Over 4,700 salad bars have been donated so far.

For information on obtaining a salad bar for your local school, see:
http://www.saladbars2schools.org/

Are you looking for some new ideas for making hot beverages at home? Chef Nancy Berkoff offers many suggestions in her latest Vegan Cooking Tips column in Vegetarian Journal. She even introduces you to hot beverages with an international flavor including Korean, Japanese, and South African.

The complete article can be read here:
http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2016issue4/2016_issue4_cooking_tips.php

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

See: http://electrek.co/2016/12/14/tesla-vegan-interior-option-ultra-white-seats/

Please Show Your Support for all the Good Work The Vegetarian Resource Group Does Year-Round by Donating to VRG Today!

2016 has been a very productive year for The Vegetarian Resource Group. Your support is greatly appreciated! You can donate directly to VRG at www.vrg.org/donate

Here’s a sampling of some of our accomplishments and outreach:

-Nancy Berkoff’s Vegan in Volume published by VRG has been distributed to thousands of food service personnel
in different settings. This encourages chefs to serve more vegan food options in universities, hospitals, employee cafeterias, nursing homes, and other places. Nancy also developed vegan recipes for Our Daily Bread in Baltimore, which serves over 700 meals per day to homeless and low income individuals. About 10% requested veggie meals. VRG interns prepared and donated 9 foodservice size trays of vegan food using Nancy’s recipes.

-We continue to work with numerous High School and College interns in our Baltimore office including three future Registered Dietitians and a student visiting from Germany. VRG Nutrition Advisor Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, mentors those interns who are interested in pursuing a career in nutrition. VRG staff also works with students that are majoring in English, Journalism, Business, and other subjects. These students are the future of the vegan movement and we should all be excited about what they will bring to the cause once they graduate.

-The Vegetarian Resource Group assisted media (print, web, radio, tv, etc.) including Family Circle magazine for an article on children who decide to go veggie; NPR member station KUT in Austin, TX about the public’s increased interest in vegan diets and PBS 8 in Phoenix Arizona about vegan options for Thanksgiving; Consumer Report on Health about reducing meat for health benefits; Dr. Don Radio Show about veggie pregnancy and lactation; On the Menu, a radio podcast, on the topics of why people go veggie and VRG poll information; Grocerant magazine about what vegans would like to see in the prepared section of grocery stores; and Baltimore Business Journal about the history of The Vegetarian Resource Group.

-VRG has done numerous outreach booths including at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in Boston, MA; GreenFest in Washington, DC; Natural Products Expo East in Baltimore, MD; Taking Action for Animals in VA; Charlottesville and Richmond, VA VegFests; Vegan SoulFest in Baltimore, MD; Albany VegFest in NY; NH Dietetic Meeting in Concord, NH; Veggie Pride Parade in NYC; New England VegFest in Worcester, MA; etc. VRG Nutrition Advisor Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, spoke at state dietetic meetings in NH, FL, and AZ and gave a webinar on ‘Vegetarian Diets for Older Adults’ for members of the Healthy Aging Dietetic Practice Group.

-The Vegetarian Resource Group provided vegan handouts free-of-charge for outreach in a wide variety of locations including a box of literature to be shared with a High School women’s basketball team in California; 500 Save our Water Brochures for tabling at an Earth Day event in Houston, TX; several hundred handouts to Animal Advocates of Western New York for a local Health Expo; a thousand brochures for leafletting in NYC; and hundreds of handouts for state dietetic meetings in NH, WA-OR, and NE.

Your support is greatly appreciated! You can donate directly to VRG at www.vrg.org/donate

You can also mail donations to The Vegetarian Resource Group, PO Box 1463, Baltimore, MD 21203 or call in your donation to (410) 366-8343 Monday through Friday 9am to 5pm EST.

Chanukah starts the evening of December 24, 2016 – You may want to serve these vegan potato pancakes!

Chanukah is a time that extended families gather together. Here are some vegan recipes from The Lowfat Jewish Vegetarian Cookbook you can share with your friends and family during the 8-day celebration.

Potato Latkes
Serves 4

1-½ pounds potatoes, peeled and grated
1 medium onion, peeled and grated
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1 Tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped
Dash of pepper
2 Tablespoons tamari or soy sauce
Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl. Form 3-inch patties and fry in lightly oiled pan over medium heat for 10 minutes. Flip latkes and fry for another 10 minutes until crisp on both sides. Serve warm with applesauce or other cooked fruit.

Broccoli Latkes
Serves 5

1 pound broccoli, chopped into small pieces
2 pounds potatoes, scrubbed and cubed into small pieces
1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
3 cups water
½ teaspoon celery seed
Salt and pepper to taste
1 Tablespoon oil
Cook all the ingredients (except the oil) in a large covered pot over medium heat for 20 minutes. Drain mixture and mash ingredients together.
Heat oil in a large non-stick frying pan over medium heat. Form 10 pancakes. Fry 8 minutes on one side. Flip pancakes and fry for another 5 minutes on the other side. Serve warm.

Here are a few restaurants offering vegan meals on Christmas in the USA:

Hangawi, New York City, NY http://www.hangawirestaurant.com/Holiday%20Menu%202016.pdf
Harvest at the Bindery, Portland, OR (Christmas Eve) http://harvestatthebindery.com/index.html
Herban Fix, Atlanta, GA http://herbanfix.com/events
Mother of Pearl, New York Ctiy, NY http://www.motherofpearlnyc.com/
Raven’s at The Stanford Inn, Mendocino, CA http://ravensrestaurant.com/ravens-christmas-dinner-2016/
Su Tao Café, Malvern, PA http://www.sutaocafe.com/event.html
Vegetable Garden, Silver Spring, MD http://www.vegetablegarden.co/

GIVING ASSISTANT: SHOP, FIND COUPONS, AND GET CASH BACK WHILE DONATING TO THE VEGETARIAN RESOURCE GROUP!

Go to:
https://givingassistant.org/np#vegetarian-resource-group

Please consider donating $25, $50, or $100 to The Vegetarian Resource Group so we can continue promoting the veggie message for years to come. Better yet, become a Life Member for $500! Your support and kind words are greatly appreciated. Happy holidays!

To donate, visit: www.vrg.org/donate

Vegan dietitian Matt Ruscigno has opened Nutrinic: a plant-based nutrition center in Pasadena, California.

For information see https://nutrinic.com/

The recent issue of Vegetarian Journal features a department called Scientific Update by Reed Mangels, PhD, RD, and features reviews of the latest scientific papers related to veggie diets. The topics in this issue include:

Plant-based Meals Cost Less
Vegan Diets: Better for Human and Planetary Health
Dietary Impacts of Climate Change
New Dietary Guidelines in the Netherlands and UK Promote Eating Less Meat
Revisions to Standards for Food in Care Programs

You can read this Vegetarian Journal column here:
http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2016issue4/2016_issue4_scientific_update.php

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