Magazine serves up more than just recipes

I have enjoyed my subscription to Vegetarian Times. While I am not a vegetarian I do find many of the recipes in this magazine to be tasty. The photographs are elegant and the range of recipes suits meat eaters as well as Lacto-Ovo Vegetarians. I haven't seen as many recipes that would appeal for Vegans. In addition to a wide range of monthly recipes this magazine also includes articles on the benefits of being a vegetarian, health articles in general and more. Amazon offers a very competitive price for their magazines, much less expensive than the publisher offers through the magazine itself. I would recommend this magazine for those that are Lacto-Ovo vegetarians and meat eaters the like.

A Good-looking but Vapid Shadow of Its Former Self

When I began my road to vegetarianism in the mid 80's, I began subscribing to Vegetarian Times (VT). It was an impressive magazine back then with articles of journalistic merit, focusing on issues of concern to vegetarians of all ages. Back then, they didn't hesitate to deal with controversial issues, animal rights, or to criticize corporations with policies harmful to animals. In the 1980s and early 90s, their food photography wasn't quite as stylized, but their food was lower in fat. Recipes were labeled as to whether they contained dairy and or eggs, so vegans could easily scan a page of recipes without reading every ingredient.

Fast forward to 1999: VT was bought by the Sabot Publishing, a rapidly growing publisher who also owns "Southwest Art" and "Living West", among other magazines. According to a Sabot press release dated April 23, 2002, Sabot made a lot of editorial and design changes, which were complete by the May 2002 issue. According to the press release, VT is now targeted at babyboomers who want to look and feel better.

What does this mean to the reader?
* VT is has positioned itself as a healthy lifestyle magazine. Unfortunately, due to their mostly anemic health articles (with the occasional exception like their colds and flu article, Jan. 2003) and an abundance of high fat food, they don't do a very good job of being a health magazine. For example, their Jan. 2003 article on weight loss diets merely lists and describes the diets such as Atkins and McDougall and provides the diet's website, but fails to critically evaluate them. Apparently, the magazine's need not to offend any potential advertiser outweighs the reader's need for critical evaluation. In general, the health advice is pretty basic, such as laugh at life and wear sensible shoes (Nov. 2002).
* To appeal to a wider audience, their food is ovo-lacto vegetarian, heavy on the ovo-lacto, with vegan foods no longer labeled in the recipes themselves. VT has lost vegan readers in droves, and in an attempt to win them back, now has one exclusively vegan recipe article per month, beginning with the Jan. 2003 issue.
* Targeted at babyboomers. Gone are the school lunch articles, the teenage vegetarian articles, and articles geared at non-babyboomer age groups. There's a well-researched article in the November 2002 issue on natural alternatives to hormone replacement therapy. The folks in the holiday issue pictures are smiling, well-dressed white mostly middle-aged folks drinking wine in beautifully decorated settings enjoying an upscale bon homme.
* Gorgeous stylized food photography. Here's where the magazine, which now values form over function, shines. The artistic place- and serving settings of garnished gourmet food strategically photographed at the reader's fork-level form a mouthwatering fantasy.
* Non-food articles: They're thrown in occasionally. Recent ones have included getting organized and socially responsible investing. They're okay, a few good tips, but nothing that's not commonly known.
* Little "hard news". Although once they were full of news, there's now very little. To be fair, the editor's note in the Jan. 2003 issue claims they'll have "more 'hard news' about controversial developments in the fields of health and nutrition." It remains to be seen how well they follow through. To date, I'm not impressed.

Bottom line: If VT were a person, he or she would be fabulous looking and charming, but quite shallow ovo-lacto vegetarian "foodie", discussing little in depth, and nothing that's the slightest bit controversial. I only recommend VT to upscale babyboomer readers with lots of time to cook, who are content with a magazine of beautifully photographed mostly high fat ovo-lacto foods, and an occasional well-researched health article. For a magazine stronger in scientific research, exclusively vegan recipes, and vegetarian content beyond taking meat off the plate, I suggest the less slick "Vegetarian Journal".

not very useful unless you want recipes

Personally, after a year's subscription I got virtually no use or entertainment out of this magazine at all. It might depend on what you're looking for though. First of all, there's no true journalism in this magazine at all. For example, I would've liked to see some in-depth articles about what various advertizing terms actually tell you about animal treatment, what the full picture was on various nutritional contraversies regarding veg*anism, etc. They never have that sort of thing at all though.

The other thing is that, like the majority of veg*ans, I have a lot of problems with underweightedness and (occasionally) inadequate nutrition. VT, however, caters almost exclusively to those who are overweight and/or have eating disorders. Once, they even had an article about being an Atkin's vegan (I don't know how they can sleep at night advocating a diet that suicidal). I never saw a single VT article about how to gain weight, and hardly saw any passing mention of omega 3's, B12, or other nutrients that are severely lacking in an unsuplimented vegan diet. Overall, their conception of health is limited to weight loss, bizarre dietary obsessions, and yoga classes.

However, some people might find the magazine useful. The vast majority of the magazine is recipes, which to be honest I never really took advantage of. I basically never cook according to recipes, but if you do you might like the magazine a lot (especially if you're just a regular vegetarian). Also, if you need to lose weight, like I said, they have articles about it in every issue.