Enjoy this recipe by James Craig Thieman, demonstrated by Vegan Journal editor Rissa Miller.

See video at: https://youtu.be/1wVKxoLByOM

Get the recipe: https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2020issue3/2020_issue3_bowled_over.php

To subscribe to Vegan Journal in the USA, see: https://www.vrg.org/member/2013sv.php

By Nadely Requena, VRG Intern

What once began as a way for Hannah Kaminsky to share her knitting crafts, her BitterSweet Blog slowly evolved into a career promoting veganism. Her website now highlights her creative vegan recipes, food photography, playful craft patterns, and includes vegan product promotions.

Kaminsky has continuously worked to create and photograph food pieces for the Vegetarian Resource Group’s Vegan Journal, VegNews, and Allergic Living, among others. She is also the author of nine cookbooks, including My Sweet Vegan, The Everyday Vegan Cheat Sheet, and The Student Vegan Cookbook. Kaminsky’s dedication to breaking the barrier and stereotypes that revolve around vegan cuisine is what fueled her to continue her freelance work for over a decade.

Growing up in Connecticut, she gained an appreciation for the arts at an early age. Knitting was an activity present throughout Kaminsky’s childhood and her family even had a dedicated crafting room in their home. While others tried to teach her the mechanics, she eventually learned to knit and crochet by following instructions in a book.

Kaminsky frequently engaged in sketching and painting, but she always felt she could never express the vision in her mind properly. Upon picking up photography, however, Kaminsky immediately felt comfortable as she could instantly express her intent.

Her urge to become vegan developed during high school as she had vegan friends and viewed them as “cool.” However, after eating bland and repetitive food as a result of not knowing how to properly feed herself, Kaminsky decided to put research into the diet. Upon discovering the cruelty present in the animal industry, she realized being vegan was something she not only wanted to do for herself, but for the world.

She often cites her parents as the reason why she was able to be successful with her diet. They had continuously expressed their concerns with her changing diet, so with the help of a dietitian, Kaminsky learned to properly supplement herself. However, Kaminsky’s parents were adamant about not preparing separate meals and it was then that her passion for cooking blossomed. It was through these realizations that Kaminsky was able to build a career for herself.

“(Cooking) became a bigger part of the blog, I started writing recipes, and eventually that took over the blog and with photos it was just a function of documenting what I was making and eventually I got more into that and that became the trajectory of my career,” Kaminsky said.

However, she acknowledges the scary instances that came with having a freelance career. From having to carve out a nonexistent niche of vegan writing and photography, living a piecemeal life, and then encountering the pandemic, Kaminsky has experienced her fair share of difficult moments pursuing her advocacy work.

Her perseverance and passion for her career has kept her afloat. Kaminsky’s unique job provides her with the variety she craves and most importantly, allows her to dismantle the idea that vegan food is too difficult, expensive, and not full of flavor.

“I want people to compare my recipes to ‘regular’ omnivore recipes and say this is a great muffin and not this is a great vegan muffin,” Kaminsky said. “I just want to show people it’s just food and maybe it’s better food. I don’t want it to be a weird thing like you need to eat vegan as if it’s a different cuisine. Everything can be vegan.”

Kaminsky continues to share her lovely recipes, exceptional photography, and knitting ideas on the Bittersweet Blog. Be on the lookout for a future cookbook coming out this August!

Blog: https://bittersweetblog.com/

Personal Website: https://hannahkaminsky.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-kaminsky-64117a72

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MySweetVegan/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bittersweet__/?hl=en

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bittersweet__

By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

It was a happy day when my family and I stopped by The Original Plantwich sandwich shop in Glen Rock, NJ. This newly-opened restaurant has a menu filled with vegan sandwiches along with sides including hash browns and daily specials like black bean kale slaw. They also have a refrigerator stocked with grab and go dishes that vary day to day but could include overnight oats, chickpea salad, and coconut oat balls.

