A new Netflix original movie titled Okja was premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Okja is about a young South Korean girl named Mija whose pet (a fictitious super pig species that resembles a hippo) is kidnapped by an industry who wants to slaughter the animal. The film follows the girl on her journey to save her beloved pet from the meat industry.

Okja will be released on Netflix on June 28, 2017, where you can watch it here. Share with friends and plan a movie night to watch the film’s Netflix debut! https://www.netflix.com/title/80091936

Here is the trailer:
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/vegan-film-coming-to-netflix-from-cannes/

“At the recent Quaker Spring Gathering in Painted Post, New York, a very informational veggie booth was exhibited. Betsy Root worked to put together the display for the event, as seen in the above photo. Vegetarian Resource Group member Karen Peissinger connected Betsy to VRG, who provided some handouts for this outreach.”

Brussels Sprouts at Cruciferous in LA

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

Cienfuegos
95 Ave. A
New York, NY 10009
Cienfuegos serves vegan versions of classic Cuban meals. Many folks enjoy the Mushroom & Tomatillo Croquetas and the Cuban Sliders. Happy hour is from 5pm-7pm daily. Live Latin Jazz music is performed from 7pm-10pm on Mondays.

Cruciferous
1253 Vine St. #8
Los Angeles, CA 90038
Cruciferous serves family style dishes. All their pastas are made from scratch. General Tso’s Brussels Sprouts and Potato Gnocchi are popular menu items. 20% gratuity is included in your bill.

Farmacy Vegan Kitchen and Bakery
803 N Tampa St.
Tampa, FL 33602
Farmacy Vegan Kitchen and Bakery is located inside the Duckweed Urban Grocery store. They offer juices and smoothies, bowls, baked goods, and wraps. Sample items include Marinated Kale Salad, Spanish Lentil Soup, and BBQ Black Bean Meatballs. They also have gluten-free options.

Majani Restaurant
7167 S. Exchange Ave.
Chicago, IL 60649
Enjoy vegan soulfood dishes including a Po Boy sandwich, black eyed pea burger, and black eyed pea tacos.

Taqueria La Venganza
Location varies (pop-ups)
Oakland, CA
Taqueria la Venganza does “pop-ups” around Oakland and the Bay Area. Check their website for hours and locations, as they vary daily. “Carne Asada” tacos and Chorizo are a few examples of Taqueria la Venganza’s veganized Mexican cuisine.

Taste
236 Bridge St.
Phoenixville, PA 19460
Taste is a wine bar that offers small vegan appetizers and plates. They have truly unique menu items including lavender popcorn, fancy cheeses, and desserts such as the milkshake cupcake. Taste offers private wine-tasting parties. Call in advance to book your reservation for private tastings.

The Cookie Counter
7415 Greenwood Ave. North
Seattle, WA 98103
Vanilla, Mint Chip, Chocolate, and Strawberry vegan ice cream is always available. Additionally there are flavors that rotate weekly and seasonally, including Blackberry Lemon, Roasted Peach, and Strawberry Rhubarb. You can place special /bulk orders online at https://www.seattlecookiecounter.com/vw-ice-cream-truck The Cookie Counter has a weekly ice cream truck! See https://www.seattlecookiecounter.com/vw-ice-cream-truck for the schedule. The truck is also available for catering. The Cookie Counter has gluten free cone options.

Truce
526 Selby Ave.
St. Paul, MN 55102
Whether you’re looking to revitalize your body after a workout or you just want a fresh-tasting drink after a long day, Truce is a solid option to check out for the best all-organic freshly produced juicy goodness. Make sure to try the Glow Greens juice which includes the unusually tasty ingredient, dandelion greens, along with grapefruit, pear, cucumber, romaine, parsley, and orange.

Under the Sun
244 E. 3rd St.
Long Beach, CA 90802
Whether or not you are vegan, vegetarian or even a meat eater this place will open your mind up to a raw food frenzy. With two different menus to provide living foods and juice tonics this restaurant is making its mark in the plant based community. Under the Sun offers positive spin offs to a lot of America’s most loved meals while also introducing different cultural medicines in the form of tonics and infused meals such as the Tu-Nah wrap and the LBC sandwich. Along with its desserts like Cheezecake Slice and Doh! Nut Bites any first timer with definitely be a lifelong returner.

Earth Island (manufacturer of Follow Your Heart Products) has been Awarded Gold Level Zero Waste Certification

The Vegetarian Resource Group received the following information from Earth Island. Congratulations!

On behalf of Follow Your Heart, we are very excited to share with you that Earth Island, the manufacturing facility for Follow Your Heart products, has been awarded Gold Level Zero Waste certification from Green Business Certification Incorporated (GBCI), making Earth Island the first plant-based food manufacturing facility in the U.S. to achieve such a title. Earth Island earned the Zero Waste Gold status by diverting 97% of its waste from the landfill as well as fulfilling additional green initiatives over the past 12 months.

