By Julia Mathew

According to a March 2016 study conducted by Novus for Djurens Rätt, the largest animal rights and welfare group in Sweden, when asked “Are you a vegetarian or vegan” 5% of individuals responded that they were vegetarian and 3% said they were vegan. However, the parameters of the terms ‘vegan’ and ‘vegetarian’ were not clearly defined so the study results could be skewed. Many vegetarians and vegans live in the capital city of Stockholm and Skåne, or the southernmost county of Sweden. Younger generations are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impact of animal agriculture and are changing their diet and lifestyle as a result. According to a poll run by Demoskop and commissioned by Djurens Rätt, Sweden’s largest animal welfare and rights organization, Swedish individuals in the 15-34 year old demographic most commonly associated themselves with vegetarianism or veganism. Among non-vegetarians, the poll further stated that there was an increase in interest of purchasing vegetarian products, going from 26 to 37 percent in a single year.

Having visited Sweden multiple times, I have always been thrilled to see the expansion of the vegan movement in such a historically animal product-based society. Veganism is becoming a sort of trend among Swedish youth, as information on the environmental and non-ethical aspects of animal products are becoming more widespread in Scandinavia. There are many popular Swedish bloggers who are changing outsiders’ perspective on plant-based food through their colorful, modern, and artful social media accounts.

Of the Swedish cities I have been to, such as Stockholm, Gothenburg, Uppsala, and Malmö, I have never had any problems eating vegan in my experience. Stockholm is a beautiful city encompassed by water due to its 14 inclusive islands. There are countless vegetarian and vegan friendly restaurants and cafes throughout the city. Most cafes have plant-based milks available. Oatly is among one of my favorite plant-based milks and is becoming an increasingly popular non-dairy milk option in cafes. Oatly is a Swedish oat milk company that produces various vegan products such as milk, creamer, yogurt, fruit juices, and ice cream. Astrid och Aporna is another great Swedish brand that has its own line of products, as well as its own fully vegan grocery store in both Malmö and Copenhagen. Look out for these brands if you’re in Scandinavia!

Vegan-friendly Restaurants, Cafes, and Shops

• Bagar’n Horstull (Hornstull T-bana): Serves vegan semlor, cookies, and sweets; some vegan options available
• Chutney (Katarina-Sofia): Serves Mediterranean plates, burgers, and tofu dishes; 100% vegetarian and vegan-friendly
• Delivore (Hornstull): Serves bagels, sandwiches, smoothies, salads, and milkshakes; 100% vegan
• Govinda (Södermalm): Serves various Indian dishes, has a weekly menu; 100% vegetarian and vegan-friendly
• Hälsocafét (Södermalm): Serves salads, raw pizza, chili, burgers, fruit bowls, and cakes; 100% vegan
• Hermans (Katarina-Sofia): Offers a hearty buffet which includes mixed salads, potato and pasta dishes, bread, pastries, and various dishes; 100% vegetarian and vegan-friendly
• Hermitage (Gamla Stan): Offers a hearty buffet serving soups, daal, potato and rice dishes, salads, curry, and various dishes; 100% vegetarian and vegan-friendly
• Naturbageriet Sattva (Gamla Stan): Offers pastries, bread, sandwiches, tea, and coffee; vegan-friendly
• Reload Superfood (Vasastan): Serves acai bowls, hearty salad bar, sandwiches, smoothies, and raw cakes; vegan-friendly
• Sally Voltaire & Systrar (Norrmalm, inside Åhléns City): Serves soup, sandwiches, and various salads; serves some fish but has many vegan options
• Södermalm Vegetariska (Södermalm): Serves moussaka, nacho and falafel plates, burgers, chili, wraps, and vegetable stir fries; 100% vegetarian and vegan-friendly
• Sthlm Raw (Hornstull): Serves salads, soups, sandwiches, wraps, and pastries; 100% vegan and mostly raw
• Lao Wai (Vasastan): Serves various tofu, noodle, seaweed, vegetable, and soy protein dishes, as well as homemade ice cream; 100% vegan

Specialty Shops & Health Food Stores

• Goodstore (Hornstull, Katarina-Sofia): Carries various Swedish and imported vegan food products and cosmetics; 100% vegan shop
• Paradiset (Södermalm): Offers produce, various vegan food products, and cosmetics; vegan-friendly

“Opinion Polls”. Djurens Rätt. Updated 19 Janurary 2017.
“One in ten Swedes is vegetarian or vegan, according to study.” Independent. 24 March 2014.
Ibid.

