By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS

There are many dishes labeled as vegan at Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes. The VRG asked Jim Ruggiero, Guest Relations Manager at Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes, about their definition of “vegan” and received this email response:

We define “vegan” as any menu item not containing meat, dairy, eggs or any other animal-derived product.
For further clarification, The VRG asked if honey is present in any vegan-labeled menu item. Jim replied:
We consider honey to be animal-derived so we exclude labeling anything with honey as vegan.
We also asked Jim if the sugar used in some of their vegan dishes had been filtered through cow bone char. After checking with suppliers he stated:
I heard back from our multiple sugar vendors and currently our sugar products are not processed with bone char. However, as we move forward with purchasing products that are more locally sourced/GMO-free/gluten friendly this may change.
Concerning how the vegan dishes are labeled Jim wrote:
The vegan menu items have a label of “VE” on them. This applies to any soup, salad, dressing or bread. Items such as carrots, onions, broccoli, etc. do not have that label. Our menu on the website is also labeled and we do a blog post at the beginning of each month with allergens and dietary preferences available.
All of the vegan menu items offered at Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes are listed on the chain’s nutrition page: http://www.souplantation.com/nutritionguide/
Here is a listing of vegan menu options at Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes exactly as they appear as of October 2016. Please note: This list can and does change. In fact we noticed (and included) several updates made between the September and October drafts of this article.
Souplantation & Sweet Tomatoes also uses a vegetarian label for many other menu items. Some dishes which may be commonly prepared as vegan or vegetarian (such as Pumpkin Spice Soup or Curried Pineapple & Ginger under “Hot Pastas & Kitchen Favorites”) but are not at this restaurant chain are labeled specifically as “non-vegetarian” apparently to avoid customer regret if accidentally consumed.
Tossed Salads

Field of Greens: Citrus Vinaigrette
Italiano Fresco Mix
Mandarin Spinach w/ Carmelized Walnuts
Strawberry Fields with Caramelized Walnuts
Thai Peanut & Red Pepper
Thai Udon & Peanut
Prepared Salads

Arugula Citrus
Aunt Doris’ Red Pepper Slaw
Baja Bean & Cilantro
Bok Choy Citrus Slaw
Chipotle Mango Slaw
Chipotle, Lime & Cilantro Quinoa
Citrus Penne Pasta
Curtido
Dijon Potato w/ Garlic Dill Vinaigrette
Dill and Dijon Potato
Fall Harvest Quinoa Salad
Fresh Herb Thai Slaw
Hong Kong Pearl Barley & Green Bean
Italian White Bean
Kale & Harvest w/ Almonds
Lemon Linguine with Fresh Basil
Lemon Rice w/ Cashews
Mandarin Noodles w/ Broccoli
Mandarin Shells w/ Almonds
Mandarin Udon w/ Almonds & Snow Peas
Provencal Green Bean & Potato Salad
Roasted Potato w/ Chipotle Chile Vinaigrette
Spicy Southwestern Pasta
Summer Barley w/ Black Beans
Sweet & Sour Broccoli Slaw
Sweet & Tangy Asian Quinoa Toss
Sweet Marinated Vegetables
Sweet Onion & Yukon Gold Potatoes
Tabouli
Thai Citrus & Brown Rice
Three Bean Marinade
Tomato Cucumber Marinade
Dressings

Bell Pepper Blend
Calavo Guacamole
Corn Salsa
Solstice Harvest Blend
Spicy & Sweet Pepita Sunflower Seed Mix
Soups

Classical Minestrone
Creamy, Nutty Zucchini & Basil Bisque
Fiery Quinoa & Black Bean Chili
Hearty Harvest Mexican Stew
Indian Lentil
Roasted Ratatouille
Santa Fe Black Bean Chili
Seven Vegetable
Sizzling Sriracha Udon
Veggie Hot & Sour
Bakery

