Pizza Hut now has vegan pizzas, and oh to be alive in 2017
Part of the appeal of fast food is that it’s not supposed to be healthy. It’s flavored with grease and salt and fat and butter. Unless you count potatoes and shredded lettuce, vegetables usually don’t appear on the tray. It’s an indulgence, a guilty pleasure, a dirty secret. And it tastes good. Everyone should be able to enjoy that feeling of satisfaction when you bite into a juicy burger, straight off the grill, or a greasy slice of pizza topped with cheese that tastes it through it was squeezed through a tube, even vegans. Pizza Hut seems to agree, because starting tomorrow in the United Kingdom, the chain is adding vegan pies to its menu.
Pizza Hut’s vegan pies will use a type of fake cheese called Violife. The brand includes products like “Just Like Mature Cheddar” and “Just Like Smoked Provolone” in its line of dairy alternatives, according to Grub Street. The chain tested its vegan pizza in England for about two months but warned that it would only become a permanent menu item if there was high customer demand—which apparently there was. Who knew there were so many pizza-hungry vegans in England?
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“After an amazing customer response to our vegan cheese trial earlier this year, we’re pleased to announce that the dairy-free alternative will now be served in all of our restaurants nationwide and feature as a permanent fixture on our menus,” Gareth Hopley, Head of Communications at Pizza Hut Restaurants, said in a statement reported by Metro UK.
Violife will cost an extra £1 to add to your Pizza Hut pie and, for now, you can only try it in the United Kingdom, but perhaps if it’s a big enough hit there, the U.S. will adopt the new menu item, too.
Don’t be surprised by the sudden popularity of the snack: Vegans love junk food, too, and they want to be included in the fast food market. So what if they don’t eat animal products? That doesn’t mean they have to be healthy all the time. In Finland, McDonald’s is testing a vegan burger, not to mention the current craze to develop the perfect, bleeding “impossible burger.” And if you’re looking for a healthy pizza alternative here in the U.S., you might try California Pizza Kitchen, which, though not entirely vegan, has introduced cauliflower crust on some of its pies.