In order to achieve Gold Level Zero Waste certification, Earth Island met a strict set of guidelines outlined by GBCI which includes diverting at least 90% of overall waste from landfills and implementing a comprehensive program to reduce and divert waste through strategic purchasing, material reuse, composting, increased recycling, and employee education. Earth Island analyzed every aspect of its operation to classify and quantify all sources of its waste and then identify where waste could either be reduced through increased recycling or composting, or eliminated through reusing materials. Through their efforts, Earth Island diverted nearly 100 tons to recycling, composted 136 tons, and re-purposed 228 tons of materials.

Join us for our first Vegan Night in Pittsburgh at the Pirates VS Orioles game

Starting at $87.06 per person* Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Contact Donna at Green Earth Travel for more information
[email protected] or call 301 229-5666

Take me out to the ball game!
Take me out with the crowd
Buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks
I don’t care if I never get back

Join the Pirates, Meatless Monday Pittsburgh, vegan enthusiasts, and all animal lovers for our first Vegan Night!
Join us for one night in Pittsburgh for a Pirates VS Orioles game,
A historical event as this is the first game ever to block seats off for vegans!
We will stay at the SpringHill Suites Marriott,
1 ticket per person and vegan breakfast the next morning (breakfast is not included in price)

*Cost per person double occupancy $127.98
Single occupancy $209.66
Triple occupancy $100.75 per person
Quad occupancy $87.06 per person
We can get up to six people in a room so please email directly for price.

Price includes:
1 night hotel at the SpringHill Suites Marriott
Hotel taxes
1 ticket to the game
Vegan dinner and appetizer
Each ticket includes access to the exclusive Vegan Menu in the Picnic Park from 5:30 – 7 p.m. and a Corner Box seat for the Pirates vs. Orioles game.

What is not included:
Gratuities to the hotel staff
Parking $25
Optional vegan breakfast.

Menu includes:
Pretzels, Chips and Dips (house chips with French onion dip, corn chips with smashed avocado salsa, pretzel sticks with Local PA maple mustard)
Power Chop Salad (kale, cabbage, grilled vegetables, garbanzo beans, sunflower seeds, pepitas, citrus-dijon dressing)
Ultimate Vegan Burger (beefless beef patty, lettuce, tomato, dill pickles, vegan house sauce, sesame seed bun)
Buffalo Cauliflower (vegan ranch dipping sauce)
Sweet Potato Tacos (black beans, cilantro, salsa verde, tortilla threads, nondairy sour cream, flour tortilla)
Watermelon and Berries

No refunds on baseball tickets.
$50 cancellation fee for the room until September 3rd
September 4th-no refunds

Contact Donna at Green Earth Travel for more information
[email protected] or call 301 229-5666

By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS

The VRG received an email from a reader who asked “…if there was any information on mozzarella cheese used at Grimaldi’s Coal Brick-Oven Pizzeria.” See: https://www.grimaldispizzeria.com/

Our reader told us that he had dined at the Cedar Hill, Texas Grimaldi’s where “the manager said there was no animal rennet in the mozzarella cheese.”
Ingredient listings do not appear on the company’s website. So in April 2017 The Vegetarian REsoruce Group placed an unofficial call to Grimaldi’s corporate office requesting this information and left a voicemail.

The next day we received a call back from Nina at Grimaldi’s corporate office. She told us that “there is no animal rennet in the mozzarella cheese used on the Garden Pizza.” Nina added that “the Romano-Spice Blend which is sprinkled on top does contain animal rennet.”

The Garden Pizza is described on their website as being Grimaldi’s “Traditional Pizza topped with fresh Roma tomatoes, sliced onions, mushrooms and black olives.”

We also asked Nina if the dough conditioner L-cysteine, which is most often derived from poultry feathers, was used to make their dough. She said “L-cysteine is not in our dough.” We also asked about lard and she again said “No lard.”

Lacking a formal statement from Grimaldi’s about their vegan menu items, we sought to confirm all of the information that we had gathered above. So The VRG placed several random calls to Grimaldi’s restaurants in Arizona, California and Colorado. Managers at four Grimaldi’s locations confirmed all of the preceding information.

We also learned that the Romano-Spice Blend is “automatically put on pizzas. When ordering, customers should request that it be left off.”
According to all four managers at various Grimaldi’s locations, butter is not used on the pizza crust. The pizza sauce is “all-vegetable” with no meat, meat flavors nor dairy.

They told us that vegans could order the Garden Pizza without the cheese.

The VRG also inquired about the Kale Chopped Salad which is described on the menu as consisting of “kale, romaine lettuce, artichokes, cucumber, red onion, shaved Italian cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and Kalamata olives tossed in a lemon vinaigrette.”

The four managers with whom we spoke unanimously agreed that the Kale Chopped Salad “could be ordered without the cheese.” All four put us on hold while they checked into the lemon vinaigrette ingredients. All relayed to us after a brief pause that there was neither honey nor dairy in the lemon vinaigrette. One manager mentioned that a guest could always request “oil and vinegar on the side.”