Flour Tortilla
Sourdough Bread
Hot Pastas & Kitchen Favorites

Cal Rose Rice
Cilantro Lime Rice
Jakarta Ginger Curry w/ GF Soy Sauce
Jakarta Ginger Curry w/ GF Tamari Soy Sauce
Sautéed Balsamic Vegetables
Sensational Sweet & Sour w/ GF Soy sauce
Sensational Sweet & Sour w/ GF Tamari Soy Sauce
Sizzling Shanghai Asparagus w/ GF Soy Sauce
Sizzling Shanghai Asparagus w/ Tamari GF Soy Sauce
Desserts

Baked Cinnamon Apples
Condiment – Cinnamon
Condiment – Cinnamon Sugar Topping
Condiment – Maple Syrup
Condiment – Powdered Sugar
Condiment – Strawberry Topping
Pound Cake – Strawberry Topping
Breakfast
Oatmeal

For information on other restaurant chains, see http://www.vrg.org/fastfoodinfo.php
For information on vegetarian restaurants, see http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.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 judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. To be sure, do further research or confirmation on your own.

Today is national sandwich day. Celebrate by preparing a vegan sandwich (or a Panini or wrap) using ideas found in previous issues of Vegetarian Journal:

Fast Sandwich Spreads
Panini
Wraps

To subscribe to Vegetarian Journal, visit:
Subscribe to Vegetarian Journal

According to the Law Office of Jill A Snyder,Congress has revived a law
that lets you make charitable donations (such as to VRG) directly from
your IRA, which might provide you with some significant tax advantages.

If you a’re over the age of 70½, you’ are required to take minimum
distributions each year from your IRA, and you have to pay income tax on
those distributions. But the “charitable rollover” law lets you transfer
assets from your IRA to a charity, and whatever amount you transfer
reduces the amount you a’re required to withdraw. So if you a’re
required to withdraw $20,000 in 2016, but you instead donate $20,000 to
charity, you don’t have to withdraw any funds for yourself, and you
don’t have to pay any income tax.

You won’’t get a charitable deduction for the amount you donate in this
way. However, donating directly from an IRA may be better than taking a
distribution and then making a donation, because it results in a lower
adjusted gross income – which can help you avoid taxes on Social
Security benefits, reduce your Medicare premiums, limit the 3.8% surtax
on investment income, and qualify for other deductions and credits.

In addition, donating from an IRA is definitely to your advantage if you
otherwise wouldn’t be eligible for a charitable deduction, either
because you don’’t itemize your deductions or because you’ are subject
to the charitable deduction “phase-out” for higher-income taxpayers.

To qualify, you must contact the plan custodian and have the custodian
transfer the assets directly to the charity. If the custodian sends you
the funds and then you give them to the charity, you’’ll have to pay
income tax on the distribution.

You can donate up to $100,000 to charity each year from an IRA. A
married couple can donate up to $100,000 each, as long as each spouse
contributes from his or her separate account.

This is not legal or financial advice, which you should obtain from your
legal or financial advisor.

Taco Bell released an updated version of an online guide titled How to
Eat Vegetarian and Meatless at Taco Bell:
https://www.tacobell.com/feed/how-to-eat-veggie in August 2016.
Missy Nelson, RD of Taco Bell responded to The Vegetarian Resource Group
with more detail about how Taco Bell defines “vegetarian” and “vegan.”
She told us:

Our definitions are as follows:

Lacto-ovo vegetarianism is defined by the practice of eating
grains, pulses, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruits with the use of
dairy products and eggs. A vegetarian does not eat any meat, poultry,
game, fish, shellfish or by-products of slaughter. Any material
taken/extracted/processed-through from animals, birds, insects, marine
animals, or slaughter by- products such as gelatin, enzymes, animal
fats, or bone char are non-vegetarian.

Ms. Nelson indicated that in addition to the lacto-ovo statement above,
vegans do not eat any animal products or byproducts such as honey or
ingredients processed from fur or feathers.

Taco Bell told us that items certified as vegetarian or vegan do not
contain sugar that has been processed through bone char. The same sugar
isn’t necessarily used for items not certified as vegan or
vegetarian.

