These vegan restaurants were recently added to our online restaurant guide. To find restaurants in your area, visit: http://www.vrg.org/restaurant/index.php.

Desert Roots Kitchen
414 S. Mill Ave., Ste. 111, Tempe, AZ 85281
(480) 382-0228
Vegan. Desert Roots Kitchen offers an ever-changing vegan menu of global cuisine. Using as many local ingredients as possible, the restaurant caters to all allergens including gluten-free, soy-free, and nut-free. They are a great place for a quiet lunch. Outdoor patio seating is available. Desert Roots is located in the Mill Avenue Shops Courtyard in downtown Tempe. Open Monday through Friday for breakfast and lunch. Closed Saturday and Sunday. Limited service, take-out, catering, smoothies, soymilk, VISA/MC/AMEX/DISC, $.

Dulce Vegan Bakery & Café
1994 Hosea L. Williams Dr., NE, Atlanta, GA 30317
(404) 624-7417
Vegan/bakery/café. Dulce Vegan offers completely vegan desserts that are allergy-friendly and free of processed sugars. This bakery/café also serves vegan sandwiches, soups, salads, breakfast items, coffee and tea. Try the ‘chicken’ salad sandwich made with tempeh, almonds and cranberries followed by a slice of moist coconut cake. These cruelty-free treats will not disappoint! Dulce is located in the Kirkwood neighborhood of Atlanta. Open Tuesday through Saturday for breakfast, lunch, and early dinner. Open Sunday for breakfast and lunch. Closed Monday. Counter service, take-out, catering, espresso/cappuccino, VISA/MC/DISC, $.

Feel Good Guru
917 Queen St., W., Toronto, ON M6J 1G5
(647) 748-5800
Vegan/organic/raw foods/juice bar. Feel Good Guru is an all-vegan eatery offering organic and local raw foods. Try menu items like Raw Karma Pizza, the Earth Burger, Feel Good Falafel, or the Make Kale Not War Salad. They are primarily a take-out restaurant with just four seats, however, there is a huge park across the street where they encourage people to dine al fresco on the restaurant’s handmade picnic blankets. Feel Good is eco-conscious and even uses bikes for delivery (Queen West area). Open Tuesday through Sunday for lunch and dinner. Closed Monday. Counter service, take-out, delivery, catering, fresh juices, smoothies, soymilk, VISA/MC, $-$$.

Radical Eats
3903 Fulton St., Houston, TX 77009
(713) 697-8719
Vegan/Mexican. Radical Eats is a completely vegan restaurant serving Mexican cuisine with a side of punk rock! Try their famous vegan tamales or the all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch buffet. They use local ingredients, support area farmers, and even have their own community garden. Visit their website to view their calendar of events and home delivery options, or let them cater your next event! Radical Eats is located in the Northside Village area of Houston. The restaurant is closed between lunch and dinner, so please call ahead for hours. Open Tuesday through Saturday for three meals. Open Sunday for brunch. Closed Monday. Limited service, take-out, delivery, catering, VISA/MC/DISC, $-$$.

Please help us keep our restaurant guide current and accurate. Restaurants continually change locations, new ones open, and others close. To let us know about any restaurants we should add, delete, or if our existing entry should be changed, please complete the form here:
http://www.vrg.org/travel/restupdate.php

If you would like to volunteer with maintaining and updating The Vegetarian Resource Group restaurant guide, please email us at [email protected]. Thank you!>

Successful vegan restaurant is for sale in the Southern California resort town of Ojai. This completely turnkey establishment has a fully-equipped kitchen and a beautiful outdoor patio. $90,000. Only serious buyers should inquire. For more information, please contact Rick at [email protected].

If you’re in Philadelphia in early October, be sure to sign up for these events sponsored by the Vegetarian Nutrition Dietetic Practice Group. Both events are open to the public. Advance registration is appreciated. Both events will be held at Friends Center, 1501 Cherry Street, Philadelphia, PA 19102 (Friends Center is a red brick building on the northwest corner of 15th and Cherry Streets, only a block away from the convention center).

Vegucated Documentary
*Friday, October 5 @ 6:00p*
Screening of Vegucated an award-winning documentary that follows three meat and cheese loving New Yorkers who agree to adopt a vegan diet for six weeks. VRG Advisor Reed Mangels will be a panelist for a post-film discussion.

Powered By Plants: What We Know About Vegan Athletes
Enette Larson-Meyer, PhD, RD and Matt Ruscigno, MPH, RD
*Saturday, October 6 @ Noon-1:15pm*

Vegan Diets: What the Experts Say About Vitamin B12, Minerals, Protein, and Essential Fats
Ginny Messina, MPH, RD and Jack Norris, RD
*Saturday, October 6 @ 1:30-3:00pm*

*Register here: http://www.eatright.org/dpgevents

By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS
VRG Research Director

Glycerol, (also known as glycerin or glycerine), is a common ingredient or common starting material of other ingredients found in many foods and personal care products. When fat molecules, such as triglycerides, are broken down in a chemical reaction, glycerol is formed. Animal fats (e.g., beef tallow) or vegetable oils are the common starting materials for glycerin formation.

