American Airlines Restricts Its Vegetarian Meal Option

by Jeanne Yacoubou, MS

VRG Research Director

We recently received an email from a vegetarian couple who frequently flies on American Airlines business class. They expressed frustration about the lack of vegetarian meals served on most flights. They told us that they usually are served nothing at all and that “it has been close to a decade since we have received a veggie meal option from American. This includes international flights…”

The VRG contacted American for clarification of their vegetarian meal policy. Stephen Jeffery of Customer Relations at American told us that “we no longer offer the option of ordering a special meal in the first class cabin on all domestic non-transcontinental flights (special meals are still available in the first class and business class cabins on transcontinental flights) or in the coach cabin on all domestic flights and on flights to/from the Caribbean, Mexico, Hawaii, Latin America and Canada.”

Jeffery explained American’s policy in this manner: “This change in service resulted from an exhaustive competitive analysis of this particular complimentary amenity. The cost savings identified by this reduction in service are significant for us and will help us focus on those of our products and services better valued by our customers.”

Jeffery noted that special meals, including a vegetarian option, are still available on flights to Europe, Japan and some Latin American destinations. For more information, he suggested that readers visit:

http://www.aa.com/content/travelInformation/duringFlight/dining/specialMeals.jhtml

When The VRG followed up with American Airlines on this subject on behalf of the vegetarians who said they were served nothing at all when their request for the vegetarian option was denied, Jeffery stated that “as long as there were sufficient meals aboard, the flight attendant would be more than happy to serve a regular meal in place of a special meal which had been requested but was not delivered.”

The VRG recommends that vegetarians request the vegetarian meal option every time they fly. More consumer interest and demand may result in a meal policy modification at American Airlines.

Vegan Hamentashen Recipe from
The Lowfat Jewish Vegetarian Cookbook

Here’s an eggless version of hamentashen, the popular baked treat served during Purim. If you are unable to purchase prune or poppy seed filling in your local supermarket, simply puree a few prunes with a little fruit juice.

• 1½ cups unbleached white flour
• 1½ cups unbleached wheat pastry flour
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 2/3 cup water
• ½ cup applesauce
• 3 Tablespoons orange juice
• 5 Tablespoons prune or poppy seed filling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all the ingredients, except filling, together in a large bowl. Knead dough for a few minutes. Separate into 3 balls. Cover balls with a slight damp towel and refrigerate dough for about 3 hours. Remove from refrigerator and roll balls of dough out to 1/8-inch thickness. Cut out approximately 15 four-inch rounds. Place 1 teaspoon prune or poppy seed filling in center. (Filling can be bought in supermarkets and some natural food stores). Form a triangle out of the dough by folding in edges, but still leaving some space in the middle of the dough for the filling to remain mostly uncovered.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until dough is brown. Serve.

Need vegan recipes for Passover? Right now we’re offering a special: get both Vegan Passover Recipes and No Cholesterol Passover Recipes for just $12 and free shipping!
Call 410-366-8343 to order.

Highlights from this issue include:

Edible Vegan Gifts for the Holidays

Vegan Munchies

How Many Vegetarians Are There?

Menu Selection for Vegan Renal Patients

VRG Awards Two $5,000 Scholarships

Calcium Content of Popular Indian Vegetarian Dishes and Ingredients

To join VRG and receive The Vegetarian Journal in print either:
* join online with $25
* call (410) 366-8343 and order by phone with your Mastercard® or Visa®
* or complete this form and mail or fax it to:

The Vegetarian Resource Group
P.O. Box 1463
Baltimore, MD 21203
Fax: (410) 366-8804

Each year, VRG awards $10,000 in college scholarship money to two high school seniors who have promoted vegetarianism in their schools/communities ($5,000 to each). The deadline – February 20 – is right around the corner, so if you want to apply, or know someone who should apply, click here for more information.