The full certified vegetarian menu can be found here
https://www.tacobell.com/food/vegetarian; however, people can customize
to fit their specific needs.

At the bottom of their Vegetarian page Taco Bell posts this disclaimer:

Taco Bell…offers…AVA-certified vegetarian food items, which
defines vegetarian as lacto-ovo, allowing the consumption of dairy and
eggs but does not include any animal byproducts. Please note that in
some restaurants we use the same frying oil to prepare menu items that
may or may not contain meat. All vegetarian ingredients are handled by
our employees in common with meat ingredients, which may not be
acceptable to certain types of vegetarian diets. We cannot guarantee
that cross contact with meat products will not occur…

On its Ingredient Statements page Taco Bell identifies its AVA-certified
vegetarian and AVA-certified vegan ingredients.
https://www.tacobell.com/food/nutrition/ingredients

Here is a partiallisting of the AVA-certified vegan ingredients:

black beans
fire sauce (hot & mild)
express nacho chips (regional)
fire roasted salsa
flour tortilla
Gordita flatbread
green chile sauce (regional)
green tomatillo sauce (regional)
Mexican pizza sauce
pico de gallo
guacamole
Latin rice
rainforest coffee
red sauce
red strips
refried beans
salsa del sol
taco shell
tostada shell

In its updated guide linked above Taco Bell lists 11 vegetarian menu
items. Of these as presented, only one is vegan (Black Beans & Rice) but
seven others can easily be made vegan by excluding for instance cheese
or sour cream:

1. Black Bean Burrito
2. Black Beans & Rice
3. Veggie Power Menu Bowl
4. Veggie Power Menu Burrito
5. Spicy Tostada
6. 7-Layer Burrito
7. Bean Burrito
8. Pintos N Cheese

From Taco Bell’s website it is possible to customize menu options with
“Tasty Upgrades” many of which are vegan. See:
https://www.tacobell.com/food/vegetarian

Patrons also have the option to “Change What’s Included.” For example on
the Pintos N Cheese page, customers could exclude the cheese and upgrade
with guacamole. The adjusted price reflecting upgrades is calculated
automatically onsite. Deletions of any included components do not result
in a reduced final price. See:
https://www.tacobell.com/food/sides/pintos-n-cheese

The VRG asked Missy for more detail on some of the ingredients in
certain menu items and in the Tasty Upgrades. We learned that the beans,
rice and red sauce of the Black Bean Burrito are not prepared with
animal broths or stocks and all of the natural flavors in this burrito
are all-vegetable. The monoglycerides and enzymes in the flour tortilla
are also non-animal.

The Veggie Power Menu Burrito lists Mexican pizza sauce as a Tasty
Upgrade. Missy told us that its natural flavors are all-vegetable. The
“beans,” also an all-vegetable Tasty Upgrade in both ingredients and
preparation, are Taco Bell’s Refried Beans (as listed in the Ingredient
Statements.)

The Spicy Tostada is served on the tostada shell with refried beans.

Taco Bell further elaborated on their frying oil in their updated online
guide:

In some of our restaurants, we use the same frying oil to prepare
menu items that may or may not contain meat. Therefore, menu items fried
in oil like hash browns, chips, cinnamon twists, potatoes and the
Fiesta taco salad shell are not acceptable to the AVA-certified
vegetarian diet because of the potential cross contact.

There is also a nutrition calculator on Taco Bell’s website. It is
different from many in that it allows a patron to adjust portions
(doubling for example) and presents the information in a familiar
nutrition facts label format:
https://www.tacobell.com/food/nutrition/calculator
On its Allergen Info page, it is possible to filter out all of the
animal products (eggs, milk, fish and shellfish) to create an
approximate vegan filter. See:
https://www.tacobell.com/food/nutrition/allergen-info
Vegan consumers should be aware that certain listings using this filter
set include hashbrowns, chips and cinnamon twists all of which contain
no animal ingredients per se but may have been fried in oil used to
prepare meat products. Interestingly the only “Vegetarian Menu” entrée
(excluding side dishes grouped in their own category) which came up was
the Black Beans & Rice dish which means it is the only
vegan-to-begin-with entrée listed on Taco Bell’s menu. Fresco meat
dishes also appeared using this approximate vegan filter since the
allergen list does not include meat.

