photo from A Taylored Experience

The Vegetarian Resource Group maintains an online Guide to Vegan/Vegetarian Restaurants in the USA and Canada. Here are some recent vegan restaurant additions. The entire guide can be found here: http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php

To support the updating of this online restaurant guide, please donate at: www.vrg.org/donate

Here are some new additions to VRG’s guide (Note: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic many are doing take-out and/or delivery now):

A Taylored Experience, 2453 Commercial Park Dr., Mobile AL 36606

Head on down to A Taylored Experience where you will find authentic soul and southern comfort food. Menu contains classics such as waffles and wingz served with a side of syrup, wingz w/ seasoned fries, skillet taco mac & cheese, chili and cheese hot dawgs, and even a chopped cheese steak. Wings can be tossed in 6 different types of sauces: BBQ sauce, lemon pepper sauce, sweet chili sauce, hawt sauce, buffalo sauce, and hawt lemon pepper sauce. Taylor’s menu is abundant in selection including 8 brunch options, 4 pastas, 8 sandwiches/burgers, and a selection of 3 types of loaded fries. Taylor has truly tailored her soul food menu to include her unique flair into just about any food genre.

Himalaya Vegan Organic Restaurant, 4160 Northgate Blvd., Ste. 4, Sacramento, CA 95834

Their menu changes daily; however, enjoy dishes such as yellow split pea vegetable soup; red lentils with onion and ginger; collard greens and kale with onion and shiitake mushroom sauce; coconut pie; key lime pie, etc.

Make Out Miami, 3255 NE 1st Ave., Miami, FL 33137

Make Out Miami is a casual café-plus-marketplace, allowing it to offer made-to-order smoothies, coffees, and menu items, as well as grab n’ go options. Its menu will suit your needs whatever you’re in the mood for, whether that is an All-Day Breakfast item like the Superfood Oats, or the namesake Make Out Salad that includes hemp seeds, spiced macadamia nuts, and a chili-lime vinaigrette. You may opt for a savory Falafel Bowl or the Sesame Almond Noodles, or choose to indulge in the coconut-cashew-based ice cream that is made in house—and that can be enjoyed in traditional scoops or as part of an ice cream shake. There are several specialty coffee drinks as well as smoothies chock-full of superfoods—like the Peanut Butter Buzz that includes dates, cashews, cacao nibs, maca, and hemp seeds. The café’s moniker “every-day plant food” clearly means that this is a place you will want to visit every day.

Mr. Charlie’s, 612 N. La Brea Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036

If you’re ever on the corner of Melrose and La Brea Avenue, you may stumble across a familiar looking fast food restaurant with its bright red and yellow exterior. However, don’t be mistaken. This is Mr. Charlie’s, also known as “Vegan McDonalds” on TikTok, who have taken a not-so-serious approach to sharing vegan cuisine with the world. Here, you will find timeless American classics with a plant-based twist, such as “frowny meals,” “not a double double,” “not a cheeseburger,” not a chicken sandwich,” “not chicken nuggets,” and everyone’s favorite, french fries! Mr. Charlie’s is not only on a mission to bring approachable plant based food to communities, but are also partnering with the Dream Center to give opportunity to those transitioning from homeless, incarceration, or addiction. Eating at Mr. Charlie’s will do more than turn that frown upside down!

Pure Grit BBQ, 36 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10010

Merged between 23rd and 24th street in bustling Manhattan, Pure Grit BBQ continues to serve its Texan inspired barbecue. From main dishes including their Impossible cut barbecue, smoked mushrooms, pulled jackfruit, tofu, and their daring fried chick’n, Pure Grit proves how barbecue isn’t just for meat lovers. Their sides include timeless options such as coleslaw, baked beans, potato salad, fries, fried sweet potato bites, and fried tofu bites. In the mood for something different? Try their popular Fried Daring Chicken on a Waffle drizzled in hot maple with pickles, pickled red onion, coleslaw, and BBQ ranch. Truth is, Pure Grit’s menu has mastered the skill of combining sauces and seasonings with excellent vegan grilling that will have you coming back in no time.

