Vegetarian/vegan Help Please!!!

I am presently reading a book about chefs and restauranyeurs called " IF YOU CAN STAND THE HEAT "

There is a chef in it who works at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant called Cafe Sunflower in Atlanta. In the book he mentions that he is allowed to use very minimal butter. This I understand because the butter comes from milk, but, he also says that he uses very minimal olive oil, and if he does use larger amounts of it, he has to cut it down with 80 % canola oil.

I am very confused here.!!! He is allowed to use an animal by-product like butter, but not a completely vegetarian item like olive oil?

Maybe someone has some insight on this.

there's not a lot to explain... if he's using butter, at all, IT AIN'T VEGAN. It's rather cut and dried... no gray area here.
don't you be confused... I think he is.

If your eating something that had a face or came from something with a face (dairy,honey), it ain't vegan. Perhaps he was referring to soy butter.

[Pete]

What about oysters, mussels, clams, etc. They don't have faces and if I'm not mistaken vegens don't eat those either.

Hi Pete! Maybe to you they don' have faces, but I fell in love with an oyster at the beach the other day. What a face!