Below is a vegan recipe for Hamentashen from The Lowfat Jewish Vegetarian Cookbook, by Debra Wasserman. Hamentashen is the popular baked treat served during Purim, which starts the evening of February 28th in 2018. If you are unable to purchase prune or poppy seed filling in your local supermarket, simply purée a few pitted prunes with a little fruit juice. You can also use puréed apricots as a filling.

Hamentashen
Serves 15

1-1/2 cups unbleached white flour
1-1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1-1/2 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 the filling, together in a large bowl. Knead dough for a few minutes. Separate into 3 balls. Cover balls of dough with a slightly damp towel and refrigerate 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. Form a triangle out of the rounds of dough by folding in edges, but still leaving some space in the middle of the dough for the filling to remain mostly uncovered.

Lightly spray a baking pan and place the hamentashen on the pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until dough is brown. Serve.

The Lowfat Jewish Vegetarian Cookbook is a vegan cookbook published by The Vegetarian Resource Group and can be purchased here: VRG Book Catalog

Bodega Patrocinios in La Rioja, Spain informed us that they are now producing a vegan wine.

See: http://bodegaspatrocinio.com/en/news/el-cuarto-bodega-patrocinios-vegan-wine/

By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS
With over 15 locations in Virginia, Washington, DC, and Maryland, Perfect Pita is a family-owned business founded in 1994. Today Perfect Pita also operates Perfect Daughter®, a catering service run by the founder’s daughter. Viewers may learn more about the family business through the video on the site’s About Us page: http://theperfectpita.com/about/

Perfect Pita restaurants and catering company offer a Mediterranean-American cuisine. For locations, visit: http://theperfectpita.com/locations/

Perfect Pita’s menu http://theperfectpita.com/menu/ has a special vegan section including:
•white bean salad
•shepherd salad
•tabouli
•stuffed grape leaves
•falafel
•navy bean soup
•hummus

Between August and November 2017 The VRG spoke and communicated by email with Rosario Castro and Fatih Altun at Perfect Pita about their menu. Here are excerpts from the exchange.

VRG: Does your pita bread contain milk or dairy ingredients such as whey?
Perfect Pita: Our pitas don’t contain any milk nor whey.

VRG: Is the Hummus Sandwich all-vegetable?
Perfect Pita: Our Hummus Sandwich is vegan.

VRG: Is the tzatziki sauce made with yogurt?
Perfect Pita: Our tzatziki sauce is made with sour cream, not yogurt.

VRG: Is the Falafel Pita all-vegetable without the tzatziki sauce?
Perfect Pita: Yes, it is vegan without the tzatziki.

VRG: Do you make the hummus in your restaurants starting with dry beans?
Perfect Pita: We do make our hummus starting with dry beans.

VRG: Are all hummus varieties all-vegetable? Do any varieties contain cheese?
Perfect Pita: All our hummus (all flavors) is vegan (no meat, no dairy).

VRG: Is the falafel all-vegetable?
Perfect Pita: Our falafel is vegetarian and it can also be vegan since our tzatziki sauce comes on the side and you don’t have to necessarily get it. Tzatziki can also be substituted by our vegan hummus.

VRG: Has the falafel been fried in fresh oil? Which kind?
Perfect Pita: We use canola oil.

VRG: Is anything else prepared in the oil used to cook the falafel? If so, what?
Perfect Pita: No, just falafel.

VRG: Is the tabouli all-vegetable?
Perfect Pita: Tabouli is vegan.

VRG: Is the white bean salad all-vegetable?
Perfect Pita: The white bean salad is vegan.

VRG: Is the navy bean soup all-vegetable?
Perfect Pita: The navy bean soup is vegan.

VRG: What are the grape leaves stuffed with?
Perfect Pita: Our grape leaves are stuffed with rice.

VRG: Has the rice in the grape leaves been seasoned with animal flavors or cooked in animal broth?
Perfect Pita: No. The rice in the grape leaves are not flavored with any kind of animal flavor nor animal broth.

VRG: Do you have any salad dressing which is all-vegetable and made without honey?
Perfect Pita: Our homemade red wine vinaigrette doesn’t contain any honey or animal product.

VRG: Has the red wine in the red wine vinaigrette been clarified with an animal ingredient such as albumen or gelatin?
Perfect Pita: We don’t clarify it with gelatin.