VRG also offers The Eleanor Wolff Scholarship which is a paid summer internship ($2,500 plus $1,000 toward housing) at VRG’s Baltimore office. Here’s what our interns Kristen and Rachel had to say about their internships at VRG last summer: http://www.vrg.org/blog/2009/08/21/notes-from-two-vrg-summer-interns/

—————-
Would you like to sponsor a scholarship or internship? This provides a tremendous opportunity for students who are doing some great work promoting vegetarianism.
Click here to read about past scholarship winners (right-hand side).
Click here to read about past Eleanor Wolff Scholarship winners.

If you’re caught in this crazy snow storm like us, here are some vegan soup recipes to warm up:

http://www.vrg.org/recipes/vjmesoup.htm
http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2005issue1/vj2005issue1soups.htm
http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2000jan/2000janmiso.htm
http://www.vrg.org/blog/2009/11/30/fall-slow-cooked-stew/

And it’s a little late for this right now, but it might be helpful for next time around!

http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/disaster.htm

Buying flowers for Valentine’s Day? Click the image to order organic flowers and to have VRG receive 10% of your purchase price!

The Vegetarian Resource Group: Internship Report

Yuko Tamura
Global Studies Programme 2008
Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg

(Yuko Tamura is a student from Japan. As part of an international program she was enrolled in at a German University, Yuko interned with VRG for several months.)

The reasons why I came to The VRG for my internship are– to learn more about vegetarianism for my master’s thesis; to understand how non-profitable organization functions; and probably most importantly, to convince myself of being vegetarian, which has been one of my identities for several years, as well as being Japanese or university student.

I think, The VRG was perfect place to do all of these. I learned about vegetarianism from various perspectives of nutrition, animal right or environment, I learned what non-profitable organization is and how it functions, and after two months and a week, I was absolutely more convinced of my being vegetarian. Having being able to learn both of vegetarianism and non-profitable organization was very profitable for me, however I think, the last one was the most important thing I got from this internship.

Staying at The VRG and reading a lot about vegetarianism tremendously broadened my interests, because vegetarianism is in fact related to many fields– not only health or the environment, but also politics or industries. Trying to understand what the obstacles of vegetarianism in this country are, I came to know what is going on behind national food guideline or how government’s subsidy for certain products influences on the society.

As well as reading and talking about vegetarianism with people in the office, participating in some local parties and events helped me understand vegetarianism and the background behind that. Through attending parties and events, I was able to see what role local vegetarian or animal right organization plays, how vegetarian people socialize with other vegetarians, and what vegetarian people’s attitude toward vegetarianism is like.

Helping The VRG’s booth at Veg Fest in Washington D.C. was another interesting experience for me. The number of people who visited the fest astonished me; I could not imagine that many people are interested in vegetarianism. Even though they are not vegetarian or vegan, some of them were thinking of converting to vegetarian and some of them occasionally adopted vegetarianism as a healthier food choice. Since vegetarianism is related to several topics, to see how all the aspects of vegetarianism come together and make a big movement was, amazing.

Attending Natural Products Expo was great experience too. Not only lots of great samples of organic/natural food which made me full during entire three days, but also I enjoyed observing products, chatting with exhibitors or distributors, taking lectures on marketing or current trends. I enjoyed it, and felt that it was great to have this growing market of natural products. On the other hand, I got more or less disappointed to see the definition and standard of natural products. The word “natural” can be interpreted in some ways; consequently natural products can be interpreted in some ways. It is not necessarily organic, or it could even include GMO products. When one non-profitable organization which is supposed to support natural products producers explained so, lots of listeners criticized them of not excluding inorganic and GMO products. However, it seemed impossible for them to change the standard, for their benefits after all. This made me think that distributors or rather customers have to be very careful of what to buy, not to be cheated by labels and bland of “natural.”

Besides interning with The VRG, I observed the US and its vegetarianism in my own way. As I always do in any country I go, I often visited lots of supermarkets. Supermarkets are probably the most interesting place to visit especially in abroad, because they show and explain the country very well. Which kinds of stuffs they have, what is cheap, what is popular, how the shopping system works, these things are quite important for me to know, in order to understand the country and people there. I have a long list of my findings though (one of them, meat in general was not so cheap against my expectation), here, I mention what made me most surprised, as well as the cheapness of soda-soy products.