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 2017. Deadline is February 20, 2017. We will accept applications postmarked on or before February 20, 2017. 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: http://www.vrg.org/student/scholar.htm

Jewish Welfare Organization

Everyone is welcome to join Shamayim v’Aretz for six vegan gourmet meals, insightful talks and presentations, community building, spiritual growth, outdoor activities and lots of fun at our fourth annual national retreat at the Pearlstone Retreat Center just outside of Baltimore, MD . The retreat will take place March 17-19, 2017. For information, see

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/shamayim-varetz-national-retreat-2017-tickets-27897626552

Alice & Friends’ Vegan Kitchen

The Vegetarian Resource Group maintains an online Guide to Vegan/Vegetarian Restaurants in the USA and Canada. Below are some recent 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

Alice & Friends’ Kitchen
5812 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL 60660
Alice & Friends’ Kitchen allows you to experience vegan cuisines from around the world. They offer a range of appetizers, soups, and salads in addition to a wide variety of entrees that include Korean BBQ, Thai Curry, Golden Tofu Steak, and Kung Pho. Their Kung Pho is made with textured vegetable protein, red and green pepper, cabbage, onion cashew, hot chili, and house-made Kung Pao sauce, and it is served with brown rice. They also offer unique drinks including a green tea shake and mango lassi, and they have many homemade desserts. Alice & Friends’ is the perfect restaurant with friends since everyone will be able to find a dish they will love!

Back To Eden Bakery
2217 NE Alberta St.
Portland, OR
Back to Eden Bakery is a 100% plant-based and gluten-free bakery located in Portland, Oregon. They have multiple raw, sugar free, and soy free options on the menu as well. The ingredients they use are all fresh, and they aim to get seasonal, local, and organic ingredients when possible. For breakfast they serve regular, savory, and dessert pastries, which are baked fresh every day. These include a millet bar, a sunflower cheese tart, and a chocolate PB crunch bar, respectively. For lunch you can enjoy various salads, chili with cornbread, daily soups, and more. You can then finish your meal with some delicious dairy-free ice cream. They offer both soft-serve ice cream as well as traditional hard scoop options, which can be served plain, as a shake, a float, or a sundae.

Bar Velo
394 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY 11211
Bar Velo is located near the Hewes Street J and M and the Broadway G. There is live music in the venue on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. Try fettuccini with slow roasted tomato sauce, basil oil, olives and breadcrumbs or homemade flatbread with marinated tempeh, hummus, pickles and red slaw.

Ginger Root
1164 First Ave.
New York, NY 10065
Ginger Root prepares everything fresh, never frozen and they get their vegetables delivered every two-three days. They have a broad menu with 18 main dishes, 11 noodle bowls and six rice dishes. Their most popular main dishes are their Mango Soy Protein for those with a sweet tooth and the General T Soy Protein for those who like some spice. The Scallion pancake starter and pumpkin cheesecake desert are also recommended!

Globally Local
252 Dundas St.
London, ON N6A 1H3 Canada
Fast food that is totally vegan! Here you can find many vegan friendly fast food favorites such as burgers and fries. They also have a breakfast menu with items like French Toast or the Scramble Burrito. Be sure to check out their website/Facebook for information on specials and ordering.

Plant Pure Café
1115 Walnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107
Plant Pure Cafe’s menu items contain No added oils. They don’t serve fried food, and every meal is below 500 calories. Plant Pure Cafe offers bowls, sandwiches, and wraps. They also have vegan soft serve ice cream.

Sweet Hereafter
3326 SE Belmont St.
Portland, OR 97214
They have a large selection of cocktails (and they are served in mason jars!). Their sprawling covered patio is perfect for Sunday afternoons and warm summer nights. Try the pretzel plate and Rosemary Almonds; they both get rave reviews. They also serve various bowls, Blackened Tempeh Sandwich, Tofu Bahn Mi, and more.

The Good Sort
5 Doyers St.
New York, NY 10013
The Good Sort is located in Chinatown. They serve vegan lattes, baked goods, and breakfast congee bowls. The Good Sort is located near the 4, 6,6x, the J,Z, and the N,Q subway stops at Canal Street.

Vegan Donut Gelato
330 Needham St.
Modesto, CA 95345
Vegan Donut Gelato is a small colorful shop with a few small tables and seats. They offer a wide variety of vegan donuts such as vanilla cream, strawberry cream, glazed, chocolate, twists, jelly, coconut, sprinkles, and even donut holes. They also offer a few pastries like apple fritters and cinnamon rolls. The shop has received raving reviews on Yelp by both vegans and non-vegans alike.