VRG: Does the red wine vinaigrette contain sugar?
Perfect Pita: No sugar is added.

VRG: Do the vegetable components of your menu come into contact with dairy products or meat/fish?
Perfect Pita: We do allergen separation and our veggies don’t come into contact with any meat/fish or dairy.
Perfect Pizzas:
VRG: Are the crusts all-vegetable?
Perfect Pita: Pizza crust is vegetarian.

VRG: Is there L-cysteine in the crust?
Perfect Pita: There is no L-cysteine in our crust.

VRG: Is there sugar in the crust?
Perfect Pita: Yes. We do add sugar to our pizza dough.

VRG: Are there any animal-derived ingredients in the red sauce?
Perfect Pita: No.

VRG: What is in the “spinach mix” pizza topping?
Perfect Pita: The spinach mix is cooked spinach mixed with feta cheese and onions.

VRG: Does your feta cheese contain animal rennet?
Perfect Pita: Our feta cheese contains vegetable-based microbial rennet.

VRG: Does the feta cheese contain animal lipase?
Perfect Pita: It contains animal-based lipase from goat.

VRG: Are your mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses made with animal-derived enzymes?
Perfect Pita: Mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses [are made with] cow’s whole milk and animal-derived enzyme.

Perfect Pita® Bagel and Pita Bread Are Vegan
Perfect Pita’s Bagel
L-cysteine
Rosario Castro of Perfect Pita told us in August 2017 that L-cysteine served as a dough conditioner in their bagel. We wanted to know its source and contacted her supplier, Soft Stuff Distributors® http://www.gosoftstuff.com/ who in turn asked us to contact the bagel manufacturer, Always Bagels®.

Anthony Pariti of Always Bagels wrote to us in September 2017 that “the cysteine is sourced from vegetable fermentation.” When we asked for more explanation, he in turn directed us to speak with the R&D department of his supplier, Puratos®, who sells the dough conditioner that he uses to make the bagels. After speaking with Puratos we confirmed that Perfect Pita’s bagels are made with microbially-derived L-cysteine manufactured by Wacker®.] https://www.wacker.com/cms/en/products/product_groups/cystein.jsp

SUGAR
Always Bagels: There is no bone char in the filtration. It comes to us white and again the process they described to me is the white color happens during the filtration of the sugar at their facility.

The sugar supplier emailed us a letter from Mark Rudolph, the Quality Assurance and Quality Control Manager at Sweeteners Plus® dated February 2017 regarding “Bone char use in the production of refined sugar /vegan statement”: “Although natural charcoal, or bone char, is sometimes employed as a filter media in the production of refined cane sugar, Sweeteners Plus is not currently sourcing bulk Granulated Sugar manufactured using bone char.

Currently all sugar products, organic and conventional, sold under the Sweeteners Plus label including bulk Liquid Sugars and bulk and packaged Granulated Sugar are manufactured without the use of bone char from sugar beets or sugar cane, neither of which is derived from an animal source.

Our Lakeville, NY facility is certified Kosher, Halal suitable, and uses no additives that contain animal sources.”

Perfect Pita Pita Bread
The VRG learned from Rosario at Perfect Pita that there is no L-cysteine in their pita bread which they make in their restaurants starting from dry flour. She also furnished to us a no-cow bone char vegan declaration from their sugar supplier. There are no dairy ingredients in the pita bread at Perfect Pita.

For more information on Perfect Pita catering: http://theperfectpita.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/New-Catering-Menu-May.pdf

The contents of this posting, our website, and our other publications, including Vegetarian 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.

For more chain restaurant information, see http://www.vrg.org/fastfoodinfo.php

For information on vegetarian and vegan restaurants, see VRG Online Veggie Restaurant Guide

Purim starts the evening of February 28th in 2018. Traditionally during Purim (a Jewish holiday) gift baskets are given out to family and friends. Vegans and individuals that are lactose-intolerant will be happy to receive specialty chocolates from Dear Coco for Purim. They are certified Kosher under Star K and include options such as Happy Purim Gift Bag, Purim Truffle “Hamantaschen,” and Purim Truffle Collection.

You can order these vegan chocolates online here: http://www.dearcoco.com/Purim_Gifts_s/1855.htm

VRG Parents and Kids Facebook Group is intended to be a group that offers support for families raising children on vegan diets and for vegan kids. 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.