How many Japanese can imagine how tofu is well-known here? Tofu in the US is maybe 10 times firmer than that in Japan, and it can even be fried with vegetable-so tofu in the US (or Europe) is almost something different from tofu for us, except for that it is made with soybeans and usually curded with nigari. How they consider tofu was very interesting to me too, because some recognize tofu as meat alternative. Although we also call soy beans meat of garden, we never consider it as meat alternative.

Moreover, from soy-burger to soy-sausage, then from soy-yogurt to soy cheese, soy turned into incredibly various kinds of stuffs. It was ironic that America started to produce these alternatives with soybeans, and Japan encourages its citizens to having certain amount of meat and lots of dairy every day. It was only 50 years ago that ordinary Japanese started to consume meat and dairy products, however it is so difficult to find vegetarian dishes now.

Now, I again think of vegetarianism and my being vegetarian. It is true that the more I know about vegetarianism, the more I feel confident and comfortable with being vegetarian. Since the idea of vegetarianism is not known well in Japan, it was Germany where I became vegetarian. However, now I think I just try to be like a Japanese 50 years ago, who had almost no meat and lots of rice, and regionally grown vegetable. Japan has developed and modernized at incredibly rapid pace in last 150 years, introducing and imitating a lot from Western countries. This is really worth being appreciated, but we did not have to adopt Western nutrition or eating style too. We already had what we needed and what fitted us. Not only Japan but in many places called non-West, the same thing is happening. This is what I feel about being vegetarian, after traveling to several countries.

Again, staying at The VRG was a great opportunity for me, and it made my interests in writing master’s thesis on this topic stronger. Now, I am working on the thesis, which is about vegetarianism and the environment. Thank you very much again to everyone in the office, for their encouragement, advice and patience, and lots of fun.

Julia Driggers, R.D., shares a recipe for vegan party mix:

Vegan Party Mix

(Makes 18 Servings)

Ingredients:

3 cups Air-Popped Popcorn
3 cups Vegan Wheat Cereal
3 cups Mini Pretzels
1 cup Peanuts
1¼ cup Vegan Chocolate Chips (or Carob)
½ cup Smooth Peanut Butter
¼ cup Earth Balance Margarine
1½ tsp Vanilla
2 cups Vegan Powdered Sugar

Directions:

In large bowl mix popcorn, cereal, pretzels, and nuts. Set aside. In microwaveable bowl microwave chocolate chips, peanut butter, and margarine for 1 minute. Take out and stir. Replace in microwave for 30 more seconds or until mixture can be stirred smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour mixture over popcorn mix and stir until evenly coated. Pour popcorn mixture into large storage sealable bag. To bag add vegan powdered sugar and shake until popcorn mix is well coated. Pour out on cookie sheet to cool. Enjoy! Make sure to store in the refrigerator.

Nutrition Analysis per Serving

VRG received this question:

“In the 2007 first issue of the Vegetarian Journal you state that alpha linolenic acid in whole flaxseed can not be absorbed well. Can you please explain why.”

Thanks for your note. This is what the Canadian Flax Council has to say: See http://www.flaxcouncil.ca/english/index.jsp?p=faq

Which is better for me, whole or ground flax seed?

Ground flax seed provides more nutritional benefits than does whole seed. That’s because flax seeds are very hard, making them difficult to crack, even with careful chewing. Grinding flax seeds breaks them up, making them easier to digest when eaten. Then the body can profit from all that flax goodness.

If whole flax seeds remain unbroken, they may pass undigested through the body, reducing the nutritional advantage of eating flax seed in the first place.

So, based on this, I suggested using ground flaxseeds or flaxseed oil.

Hope this helps.

Reed Mangels, PhD, RD
Nutrition Advisor
The Vegetarian Resource Group

The first wave of International Food for Life Global volunteers are in the Dominican Republic and have joined the local FFL staff to finalize set up of their vegan food relief base camp. More volunteers from the UK, USA, Brazil, Mexico and Canada are set to arrive soon after.

Click here to donate to their efforts.