According to ABC News, The Agriculture Department has removed animal welfare inspection reports, enforcement records and other information about the treatment of animals from its website, citing privacy and other laws. The records have been removed “based on our commitment to being transparent … ,” the online message says. Some of the information can be found at:
https://mega.nz/#F!0RQFCIhR!3QACg2IX2fvYuBi8SzG3Kg

The Humane Society of the United States challenges the United States Department of Agriculture over mass removal of animal welfare records. See:
http://blog.humanesociety.org/wayne/2017/02/hsus-challenges-usda-mass-removal-animal-welfare-records.html?credit=blog_post_020617_id8766

Dear VRG Team,

First off, thank you for the work you do maintaining the very useful resource that is VRG.org. When I transitioned to a vegan diet over 15 years ago, your site was an indispensable resource at the time. And ever since I have had occasion to consult http://xanaxonlinebuy.com your site on various topics.

Last month I launched VeganWork.com, a niche job board for vegans and vegetarians. I am writing to ask if you would kindly link to VeganWork.com.

On VeganWork.com, visitors can browse jobs by state and select cities.

Chris

Chris Schults
VeganWork.com

The American Soybean Association sent out this information:

“In a letter to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee members today [2/6/17], the American Soybean Association (ASA) and the Soyfoods Association of North America (SANA) objected to draft legislation that would restrict the marketing of soymilk. S. 130, referred to as the Dairy Pride Act, would prohibit the term “milk” from being used with soymilk and soymilk-based products, under the premise that the term “milk” is misleading to consumers. “This legislation is unnecessary as no confusion in the market exists,” argued ASA President Ron Moore and SANA President Wendy Behr in the letter, noting that the term “soymilk” has been in commercial use since 1947. “Consumers of soymilk clearly understand that the product is derived from soybeans rather than bovine milk, and a large percentage consume it for just that reason due to dietary choices or restrictions.”

A full copy of the letter can be found at:
https://soygrowers.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/HELP-letter-2-17.pdf

By Madeline St. John, former VRG intern

I recently returned to the United States from Cordoba, Argentina. I was there for five months as part of an exchange program. Before I left, friends and family worried that I would have problems being vegetarian while there, because Argentina has a reputation for its impressive meat production and consumption.

Cordoba, in the center of the country, far from the sea, and in neither the north nor the south, is the second largest city in Argentina (the first being Buenos Aires). It is a city of students. There are more or less six universities in Cordoba, and the largest, the Universidad Nacional of Cordoba (UNC), where I studied, has more than one hundred thousand students. Because of this, it was not very difficult to find vegetarian options during my stay in Argentina.

On top of this, it helped that I lived with a vegetarian host family. It was a requirement of my program to live with a host family, and I was lucky that they put me with the only vegetarian host family. This family introduced me to various vegetarian options (they were lacto-ovo vegetarian) and when I went out to eat, I found other vegetarian food.

With my host family, we ate a lot of pasta and pizza. In general, there is a lot of “Italian” food in Argentina. We also ate a lot of rice with vegetables, beans (especially garbanzo beans), and vegetarian empanadas filled with vegetables or textured soy product. Vegetarian empanadas are sold in most places where they sell empanadas.

We also often ate vegetarian milanesas. Milanesa, normally made with some type of meat which is breaded and fried or baked, can be made vegetarian with soy, wheat, or eggplant. Frozen vegetarian milanesas could be found in the supermarket and are very easy to prepare.

At some point during my stay, I realized that the majority of the food in Argentina is Argentinian. There were Mexican and Peruvian restaurants in Cordoba, I found soy sauce in a supermarket, and sushi seemed to be in style. However, I missed the diversity of food that we have in the U.S. I didn’t realize until I travelled how much of the food in the U.S. is actually from other parts of the world: Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Thai…I missed these options and the vegetarian options that come with them. However, I survived, obviously, and I now have a new appreciation for the variety of food in the United States.

From what I saw, my host mom did the majority of her shopping at Cordoba’s Mercado Norte (North Market), a large indoor market in the north of the city, where the food is high quality and cheaper than in other places. There are various markets in Cordoba, some outdoors, where they sell affordable food in large quantities.

My host family’s house also has a vegetable garden, where they grow lettuce, chard, corn, and other plants and spices. The climate and soil in Cordoba are very good for growing vegetables. However, because it is so large a city, there are also many supermarkets and vegetable stands. So it isn’t necessary to have access to a garden. It is possible to find any fruit or vegetable in a supermarket or vegetable stand.