The VRG wanted to determine how much of the commercial production of glycerol today is from animal fats. We contacted Cargill, a leading glycerin manufacturer, in July 2012. We spoke with a senior employee in the Dressings, Sauces, and Oils division. We were told that “…ever since the 1950s, when animal-based sources were becoming less popular, vegetable oils have been used to produce the vast majority of glycerol today…In the last thirty years, palm oil from Indonesia has become a common source today…Personal care products may still use tallow but it’s small, too, today.”

A glycerin product manager at Cargill provided some data to support the general trends noted above. He wrote in a July 2012 email that “[T]otal glycerin usage in the United States is about 45 million lbs. per month. Approximately 30% is non-kosher tallow-based and 70% would be vegetable-based. That includes imports of vegetable-based glycerol and all the glycerin made here in the United States.”
Mono- and diglycerides, used in most breads and baked goods as well as in a wide variety of other foods, are formed by chemically joining glycerol to fatty acids found in animal fats or vegetable oils. The mono-and diglycerides principally act as emulsifiers, preventing breads and baked goods from crumbling or going stale, and/or keeping oil and water components of a food together (e.g., in salad dressings). Based on the data given above, the percentage of vegetable oil-sourced mono- and diglycerides commercially used today in the United States is also approximately 70%. Collected data from other sources are in agreement with this estimation (see our Guide to Food Ingredients).

Glycerol also has many industrial uses. There is renewed interest in it as an antifreeze component because it is a renewable resource unlike other common antifreeze components. http://www.astmnewsroom.org/default.aspx?pageid=2115&year=2010&category=Standards%2FTechnical

Glycerin is a by-product of biodiesel production. This “waste glycerin,” (and, to a lesser extent, that produced from used cooking oil, which is increasingly being used as a biofuel today), has greatly increased the supply of glycerin in the market. Much work is currently being done on ways to produce biofuels from waste glycerol. See, for example: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/06/070626115246.htm, http://www.environmental-expert.com/news/is-glycerine-primed-to-end-fossil-fuel-domination-250532, and http://www.asme.org/kb/news—articles/articles/renewable-energy/waste-not-used-cooking-oil-energy-source

To purchase our Guide to Food Ingredients, please visit: http://www.vrg.org/ingredients

The contents of this article, our website, and our other publications, including the 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 employees or company statements. Information does change and mistakes are always possible. Please use your own best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. Further research or confirmation may be warranted.

For information on food ingredients, fast food, and for other information of interest to vegetarians and vegans, please subscribe to our e-newsletter at http://www.vrg.org/vrgnews/

There are many ways to stay connected to The Vegetarian Resource Group!
Get our blog delivered right to your inbox: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheVRGBlog
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thevegetarianresourcegroup
And follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/VegResourceGrp

A reader sent us this information from the burger chain Smashburger:

Thank you for contacting Smashburger where we strive to be every city’s favorite burger place. Unfortunately, our Black Bean Burger is not vegan. I have listed out the ingredients that can be found in the Black Bean patty below.

Black Bean Patty:

• Black beans
• Red Onions
• Jalapenos
• Hot Sauce
• Cilantro
• Eggs
• Cheddar Cheese
• Cumin
• Garlic Seasoning
• Tortilla Chips
• Croutons

Vegan Drinks has kindly made us their beneficiary for September. If you are in NYC one week from today, please come and say hi!

Thursday, September 27, 2012
7pm-10pm
Fontana’s Bar [21+]
105 Eldridge Street, Lower East Side, NYC [map]
Benefits The Vegetarian Resource Group
DJ Grand Format
Food from La Pirata Kitchen

By Jeanne Yacoubou, MS
VRG Research Director

Since their 2011 debut, the Vegetarian Seasoned Seitan Gyro and the Vegetarian Seasoned Seitan Sausage created by Taft Foodmasters have expanded into several different market venues and their reach is ever-growing. As of August 2012, these high-protein, wheat-based foods are available in approximately forty restaurants and supermarkets in the New York City area.

Jessica Taft, founder and CEO of Taft Foodmasters, created the seasoned seitan. She told the VRG that most of her clients, recognizing her product’s versatility, create new menu items using the Seasoned Seitan as the dishes’ centerpiece. Taft mentioned most recently to us that the executive chef at Manhattan’s Fairway Markets “…is busy creating fabulous recipes with the Seasoned Seitan…Starting October 1, 2012, it will be at their deli counters.”