On its FAQ page the first food-related question and answer:
https://www.tacobell.com/faq
Q: Does Taco Bell offer vegetarian-friendly options?
A: Yes…and people love it! We sell 350 million vegetarian items a year
and about 7 percent of all items ordered at Taco Bell are either
vegetarian-friendly, or made vegetarian-friendly by some type of
substitution or removal. Some of our most popular are the classic Bean
Burrito, 7-Layer Burrito, Cantina Power Veggie Bowl…Plus, you can
customize almost any item on our menu by replacing meat with beans.

Thank you to Jeanne Yacoubou, MS for her research on Taco Bell products.

The contents of this posting, 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 information on restaurant chains, see
http://www.vrg.org/fastfoodinfo.php
For information on vegetarian restaurants, see
http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php

VRG will be having its 35th pre-Thanksgiving vegan potluck on Sunday, November 20th at 5 pm. The event is open to the public and is being held in the Roland Park section of Baltimore City at the North Baltimore Mennonite Church, 4615 Roland Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21210. The cost is $4 per adult (children can attend for free) plus a vegan dish that serves 4 per adult in your party. We are also collecting canned veggie food that will be distributed to those in need. Please share the information with your friends!

Details on this event can be found here: http://www.vrg.org/VeganThanksgivingPoster2016.htm

World Vegan Day is celebrated around the world on November 1st each year. This designated day was inaugurated in 1994 by The Vegan Society in the United Kingdom.

You can celebrate this day by preparing a vegan dish and sharing it with your family and friends. The Vegetarian Resource Group offers endless vegan recipes online here: http://www.vrg.org/journal/CookingAndRecipes.htm

Don’t like to cook? We have that covered as well. Visit one of the many vegan restaurants listed on our online guide to veggie restaurants throughout the USA and Canada here: http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php

By Alicia Hückmann and Heather Francis, VRG interns

Teachers and other presenters who would like to promote a healthier lifestyle for their children can use this outline to plan a lesson about vegetarianism/veganism. It is suited for younger children in elementary school and middle school but can be adapted for high schools as well.

Motivation (5-10 minutes)

The pupils talk about their personal experiences in regard to meat-free diets and get to know the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan.

Questions to ask:
· Who can explain what a vegetarian is?
· What is the difference between a vegetarian and a vegan?
· in order to help young children understand, you can bring vegetables, fruits, and pictures of or empty packages of animal products and ask them to label them suitable for vegans, vegetarians, both, or neither.You can show comic strips that have featured vegetarians.(Look through a few week of your weekend comics.)

Discussion (20-30 minutes)
The pupils learn to understand why vegetarians choose not to eat meat. At the same time, they find reasons for being a vegetarian.

Question: Why do many people choose to become vegetarian?
· Let them work in pairs of two to three for a few minutes first, then ask them to present their results.
· If there are vegetarians/vegans in your class, encourage them to share their motivation.
· Write down key terms as soon as they come up (environment, ethics, health).
· This can be a mind map (a hierarchical diagram that structuralizes and visualizes information) the children copy into their notebooks.
· provide background information, facts and figures to each key term if necessary.

1. Environment
See http://www.vrg.org/environment/

2. Ethics
See http://www.vrg.org/animal_rights/index.php

3. Health
See http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/
(Also religion, taste, animal welfare, influence of friend and family, allergies, cost, availability)

Retain and Transfer (5-10 minutes)

The pupils elaborate on a reason that they find especially convincing. Furthermore, they think of ways in which they as well as society as a whole can move towards responsible consumption.

Questions to ask:
· Which reason is the most important one in your opinion and why?
· What can we change about our lifestyle to help animals, the environment and our own health?