Tastefull Vegan Frozen Desserts, 2265 Porter SW, Wyoming, MI 49519

Located in a quaint, white-bricked shop, Tastefull Vegan Frozen Desserts will satisfy your sweet-tooth cravings with its delicious dessert options. All of their menu items exclude the top 8 allergen ingredients, making them gluten, egg, dairy, nut, soy, and refined sugar free. From classic vanilla soft serve, chocolate chip cookie flarry, strawberry lemonade slushie, magnificent bars, and mango and strawberry freezepops, Toppings include cherries, whipped cream, sprinkles, and chocolate chips. With a mission to prove how no allergy, dietary lifestyle choice, or anything should prevent one from enjoying life’s greatest treats, Tastefull Vegan is making sure you find your sweet treat that is full of flavor.

Terror Tacos, 3191 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63118

Are you a passionate heavy metal fan and constantly crave Mexican cuisine? If so, Terror Tacos may just be a paradise for you! With hard-core rock filling every corner of the restaurant as you walk through the doors and a line of plant-based tacos, burritos, quesadillas, nachos, and more waiting for you to try, this restaurant is perfect for anyone willing to try an experience like no other. Feeling adventurous? Try the extra spicy Deathwish Taco, double-layered and stuffed with house-made spicy chorizo, a fried jalapeno filled with chipotle cheese, and topped with Arbol chili-infused sour cream as well as diced and pickled jalapeño. Have a more tender mouth? Stick with something like the Tofu Terror Quesadilla, topped with cilantro lime tofu, green chili sauce, black beans, grilled fajita veggies, red cabbage, cheese, sour cream, and cilantro. Kids menu is available too! No matter who you are and what you need, Terror Tacos has something for you.

The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) in new regulations said, “vegan food” means the food or food ingredient, including additives, flavourings, enzymes and carriers, or processing aids that are not products of animal origin and in which, at no stage of production and processing, ingredients, including additives, flavourings, enzymes and carriers, or
processing aids that are of animal origin has been used.”

Also, “The food products to be called vegan, shall not have involved animal testing for any purpose including safety evaluation, unless provided by any Regulatory Authority.”

“If the same production line is shared with non-vegan products or ingredients, thorough cleaning or comparable measures in conformity with Good Manufacturing Practices shall be carried out before production of vegan products commences and the same shall extend to all associated machinery, equipment, utensils and surfaces.”

For more information see: https://www.fssai.gov.in/upload/notifications/2022/06/62ac3f9dba33cGazette_Notification_Vegan_Food_17_06_2022.pdf

The contents of this posting, our website, and our other publications, including Vegetarian Journal and Vegan Journal, are not intended to provide personal medical advice. Medical advice should be obtained from a qualified health professional. We often depend on product and ingredient information from company statements. It is impossible to be 100% sure about a statement, info can change, people have different views, and mistakes can be made. Please use your best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. To be sure, do further research or confirmation on your own.

Recent topics brought up include:

– Vegan Journal shared Chef Jay Staten’s vegan recipes that can be made using an air fryer

– Info on the 5 high school scholarship winners promoting a veggie lifestyle from The Vegetarian Resource Group

– Review of Ripple Kids Milk

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.

Here’s a sampling of vegan food festivals being held around the world this year: https://ecoworlder.com/vegan-food-festivals-2022/

By Chen Zeng

It was an overall good experience for me dining at Moosewood. Moosewood Restaurant has been around for more than 40 years in downtown Ithaca, New York, and they are known for their cookbooks that are vegetarian-friendly. The restaurant is located at Ithaca Commons which is a tourist spot, and they focus on locally produced foods, so the price is on the higher end of the spectrum. For many college attendees, it will not be an everyday go-to restaurant compared to the restaurants at Collegetown that cater to students.