The most popular way restaurants are serving the original Seasoned Seitan is as a seitan gyro served in a pita or wrap with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and tzatziki sauce (either yogurt- or soy-based).

Other restaurateurs put their own signature spin on dishes featuring Taft’s Seasoned Seitan. For example, Sao Mai Vietnamese Cuisine offers Seasoned Seitan in its Banh Mi Chay sandwich with its own unique sauce. Tian at the Riverbank serves it in a variety of sauces including spice orange, escabache, tomatillo thai chili, or citrus ginger sauces. Taft related to us that while dining once at Tian at the Riverbank, “I have personally been there when the chef made a fabulous ‘flash sautéed’ seasoned seitan with mole sauce (a typically all-vegetable Mexican sauce). It was delicious!”

In September 2012, Taft told the VRG: “We just got into our first Chicago restaurant, Gyro-mena… [They are] so excited to bring the product on to please vegetarians (though we know you don’t have to be a vegetarian to eat one.) Chicago will be a giant market for us, being the hub of meat gyros. One executive of a gyro manufacturer said, ‘There are more Muslims than Greeks! And more and more young people are not eating lamb as their parents did.’” (Taft Foodmasters Seasoned Seitan is halal-certified and will be kosher-certified by the Vaad Harabonim of Queens in Fall 2012.)

Seasoned Seitan Gyro is also ideal for fast food-quick casual restaurants because it thaws easily and needs only to be heated for seconds before serving. The seitan comes infused with authentic Greek seasonings. Taft explained to The VRG that restaurants serving the seasoned seitan gyro may create their unique tzatziki sauce by using a wide variety of ingredients such as sour cream, yogurt, garlic or something very different.

Restaurants may serve the gyro in different ways. For example, Pita Grill offers feta cheese as a condiment in their gyro. Other restaurants serve the seitan gyro with French fries (as an “authentic” gyro) or rice pilaf. Price varies depending on the restaurant or supermarket, but $6 to $9 for a seitan gyro in a pita/wrap is typical.

Made by hand at Taft’s Queens, NY facility, the pre-cooked, frozen seitan may be purchased wholesale either pre-sliced, in cubes, ground, or in loaf or cone form. Because Taft’s Seasoned Seitan will keep for up to nine months, and keep refrigerated unopened for up to two weeks, it is an optimal high-protein stock item for distributors, schools, hospitals, institutions, and vendors as well as restaurants.

The Ingredients Statement for the Original Seasoned Seitan reads as follows: “vital wheat gluten, water, spices (see following), soy sauce, canola oil, kombu, garbanzo bean flour, dried malt, agave, lemon juice, sunflower lecithin. Spices: cumin seeds, coriander seeds, ginger, salt, clove, nutmeg, turmeric, parsley, chili, fenugreek, cinnamon, black pepper.” The Vegetarian Seasoned Seitan Sausage (“Italian Seitan”) contains the same main ingredients but has a different spice profile. The Seasoned Seitan Sausage may be used as a vegan, high-protein pizza topping or served in a sub/hero sandwich.

Taft’s seitan may be purchased unseasoned. As of September 2012, this is available only for foodservice. Those interested should contact Taft directly: http://taftfoodmasters.com

Taft told us in September 2012 that the unseasoned seitan “…is paired fabulously with Chinese restaurant sauces; e.g., sesame sauce, orange sauce, General Tso’s sauce. We are currently marketing it to the higher-end Chinese restaurants for use this way. We are not making the sauces, just consulting with restaurants on how they can use our seitan.” Price varies but $10-$14 for the seasoned seitan in an entrée, salad or platter is typical.

Taft Foodmasters plans to offer its Vegetarian Seasoned Seitan Gyro as a retail “heat-n-eat” kit. Distribution will begin in the Northeast United States by the end of 2012. Later, it will be available nationally. The kit will contain, according to Taft, “…bread, seasoned seitan gyro, and yogurt tzatziki sauce.” Taft’s goal is “to get Seasoned Seitan into mainstream restaurants and supermarkets everywhere under our own label as well as into private label items…[We want] to encourage people to include Seasoned Seitan Gyros and Sausage regularly in their diets as healthy and delicious high-protein foods…Above all, we want our Seasoned Seitan to be viewed not as a ‘meat substitute’ but rather for what it is in itself: an all-vegetable, nutritious and delicious high-protein food that everyone may enjoy: preservative- and chemical-free, with no trans fat or cholesterol, and little saturated fat per three-ounce serving.”

Recipe suggestions for Seasoned Seitan are available at http://taftfoodmasters.com/recipes/Recipes%20Using%20Taft%27s%20Seasonsed%20Seitan.pdf

The contents of this article, our website, and our other publications, including the 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 employees or company statements.Information does change and mistakes are always possible. Please use your own best judgment about whether a product is suitable for you. Further research or confirmation may be warranted.