Activity (up to 1 hour)

The pupils make their own healthy, vegan nice-cream. They learn that cutting out animal products and artificial sugars from a meal does not necessarily mean it is tedious, more expensive or more difficult to make.

You will need:
· Enough cut up frozen bananas (1-2 for each pupil)
· A variety of toppings
· Fruit (pineapple, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, coconut, cherries…)
· Peanut butter
· Non-dairy vegan chocolate chips
· Nuts (if no allergies)
· Sprinkles
· Reusable or recyclable dishes and cutlery
· Blender(s) or food processor(s). A Yonanas works well. See: http://yonanas.com/

Set everything up before the lesson starts or ask your pupils to help you if they are old enough. Show the pupils how they blend the bananas, then let them try for themselves.

By Alicia Hueckmann, intern visiting from Germany

Of all professions related to veganism, school teachers are probably not
among the jobs one would think of first. Is it even possible to actively
promote a lifestyle that is completely different from that of many
families and not get in trouble? As a student teacher who has taught
several middle and high school classes, I have found quite a few
‘loopholes’ that have enabled me to share my love for animals with my
students without having to fear consequences.

Before we move over to my list, I would like to make clear first that my
experience is limited to relatively liberal German schools – I have
never actually experienced what it is like to be a teacher in the USA.
So before you start any of the following vegan ‘projects,’ take into
consideration how liberal your school is in general (e.g. do they raise
awareness for or deny climate change?), how open-minded the staff at its
cafeteria is (do they try to serve healthy food or do they rely on junk
food?), and how well you get on with your class parents (are there any
overly protective parents or parents that tend to complain much about
what you do?).

While making a difference as a vegan biology teacher is probably very
easy – they usually have many opportunities to show their pupils how
beautiful nature is and that it is our duty to take responsibility for
animals and the environment – this does not mean that they are the only
ones that can. I, for example, ‘only’ teach English, German, and Math and
it works perfectly, as you will see in the following list.

1. Implicitly make veganism a part of your lessons
In modern languages, pupils in Germany are required to talk about
environment-related topics at school. As my class’ textbook (11th grade)
only shortly mentioned the impact of the meat industry on the
environment, I decided to dedicate a whole lesson to the topic by having
a classroom discussion that was supposed to prepare the class for their
upcoming oral exam. In my experience, many people become very passionate
when it comes to their eating habits – and it is also a topic that
literally everybody has experience with (unlike local politics, for
example). This was why even those students that are usually not
motivated enough to raise their hands, made some kind of contribution
that day.

Before the discussion started, I divided the class into two equally
large groups, based on their personal preference and my own assessment:
The first group promoted meatless diets. The second one was in favor of
omnivore diets. I printed out several articles for both groups which
listed the advantages or disadvantages of the two lifestyles. It was up
to the students to decide which articles were reliable and convincing
enough to quote in the discussion as I did not only bring articles by
scientists or journalists but also rather biased activist groups and
climate change deniers.

As to be expected, almost all of my students participated in the
discussion and both groups came up with serious, reasonable arguments.
At the end of the discussion, one of the vegetarian pupils of this class
thanked me for giving her and her friends an opportunity to share their
beliefs with their classmates. My meat-eating supervisor was also happy
with my ideas and the lesson’s theme which enabled and encouraged
everybody to participate. See http://www.vrg.org/environment/

This was one example of a way in which you could make veganism (or
rather the impact of the animal industry) part of your lessons. For
Math, I could also think of math text problems in which you ask students
to calculate how much water it takes to produce a burger patty or how
many showers equal the amount of water needed for a steak etc. as part
of a group of questions related to environmental protection.

