

@NogShine I think it belongs on this site for the reasons stated earlier. If you think it belongs on some other site, the onus is on you to pick one.

(Or alternately, you could say that it belongs on no site at all.)

Okay, it looks like that question would be on-topic for Health.SE. Here's a related question on that site.

Nic

04:11

@NogShine Do you think that high-fat low-carb veganism would be on-topic for Vegetarianism.SE? Seems like it would, since we already have raw and fruitarian diets. If Ram had asked his question in the context of a high-fat low-carb vegan trying to understand carb counts in a box of Chocos, would you then feel like it is on-topic?

Zanna

05:12

@NogShine yeah I agree.

PS, love your new avi.

Nog Shine

Thanks ^-^

Zanna

That question is like "I'm revising for a math test and there's a question about vegans. How many vegans does it take to screw in a light bulb?"

2

Although no, probably that would be more on topic XD

"I'm trying to open a can of tasty vegan food. I don't have a can opener. How can I open the can?!"

Nic

Maybe I just need to accept that it's off-topic even though we can't define exactly why it's off-topic.

Zanna

It's asking about something about which there's no reason to expect veg*nism experts to have expertise. That's what I mean. The real question is in another area. But of course it so happens that we know that sugar is a subset of carbohydrates and how to do math. Does that mean it's our area?

The Gardener

05:29

0

Q: Are we overly reliant on nutritionism?

We have many tags about nutrition: nutrition protein vitamins-and-minerals iron But we have very few tags for food groups: fruits So it seems that the focus is this site is placed very heavily on nutritionism which is a reductionist approach to health (as opposed to a holistic approach which pl...

discussion tags

Zanna

It's not our area I think. It's just an easy question and that's why we answered it. shrug maybe it's borderline and it doesn't matter much either way because it's not setting a precendent for making anything on topic if done while being vegan

Anyway, there were 3 questions in the reopen queue and I voted to reopen the others, just not that one

Nic

No reason to expect expertise? Vegans and vegetarians arguably spend a lot more time looking at ingredients lists than most people, and I guarantee that the average vegan spends more time thinking about fats/carbs/protein than the average person.

I want to be clear here: I'm okay with both of you voting to keep closed. I'm not actually that hung up on re-opening the question. The thing that bothers me is that the definition of why it's off-topic is so elusive.

Zanna

Hmm well I'm going afk for a little while

Nic

15:50

@Zanna I quoted you in my answer about whether questions about insect-eating should be on-topic.

The Farmer

16:54

0

Q: Do all cruciferous vegetables have the same nutritional profile?

I recently learned that broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and collard greens are all different cultivars of the same original plant species, Brassica oleracea (B. oleracea for short). These are some of my favourite vegetables, and I often combine them together in my favourite dishes. I thoug...

nutrition vegetables

The Farmer

18:21

1

Q: Which vegetal foods grown in Canada are good sources of fat?

I'm trying to buy more locally-grown foods and rely less on imports, but when it comes to sources of plant-based fat that seems to be a bit of a challenge in Canada. Relying on imports can be problematic in some cases like palm oil where weak regulation and corporate exploitation and geographic c...

veganism fats canada

The Gardener

18:50

0

Q: I set up a @StackVegetarian account on Twitter. Is that okay?

For a few years it was common to set up automated Twitter accounts for each StackExchange site that would tweet out new questions as they were asked. However, this practice ceased in 2015 because the StackExchange team saw low engagement numbers through Twitter. Vegetarianism.SE doesn't have a T...

discussion site-promotion twitter

Nic

20:13

I have proposed a test for determining whether questions are on-topic:

"Questions must relate to constraints that vegetarians live within and the challenges that arise from those constraints."

The Gardener

21:46

0

Q: Let's rename [ovo-lacto] to [lacto-ovo-vegetarianism]

Let's rename [ovo-lacto] to [lacto-ovo-vegetarianism]. I noticed that in the tagging prompt to ask a question, typing in vegetar displayed the option for lacto-vegetarianism but not ovo-lacto. It seems much more likely that somebody is going to start by typing "vegetarian" rather than "ovo". Sur...

discussion tags retag-request user-interface

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