The Original Plantwich’s owners are super friendly and told us about their initial idea of having a food truck mainly serving sandwiches. When their current space in Glen Rock became available, they changed their plans and opened a storefront shop. They are open for take-out only but there are shady benches nearby for a picnic lunch.

My sandwich, Gone in Sixty, was simple and delicious – vegan egg and cheese on a toasted English muffin.  My daughter enjoyed the Marvelous Maple, a creative sandwich, which included vegan sausage, egg, and cheese on a pretzel bun with a smoky maple sauce. She described it as a mix of tastes that worked well together. My husband tried one of the daily specials, the TLT Dynamite, a classic featuring tempeh bacon, lettuce, tomato, and avocado on an English muffin.

If I were to go back, I’d want to try a PBC (peanut butter, banana jam, and chocolate chips on an English muffin) or maybe the Manipesto (vegan egg, bacon, tomato, and pesto on an English muffin).

You can find The Original Plantwich at 251 Rock Road 1D Glen Rock, NJ.

Visit their website at https://www.theoriginalplantwich.com/

To find a list of veggie restaurants in the USA and Canada visit: https://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php

See: https://www.newhope.com/manufacturing-and-supply/retailers-whey-are-animal-free-dairy-products-natural?

The Vegetarian Resource Group has a graphic called Burrito on My Plate, which shows viewers the water footprint of a vegan versus a meat-based burrito. It takes 225 gallons of water to make a vegan burrito without tofu and 253 gallons of water to make a vegan burrito with tofu. In comparison, it takes 541 gallons of water to make a beef burrito.

The Burrito on My Plate Graphic can be seen here: https://www.vrg.org/environment/BurritoOnMyPlate.pdf

The article detailing how we came up with the numbers of gallons of water needed to produce each type of burrito can be found here: https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2017issue2/2017_issue2_burrito_plate.php

By Rima Ibrahim

1-2 heads of lettuce

2 tomatoes

3 cucumbers

4-6 mint leaves (or 1 Tablespoon dried mint)

1 large bell pepper (any color)

2 green onions (scallions)

2-3 lemons

2 Tablespoons parsley

1/3 cup olive oil

2 Tablespoons sumac

1 Tablespoon garlic powder

Salt and pepper, to taste

1 teaspoon paprika

¼ teaspoon lemon rind, grated (optional)

Cut up all veggies. Add seasoning and lemon juice. Mix everything together and enjoy.

Note: The traditional salad also includes pieces of bread either baked or fried for a crispy texture.

Recent topics brought up include:

– Question posted: How do you all explain why your family is vegan to younger children? Our daughters are 3 going on 4 soon and have been excited to announce their veganism to everyone. This makes me proud but I want to make sure they understand that other children who don’t eat the same aren’t “bad” or “weird” for NOT being vegan because most children aren’t making their own dietary decisions. Any thoughts or age appropriate conversation prompts to promote an accepting view of others eating habits at this age?

– Posted a review of the book Feeding Your Vegan Child that ran in Vegan Journal.

– Shared Vegan Grilling Recipes

https://www.facebook.com/groups/VRGparentsandkids is intended to be a group that offers support for families raising children on vegan diets and for vegan kids around the world. We envision it as a place to get advice about a wide-variety of topics: pregnancy, birthday parties, school lunches, Halloween, non-leather apparel, cruelty-free products, summer camps, and more. Please use it as a place to share your wisdom, seek advice, or just find a sympathetic ear. The goal is to offer support.

Consequently, any profane, defamatory, offensive, or violent language will be removed. Feel free to disagree, but do so respectfully. Hateful or discriminatory comments regarding race, ethnicity, religion, gender, disability, sexual orientation, or political beliefs will not be tolerated. We expect that posts should relate to vegan diets and lifestyles. The Vegetarian Resource Group reserves the right to monitor all content and ban any user who posts in violation of the above rules, any law or regulation, SPAM, or anything otherwise off topic.