The restaurant is well-decorated and it was quiet enough for conversation among the tables. When it comes to the foods, all dishes on the menu are now vegetarian and many of these dishes are also vegan and can be made vegan without the addition of cheese. For a starter, I had the Hummus with EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and Whole Wheat Pita and I really enjoyed this dish. The hummus was smooth and nicely seasoned without being too tart and the pita bread was warm and soft. For an entrée, I ordered the Jambalaya. This dish was flavorful and the vegetarian sausage in this dish also tasted good. The vegetables were chunky. Some may prefer to cut them smaller when eating. My friends had Lasagna and the other dish was Strozzapretti. Both dishes had cheese in them. For a side, we ordered Mashed Sweet Potato with Toasted Walnuts and Scallion. The Sweet Potato paired nicely with walnuts and it helped to cut down the heaviness of the entrées. For dessert, I ordered Vegan Chocolate Cake. The cake had a good balance of bitterness and sweetness but the texture was a little dense to my taste, probably because it was gluten-free. Other than food, they also had a wine menu that featured a lot of local wines of the Finger Lake region. If you’re interested in their cookbooks, they also have a corner in the restaurant that sells all their merchandise.

Overall, I think it was a decent meal. The environment and service were good and it was a good option for gatherings if you want to find a lot of vegetarian/vegan options on the menu.

For more information on Moosewood, see https://www.moosewoodrestaurant.com/

For more vegetarian and vegan restaurants in the U.S. and Canada, see https://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php

By Julia Comino, VRG Intern

On Tuesday, June 14th, Marcy Schveibinz, a Vegetarian Resource Group volunteer and certified health and wellness coach, virtually led a class at the Christopher Place Employment Academy covering “Basic Nutrition”. Ms. Schveibinz  has been conducting weekly nutrition and vegan cooking classes for over three years . Christopher Place Employment Academy of Baltimore, a program hosted by the Catholic Charities, is a residential program that supports men who have experienced houselessness, incarceration, or addiction by providing education and recovery resources. The vegan nutrition classes Ms. Schveibinz instructs are one of the program’s efforts to build crucial life skills and knowledge in these men.

On that day, Ms. Schveibinz’s class consisted of a group of approximately a dozen  male students, all an array of different ages and dressed semi-formally yet giving off an air of casual intrigue, and myself, a VRG intern shadowing the call. Class began with introductions, which seemed almost unnecessary for Ms. Schveibinz who with the students shared a friendly familiarity. Soon, this small talk segued into a discussion of today’s course topic: “Basic Nutrition.”

Ms. Schveibinz utilized a Socratic teaching style, starting off the lesson by asking the students about what they knew about calories, and after the students shared their knowledge: that calories were what food was made up of, they were “bad,” or that they were something often limited in diets. Following this dialogue, Ms. Schveibinz informed the class the calories were simply a unit measuring the potential energy that food may provide. The lesson continued as Ms. Schveibinz discussed caloric density, the ratio of volume to calories of a food item. Soon, the lesson turned its focus on the differences in nutrition and caloric density of plant-based and animal-based products, with plant-based products tending to have lower caloric density and higher levels of vitamins. Specifically, Ms. Schveibinz’s explained that while some animal products have higher levels of protein, these products were a “package deal,” and often also contained higher levels of saturated fats.

As the class continued, Ms. Schveibinz taught about fats, oils, dietary fibers, and carbohydrates, and with each, she gave examples of plant-based sources of these nutrients. Often, when Ms. Schveibinz would ask the class to give examples of foods that had high contents of certain nutrients, the students would reply with plant-based products. At these points, Ms. Schveibinz would validate the student’s answer before explaining the nutritional value of that product. After, she would offer examples of plant-based products that contained similar nutrients with a higher nutritional value.

The students shared that the lesson on carbohydrates was most impactful. Ms. Schveibinz focused on the glycemic index, a scale that measures the carbohydrate content of a food item and its impact on blood sugar levels, fats, and sugars. She made a point to contextualize the topics by recognizing current diets and trends students may know these terms from. This allowed her to build upon students’ preexisting knowledge and even correct misinformation that diet cultures had promoted about these nutrients.