2. Bring vegan treats for your class
I have been in charge of my former school’s English Drama Groups for two
years now. It has become a bit of a tradition for me to bake a cake or
muffins to make dress rehearsals more enduring or to celebrate a
successful performance. Some of my pupils were very skeptical when I
told them that I made vegan sweets for them for the first time –
apparently, the only time they had heard the word ‘vegan’ before was in
a negative context – but after having a bite, they completely changed
their mind; some even asked for the recipe. But this is not the only
reason why I am sure that veganism is now connoted very positively with my
students. As two of my student are allergic to lactose and eggs, it is
usually very difficult for them to feel as part of a group during a
community meal during most of which they are the only ones that cannot
participate. As vegan food does not contain any animal products,
however, they never had a reason to feel excluded or disadvantaged. So
the next time you and your classes have a reason to celebrate, bring
some vegan treats with you. You won’t even have to explain the benefits
of this diet – let the food speak for itself!

3. Support vegetarian or vegan groups
Another great way of making a change at your school is encouraging
students who are already vegetarian or vegan to share their passion. If
you know any vegetarians or vegans in your class, talk to them after
school and ask them if they would be interested in starting a veggie
club. If your school requires supervisors for clubs, make sure you are
the first one to volunteer. Veggie clubs can work on many different
projects like encouraging their school cafeterial to offer healthier,
more plant-based options, raise money for a good cause by selling veggie
food, organizing a school debate, etc. In this case, your students will do
most of the work and you will mostly be in the background providing
support. As a consequence, you will be able to indirectly reach those
classmates and students that you as a teacher wouldn’t usually reach
with the help of your pupils.

By Alicia Hückmann, intern visiting from Germany
 
Considering my ethnic and academic background, I was probably one of the more unusual candidates for an internship at The VRG. I am studying German, English, and Math to become a teacher, I am not a native English speaker, and I live in a city about 4,000 miles away from the VRG office in Maryland. Nevertheless, I decided to take a chance and applied for an internship during my summer break from August to Mid-October in 2016.

Before I tell you about my experiences during my internship, let me answer a question that you might be asking yourself at this point: Why would a student teacher from Germany want to work at a non-profit organization in the US that is in no relation to any of her college majors or career goals? The reason why I started to look for internships abroad was my motivation to improve my English writing skills as well as deepen my understanding of other cultures and mentalities. As I am interested in animal rights, protecting the environment, and veganism, I focused on organizations that raise awareness of these issues. After days of research, I had compiled a list of non-profits all across the English speaking world that both matched my preferences and accepted applications for three-month internships. After some further research, however, this list shrank down to a certain non-profit in Baltimore that I had never even heard of before. The reason for this was the fact that the VRG was the only organization on my list which promotes their agenda based on facts rather than emotions, which covers a large variety of topics, and which probably wasn’t going to send me out on the streets in a bunny costume to raise money. (Only recently have I heard rumors about the existence of such a costume somewhere in the dark corners of the VRG office).

Even though I primarily came for the language experience (rather than career opportunities), I ended up getting both, as many of the projects co-directors Charles and Debra assigned to me were somehow related to my future profession. During the first weeks of my internship, for example, a group of VRG interns and I had a chance to talk to children and teenagers at TuTTie’s place (a residential group home in Baltimore) about the benefits of being vegetarian and to make vegan banana ice cream with them. I also wrote two articles about being a vegan teenager in a meat eating family, one giving advice for teenagers whose parents do not approve of their decision and the other one directed at parents who do not know how to deal with their children’s new lifestyle. Other articles I wrote were assigned to me because of my personal interests and experience including vegan recipes of German dishes as well as veg(etari)anism in Germany and Ireland.

Although writing texts for the VRG homepage and journal was my main occupation during the time of my internship, I was also able to work at VRG booths at festivals. Among my personal favorites were the Vegan Soulfest in Baltimore and the DC Vegfest, both of which are exciting events to attend as a plant eater (mainly because of all the plants you can eat). However, I also really enjoyed other events which were not exclusively vegan like the Hamilton Street Festival and the Waverly Farmers Market. It was very interesting to see how people responded differently to our booths in different areas – while the people in Hamilton were mostly interested in the environmental and ethical advantages of vegetarian diets, those who approached us in Waverly were more interested in health benefits and fighting diseases.