Please share this information with any veggie families that you know! Thanks.

By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

Picture yourself at a well-stocked supermarket. You are reading package labels to try to assess which foods are healthiest for you. “What about foods that are best for the environment?” you may wonder. In the past, The Vegetarian Resource Group has reported about studies finding that producing a single serving of red or processed meat has a markedly larger impact on greenhouse gas emissions, land use, acidification, and air quality than does producing a serving of plant foods (1, 2).  While helpful, these studies don’t aid with making decisions about specific food products.

New research, using more than 57,000 products from the United Kingdom and Ireland, estimated products’ impacts on greenhouse gas emissions, land use, water stress, and eutrophication potential (3). Each food’s nutritional quality was also considered. Generally speaking, more nutritious foods were more environmentally sustainable. If the different aisles in a grocery store were considered, the aisles with fruits, vegetables, salads, breakfast cereals, some breads, and meat alternatives (e.g. tofu, vegan sausages) were judged to have the best scores for environmental impact and nutritional quality. Aisles with cheese, chocolate, savory pies, and quiches scored worst for environmental impact and nutritional quality. The aisles with the greatest environmental impact generally were ones with beef and lamb products. Some products such as sodas, fruit juice, and frozen desserts had low environmental impact scores but were deemed to be of poor nutritional quality.

In the U.K., package labels indicate the actual amount of ingredients, saying something like pesto is 47% by weight basil and 5% cashews. This information, which was used in this research to estimate the environmental impact of products containing a number of ingredients, is not included on labels in the U.S.  This study used a serving size of 3 ounces of product for all foods. This may over-estimate the actual amount consumers eat of some foods (like nuts) and under-estimate the amount of others (like prepared entrées). The estimated environmental impact includes the processing and transportation to retail stores of raw ingredients but does not include postproduction processing, packaging, and transportation. So, for example, the environmental impact of making sugar into soda or of making flour into bread was not calculated. Despite these limitations, this study offers help to consumers making decisions about which food to purchase.

To reduce the environmental impact of their food choices, consumers can reduce or eliminate foods like beef, lamb, and cheese and products containing these foods. These can be replaced by similar plant-based products which have a lower environmental impact.

We hope that additional studies like this one will be conducted in the United States and other countries and that package labels of food products will include information about their environmental impact.

References

1. Domingo NGG, Balasubramanian S, Thakrar SK, et al. Air quality-related health damages of food. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021;118(20):e2013637118.
2. Clark MA, Springmann M, Hill J, Tilman D. Multiple health and environmental impacts of foods. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019;116(46):23357-23362.
3. Clark M, Springmann M, Rayner M, et al. Estimating the environmental impacts of 57,000 food products. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2022;119(33):e2120584119.

To read more about environmental effects of food choices see:

Save Our Water: The Vegetarian Way

The Water Footprint of a Vegan Versus a Meat Burrito

Is Dairy-free Better for the Environment?

Kasheri with Brown Rice

Chef Nancy Berkoff shares delicious vegan Egyptian recipes in her previous article Vegan Recipes from Egypt. Dishes include Kasheri with Brown Rice, Brown Rice Mujaddara, Makloubeh (Layered Eggplant), Vegan Kofta, Orange and Olive Salad, Khoshaf (Compote), and Egyptian Lemonade.

To subscribe to Vegan Journal visit: http://www.vrg.org/member/2013sv.php

If you live in Maryland (especially near Baltimore) or will visiting this area, you might want to dine in one of the many restaurants participating in Maryland Vegan Restaurant Month that is being held through August 28^th this year. Some of the participating establishments include Land of Kush, Golden West Café, Liora, Double Zero, Gangster Vegan Organics, Roland Park Bagels and Sandwiches, Harmony Bakery, Miss Shirley’s, and Treehouse Café and Juice Bar.

For further details, see: https://www.mdveganeats.com/