Finally, Ms. Schveibinz ended the class by discussing nutrient density, the ratio of nutrient content to calories, explaining that this measure offers great insight into the value of different food items. After the lesson, Ms. Schveibinz asked the students if they had any questions about anything they had learned that day and answered their inquiries before advertising that next week’s lesson would be a vegan cooking class, which was met with the students’ excitement. Although this class covered the basics it offered a beginning for these students to pursue further knowledge into nutrition and veganism proving that veganism is for anyone and everyone!

For information on The Vegetarian Resource Group internships, see: https://www.vrg.org/student/index.php

For more information on The Vegetarian Resource Group’s work with Christopher Place Classes, see:

https://www.vrg.org/blog/2020/02/04/cooking-vegan-chili-at-christopher-place/

https://www.vrg.org/blog/2019/06/27/vegan-cooking-class-at-christopher-place-employment-academy/

By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD

Many experts agree that it is critically important to encourage consumers to markedly reduce or eliminate animal products in their diets and to replace them with plant foods to reduce the effects of food choices on the environment. Restaurants offer opportunities to introduce consumers to plant-based foods. Messages on menus can provide the information that may inspire consumers to try plant-based menu items and to change their eating habits.

The non-profit organization, World Resources Institute, tested different messages that could appear on restaurant menus to see which ones would be most likely to nudge diners to choose vegetarian entrées when eating out. Two of the message were especially effective and doubled the percentage of orders for vegetarian entrées.

The first of these messages talked about how small changes can have a big impact and said, “Each of us can make a positive difference for the planet. Swapping just one meat dish for a plant-based one saves greenhouse gas emissions that are equivalent to the energy used to charge your phone for two years. Your small change can make a big difference.”

The second message was about joining a movement and said, “90% of Americans are making the change to eat less meat. Join the growing movement and choose plant-based dishes that will have less impact on the climate and are kinder to the planet.”

This study provides ideas that could be suggested to restaurants. Vegan restaurants could use messages like these in their advertising. Non-vegan restaurants who want to promote vegan menu items could use them to encourage diners to choose plant-based entrées. Perhaps these, or similar messages could be a part of our conversations with friends and family members who express interest in moving to more plant-based diets.

Reference

Blondin S, Attwood S, Vennard D, Mayneris V. Environmental messages promote plant-based food choices: An online restaurant menu study. Working Paper. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute, 2022.

To read more about a vegan diet and the environment see:

Save Our Water the Vegetarian Way

Burrito on My Plate: The Water Footprint of a Vegan versus a Meat Burrito

VRG Materials on the Environment

To see results of our most recent poll about how many adults in the U.S. sometimes or always choose vegan or vegetarian meals when eating out see

How Many Adults in the U.S. are Vegan? How Many Adults Eat Vegetarian When Eating Out?

By Cierra Peterlin, University of Maryland Dietetic Intern

Here are some ideas for zero-waste meals and snacks featuring creative ways to use what you have in order to reduce food waste. See: https://www.vrg.org/nutrition/vegan-zero-waste-recipe-ideas.pdf

Debra Daniels-Zeller article titled Healthy Vegan Dishes on a Budget! provides tips on how to save money when preparing vegan meals and also shares recipes for:
Spicy Black Beans
Grilled Pepper and Quinoa-Millet Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette
Zucchini-Corn Chowder with Tomatoes
Kidney Bean-Sweet Potato Stew
Lemon Cornbread
Lemon-Carrot Coleslaw
Tofu-Broccoli Noodle Bowl

You can read the entire article here:
http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2017issue3/2017_issue3_dishes_budget.php

Subscribe to Vegan Journal by visiting: http://www.vrg.org/member/2013sv.php

Greek Zucchini Carpaccio photo by Hannah Kaminsky

Hannah Kaminsky is the author of several vegan cookbooks and wrote an article titled “From A to Zucchini” in a previous Journal. Zucchini is a relatively inexpensive vegetable and easy to find in stores. Enjoy recipes for Greek Zucchini Carpaccio; Falafel-Stuffed Zucchini, BBQ Zucchini Chips; Zucchini Pâté; and Zucchin Bread Thumbprints.

Read the entire article with recipes here: https://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2020issue2/2020_issue2_a_zucchini.php

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