Recent discussion topics include:
Online companies selling vegan shoes for kids
Recipe for muffins that include spinach!
Jobs available at veggie summer camp
Plus much more!

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

By Angélique Complainville

After watching documentaries about the reality of the meat and dairy industry, I decided to go vegan for ethical reasons. That was a little over 2 years ago. Unfortunately for me I didn’t know any vegetarians let alone vegans. So, I took it a day at a time figuring out how to eat, dress and live accordingly to my new-found beliefs. But I wish I could have had access to a book just like the “All-in-One Guide to Becoming Vegan” by Annie Carbonneau. If you are French (like me), the book is also available in French which I think is really going to help make veganism more accessible in France. In French the book is called: le petit guide du tout-en-un du véganisme

The book covers all the basics from why one should go vegan to practical tips on how to transition as smoothly as possible. It starts with a good explanation of why people usually go vegan – for animal rights, environmental reasons, and their health. Annie goes into details which I really appreciate. I think that it’s a great book to have especially if your family or friends don’t understand your choice or if your parents are worried that veganism is not a healthy diet.

Annie goes on to sharing her own experience going vegan as well as practical advice on how to do so healthfully. I like that in the Kindle version, there are direct links to websites she suggests at the end of the book with further resources.

All in all, I think that the “All-in-One Guide to Becoming Vegan” is a great book for those curious about the vegan lifestyle or beginning their journey as a vegan. The book is sold on Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.com/All-One-Guide-Becoming-Vegan-ebook/dp/B073SH4HD3

Angélique is a student from France who has been vegan for over 2 years.

We received a letter from an inmate, who said a relative sent him our article, Do Prison Inmates Have a Right to Vegetarian Meals? See: http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2001mar/2001_mar_prison.php

He has been a vegetarian for ten years. He was informed by a few corrections officers that the facility did not offer vegetarian meals. However, another inmate started receiving a “religious diet,” which included no meat. After he was also told that the facility did not offer vegetarian meals, he spoke to the judge that was presiding over his case and explained he was a Hindu and practiced vegetarianism.

He was told to fill out a “kite” (inmate request form) asking for a religious diet verification form. This form was then sent to the religious institution he identifies with, which filled out the form and returned it to the appropriate officer. This also worked for an incarcerated Buddhist. On the Religious Diet Verification Form, preprinted was Orthodox Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Seventh-day Adventist.

Due to the generosity of an anonymous donor, The Vegetarian Resource Group each year will award $20,000 in college scholarship money to graduating U.S. high school students who have promoted veganism/vegetarianism in their schools and/or communities. Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or fowl. Vegans are vegetarians who do not use other animal products such as dairy or eggs.

One award of $10,000 and two awards of $5,000 will be given. Entries may only be sent by students graduating from high school in spring 2018. Deadline is February 20, 2018. We will accept applications postmarked on or before February 20, 2018. Early submission is encouraged.

Applicants will be judged on having shown compassion, courage, and a strong commitment to promoting a peaceful world through a vegan/vegetarian diet/lifestyle. Payment will be made to the student’s college (U.S. based only). Winners of the scholarships give permission to release their names to the media. Applications and essays become property of The Vegetarian Resource Group. We may ask finalists for more information. Scholarship winners are contacted by e-mail or telephone. Please look at your e-mail.

For details on the contest, see: VRG Scholarship Contest

The Vegetarian Resource Group is an activist non-profit organization that does outreach all-year-long. For example, VRG tables at different events throughout the USA and also sends literature free of charge to other groups/individuals doing educational activities in schools, hospitals, camps, restaurants, libraries, etc. Our ability to continue doing this depends on people like you! Your donations allow us to promote the vegan message whenever we’re called upon for assistance. Please consider becoming a monthly or quarterly donor to The Vegetarian Resource Group.

Thanks so much for your support. You can become a monthly or quarterly donor online here: Donate to The Vegetarian Resource Group

Here’s two companies that offer vegan shoes for children:
https://www.jambukd.com/shop.html?featured_icons=236
https://www.mapshoes.com/shop.html?featured_icons=236
Note: These companies also carry non-vegan shoes.

VRG also has an online guide to leather alternatives including shoes, bags, and much more for adults and children here: VRG’s Guide to Nonleather Shoes, Bags, and More