In addition to supermarkets and vegetable stands, there are also many restaurants in Cordoba, which often had vegetarian options. Unfortunately, it is a harder to be vegan in Argentina than lacto-ovo vegetarian, because the majority of vegetarian options seemed to contain some sort of cheese or animal product (because of the Italian influence, I imagine). However, I did find a completely vegetarian restaurant, where they sell tasty vegan options. It is called Sol y Luna, and there are various locations in the city of Cordoba.

On the UNC campus, there are also various cafes and kiosks where they sell vegetarian empanadas and sandwiches, and snack food, with affordable prices. Also on campus there is a dining hall, which costs four pesos (about 30 cents), per meal. (I suppose it is subsidized by the government, because it is ridiculously cheap). If there is not a second vegetarian option in the dining hall that day, they will give you two portions of the vegetarian side dish. Either way, it is quite a lot of food, but it is an especially large portion for four pesos.

Once in Argentina, it is easy to travel the country. Although the distances are long, and the cities and touristy areas are far apart, the buses are very comfortable. During my stay, I travelled to many other provinces: Salta, Jujuy, Misiones (to see the waterfalls of Iguazu), Chubut (in the North of Patagonia, to see penguins and seals), and Buenos Aires. In the buses between provinces, they sometimes give you food, but in general it is not vegetarian and it is definitely not vegan. So, if you travel on one of these buses, take food! In general, as a traveler, it is good to think about your options and buy and take veggie snacks with you.

As a final note, I would like to say that it is definitely possible to keep up a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle in Argentina. In this day and age, with more people becoming conscientious about what they eat, and more and more vegetarian options coming on the market, it is easier than ever. In addition to my host family, various friends of theirs were vegetarian, other students in the Universidad Nacional de Cordoba were vegetarian, and there is a Facebook group for vegetarians in Cordoba, with lists of restaurants and vegan recipes.

Even in the second highest per-capita beef-consuming country in the world (the United States ranks fourth, if you are wondering), it is possible to live an alternative lifestyle–for your health, for your religion, for animals, for the environment, or whatever your reason may be–and to find others who will support you.

For a recipe for a vegan oatcake that I learned to make from an Argentinian friend, see below.

Vegan Oatcake
(Serves 8)

½ cup oats
½ cup water
2 cups self-rising flour
½ cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
2 apples
1 mandarin orange or orange
Oil

1. Mix the oats and water and let it sit.
2. In a bowl, mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Grate the apples and orange and mix those with the dry ingredients.
4. Put oil in a baking pan and cover it with flour. The larger the pan, the thinner the cake.
5. Add the mixture of oats and water to the other ingredients. Mix it all together, but not too much.
6. When you put the mixture into the pan, do it smoothly, moving the bowl back and forth to put air into the dough.
7. Bake at medium heat (about 350 degrees) for 20-30 minutes, until it is cooked through and brown on the edges.

Readers, Have you seen these? I brought the “Hearty Corn and Chipotle Chowder” for lunch today. It caught my eye in Wegmans supermarket because I rarely see something in the ‘regular’ (not natural aisle) that is so clearly labeled vegan AND the fact that it’s a chowder seemed unique too. Typically the vegetable soups that I see in stores aren’t creamy for obvious reasons. Flavors include Hearty Corn and Chipotle Chowder, Hearty Tomato with Spinach and Roasted Garlic, and Hearty Lentil with Garden Vegetables.

For more information, see
http://www.multivu.com/players/English/7942651-progresso-good-natured-soup/

-Samantha, Blog Editor

AOL stated, “Chipotle could “bear the biggest brunt” of President Trump’s trade war with Mexico, according to Instinet analyst Mark Kalinowski.

Trump has proposed a 20% tariff on goods from Mexico as a way to help pay for a wall along the US-Mexico border.”

“An avocado price increase in particular would be a huge challenge for Chipotle, which goes through more than 99 million pounds of avocados each year — and during some months, sources them exclusively from Mexico. By Kalinowski’s estimate, Chipotle may get as many as 70 million pounds of avocados from Mexico annually.”

“Our belief is that the company generally obtains about 70-90% of its avocados from Mexico, all of its limes, the majority of its jalapenos, less than half of its tomatoes, and small amounts of other items (e.g., cilantro),”

For more information, see https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2017/01/31/chipotle-could-bear-the-biggest-brunt-of-trump-s-trade-war-wit/21704171/

For vegan fast food information, see http://www.vrg.org/fastfoodinfo.php

Vote for your favorite quick service chain at http://www.vrg.org/vote/index.php