For information about other restaurant chains, see http://www.vrg.org/fastfoodinfo.php

For information about vegetarian and vegan restaurants, see http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php

To support The Vegetarian Resource Group research, donate at www.vrg.org/donate

To join, go to http://www.vrg.org/member/cabdacae.php

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 judgement about whether a product is suitable for you. To be sure, do further research or confirmation on your own.

My name is Alyssa Ardolino. I am one of the University of Maryland College Park Dietetic Interns this year. I wanted to let you know I wrote a blog post about Vegan and Vegetarian diets and our experience at The Vegetarian Resource Group for our dietetic internship blog. You can read it here:

http://umdieteticinternship.blogspot.com/2017/05/is-veganism-right-for-you-our-visit-to.html

Do you love your dad and want to make sure he stays healthy? If so, why not consider giving him a vegan cookbook for Father’s Day. The Vegetarian Resource Group Book Catalog offers several books that your father might enjoy:

Grills Gone Vegan

This book gives instructions for both outdoor and indoor grills. Apartment dwellers now can enjoy grilled vegan cuisine, too! Chapter 1 offers helpful information for those that are new to grilling. The last chapter of the book includes recipes for marinades and other condiments.

Next, dive into all the wonderful recipes. Starters include Roasted Garlic, Cajun Mushrooms, Stuffed Jalapeño Chiles, and Grilled Baby Artichokes. You can prepare side dishes including Mexican Slaw, Ethiopian Bean Skillet, or Asian Sesame Noodles. Be sure to move on to Soups and Sandwiches including Roasted Corn Chowder and Teriyaki Portobello Burgers. Some main dishes offered are Red-Eye Tofu Steaks, Seitan Ribz, Quinoa-Stuffed Poblanos, Broccoli and Cheeze Calzones, and Porcini and Sausage Paella. Finally, don’t forget to prepare dessert over a grill. Enjoy Maple-Glazed Grapefruit or Pineapple and Pomegranate Couscous Cakes.

Teff Love

Perhaps your dad likes trying new dishes. Vegan Ethiopian food is delicious and now your father can use Teff Love to prepare this cuisine at home. First, you’ll find a recipe to make injera (Ethiopan bread). For breakfast you can prepare Ye’shimbra Duket Kita (Savory Chickpea-Flour Pancakes) or Ye’beqolo Genfo (Creamy, Cheesy Corn Grits with a Spicy Seasoned-Oil Drizzle). Another chapter features spicy red sauces and stews including Ye’Atakilt Wot (Potatoes, Carrots, and Cauliflower in a Spicy Sauce), Ye’misser Wot (Red Lentils in a Spicy Sauce). If you don’t like spicy food, one chapter highlights mild sauces and stews including Ye’Ater Kik Alicha (Split Peas in a Mild Sauce) and Ye’atakilt Alicha (Stewed Cabbage, Potatoes and Carrots in a Mild Sauce). The section on cooked vegetables and casseroles offers Ye’Abesha Gomen (Tender Stewed Collard Greens) and Ye’Zelbo Gomen Be’Karot (Tender Kale with Carrots, Onion, and Mild Spices). You’ll also find cold dishes including Ye’Kaysir Atakilt (A Salad of Tender Roasted Beets and Fresh Herbs in a Citrus Dressing) and Azifa (Tangy Lentil Salad). Finally, a section on beverages and sweets includes Telba (A Roasted-Flaxseed Shake) and Mocha Teff Brownies.

Vegan Brunch

Perhaps your father likes preparing brunch on weekends. Inside you’ll discover more than 176 inspired recipes for seasonal favorites, along with beautiful color photographs, including:

• Banana Flapjacks
• Classic Broccoli Quiche
• Puttanesca Scramble
• Cherry Sage Sausages
• Gingerbread Waffles with Carmelized Figs
• Biscuits and Smoked Almond Gravy
• Lemon Cashew Crepes
• East Coast Coffee Cake
• Tomato Rosemary Scones
• Bakery-Style Berry Muffins

The VRG Book Catalog offers many other creative vegan cookbooks. To order a gift for your dad, visit:
VRG Book Catalog

To see a list of ten vegan friendly ballparks, see:
http://www.peta.org/features/peta-top-10-vegan-friendly-ballparks/

Holding the Oriole park vegan dog is editor Samantha Gendler.

The Vegetarian Resource Group is once again sponsoring a video contest. We will be awarding one $200 scholarship plus two $100 awards. The deadline for entries this year is July 15, 2017.

Create and submit a video relating what you want to tell others about veganism. Some possible topics: food, nutrition, your feelings about veganism and/or vegetarianism, water usage and veganism, veganism and animal rights, or other veggie topics which appeal to you. Humor and feelings are appreciated. All videos should be positive, not be critical of anyone, and not include any footage of animal cruelty. You may submit a video you have already made.

Aspects of judging include accuracy and judges wanting to share the video with others. Entrants give permission to The Vegetarian Resource Group to post and share the video, to link to and from the video, and share the video with the media.

To see the video contest rules, visit:
http://www.vrg.org/videoscholarship.php

Previous wining videos can be found here:
http://www.vrg.org/veg_videos.php