Hands down the highlight of my internship was attending the Natural Products Expo East in Baltimore. The amount of vegan foods was simply overwhelming. I was able to taste all kinds of different products like sushi, jackfruit, pizza, mock cheese, brownies, and many more and most of which I hadn’t noticed in shops before. This convention was also the place where I discovered some of the best vegan ice cream on this planet and which is one of the many reasons why I am going to cry my eyes out when I get on my plane back to Germany in a few days.

Long story short, I have taken so much more away from my time at the VRG than I could have imagined. I did not only learn many new things about the vegan movement but also how important it is to question common assumptions and “facts.” The people I met and worked with are some of the most inspirational and dedicated people I know and made me feel at home from the first day of my internship. I had an amazing experience here in the US and I will definitely continue to support the VRG in the future.

For more information about The Vegetarian Resource Group internships, see: http://www.vrg.org/student/
To support The Vegetarian Resource Group outreach, donate at www.vrg.org/donate
Or join at http://www.vrg.org/member/2013sv.php

By Heather Francis

I went with Vegetarian Resource Group Volunteer Coordinator, Brigette where she did a brief talk for an office of canvassers for an environmental group. They have a tight schedule, since they’re constantly knocking on doors to receive signatures for a cause, so it was awesome we were able to squeeze in some time to give a talk about Environmental Veganism.
Brigette began by asking the group of canvassers if they were Vegetarian or Vegan. Out of about 12 people, most of them were vegetarian. One was a “carnivore” as she put it, and another stated she was vegetarian but ate fish occasionally (which is technically a pescatarian). There were a few people who wanted to become vegan but getting rid of eggs was the hardest part. I was mostly surprised that most of these people weren’t already vegan. Environmental issues is one of the main reason many people stop eating meat, so it was interesting seeing that those working for an environmental group weren’t already vegan.

Our point in doing the brief was to talk about Environmental Veganism. Brigette went over 4 contributing factors to the problems within our environment: Air, Land, Water, and Transportation. We can help save the environment in these areas just by reducing our meat consumption or choosing to not eat meat at all.

Of course, we all (should) know that the number one contributor to Greenhouse Gas Emissions is Animal Agriculture. What is even more devastating, is how if someone is living near a CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation), they may have to walk outside with masks because the air is so polluted.

After giving the group of canvassers VRG’s Save Our Water The Vegetarian Way brochure, this caused a lot of discussion based on how much water is used for Animals. They seemed surprised. For example there is about 13,000 Liters needed for one Kilogram of Beef whereas for Soybeans it’s only 1,900 based off of Hoekstra and Chapagain. See: https://www.vrg.org/environment/water_brochure.pdf

After speaking, we opened up for questions.We spoke a bit on how to find vegan foods on a budget. We had empty boxes of veganic food to show them, brochures, and a few articles out for the canvassers to take. Vegan on a Shoestring was highly popular because as young people it’s hard to find healthy nutritious food that is cheap. In the long run, it is healthier especially buying bulk, but dependent on the fruit/vegetable season and if you need to purchase fake meats as part of your transition, it may be harder to find simple and cheap vegan recipes. So below is an attachment to the article, if you’re interested:
http://www.vrg.org/journal/vj2015issue1/2015_issue1_vegan_shoestring.php

The brief came to a close, and I felt personally it was beneficial for me because I always assumed younger people involved with environmental causes were already vegan. It was interesting to see a different side. At the end one of the canvassers told Brigette that she had opened her mind.

So I know there is a lot more work to be done, and the environment is just one part of why anyone should or does go vegan. Brigette became a vegan when she worked as an environmental canvasser, so it wouldn’t surprise me if others did the same. I myself turned vegetarian, then vegan for health reasons. Yet, as a vegan I know that I’m not a vegan for health, I’m a vegan for the environment, ethics, and health. Watching the canvassers leave to go ban fracking, Brigette and I were confident we had helped at least someone realize the problems with animal agriculture on our ecosystem.

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

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Or join at http://www.vrg.org/member/2013sv.php