For information on food ingredients, fast food, and for other information of interest to vegetarians and vegans, please subscribe to our e-newsletter at http://www.vrg.org/vrgnews/

There are many ways to stay connected to The Vegetarian Resource Group!
Get our blog delivered right to your inbox: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheVRGBlog
Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/thevegetarianresourcegroup
And follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/VegResourceGrp

Vehicle Donation to Any Charity is a free, convenient service for converting that extra car, truck, or RV into a tax-deductible donation benefiting The Vegetarian Resource Group.

To learn more, visit: http://www.v-dac.com/org/?id=521279034. You can donate online or call 877-999-8322 to make your donation.

By Christine Kasum Sexton, MPH

Wendy Rice is a dietitian who works for Advanced Health Care, which operates short-stay rehabilitation centers in six states. She recently shared with me a little bit about how their facilities accommodate their vegetarian and vegan clients.

Advanced Health Care (AHC) operates 11 locations in six states: Idaho, Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada. Residents are generally between hospital and home, and needing physical therapy or other types of rehabilitative services. Many have suffered heart attacks or strokes, and need further care before returning home. Rice is in charge of menu development for all locations. Her menus rotate on a 4-week cycle, and guests are able to select items from the menu as they would in a restaurant. AHC hires trained chefs at all locations, and menu items are prepared from scratch. According to Rice, they usually have at least one vegetarian client each month at each site, and occasionally have vegan clients as well.

There are a variety of vegetarian and vegan options always available for breakfast, including cereals, bagels, English muffins, fresh fruits, oatmeal, egg-bakes, and hash-brown potatoes. For lunch and dinner, most of the entrees are meat- or fish-based, but alternatives are always available. Vegetarian options include cottage cheese, pear-gorgonzola salad, quesadillas, and macaroni-and-cheese, buttered Italian green beans, and broccoli parmesan. Vegan options include soups made with vegetable broths, a variety of sandwiches, oriental salad, herbed potatoes, seasoned carrots, seasoned baked potatoes, marinated bean salad, garden salad, baked yams, pineapple-spinach salad, cucumber-onion salad, and cabbage and fruit slaw. Two vegetarian dinner items occasionally on Rice’s menu are eggplant parmesan and vegetable lasagna, both of which can be made vegan on request. In addition to dairy milk, all of the sites also offer soy, rice and almond milks, which are popular with non-vegetarian guests in addition to those that are vegetarian or vegan.

According to Rice, her staff is willing to make vegetarian or vegan adaptations to entrees for anyone who requests it, or whose doctor has requested it. Since their menu items are prepared from scratch, Rice says that they are more easily able to modify dishes to be vegetarian or vegan than if they were purchasing pre-prepared foods. She feels that her chefs enjoy the challenge of modifying dishes to suit patient needs and preferences. They are trained chefs, and enjoy having the opportunity to use their skills to meet their clients’ needs. Rice also states that, overall, all of AHC’s sites have very positive environments, where staff and clients are hopeful and upbeat about the prospect of rehabilitation; Rice believes that this positive environment spills over into the kitchen, where the chefs too want to be part of the recovery process.

Rice has not encountered any problems with providing vegetarian and vegan options at any of the sites. Most of the ingredients are purchased from large food distributors, although she does have the freedom and flexibility to buy small amounts of ingredients from local grocery stores when they need to accommodate one or two vegetarian or vegan clients. Food quality is Rice’s biggest concern when it comes to purchasing, and she is grateful that her food budget allows her the flexibility to focus on obtaining the best ingredients from her sources. AHC’s Albuquerque location is fortunate to have its own garden, the produce from which it uses to prepare client meals. The chefs at the Albuquerque location also produce fresh breads from scratch.

When I asked Rice if there were any resources that she thought would be useful to other foodservices seeking to include more vegetarian or vegan options, she said that she would like to see some type of short course for chefs about cooking vegetarian and vegan foods. In addition, she would like to see more hospitals and other care facilities move away from serving frozen “heat-and-eat” foods, which are often not the healthiest, to serving more healthy, fresh, home-made options. According to Rice, “hospitals and care facilities should be the places where wellness starts!”

For more information about Advanced Health Care, see: http://www.ahcfacilities.com/about/what_we_do

By Shelby Jackson, VRG Intern

When I was a freshman at Dartmouth, only one dining hall had somewhat consistent vegan options; the others had salad and occasional veggie chili. The one small dining hall that proved to be the most vegan-friendly had inconvenient hours, was closed on weekends, and was mainly a lunchtime destination. College students’ schedules are often ridiculously busy and socializing at meal times becomes just as important as the actual food. This is especially true when you are in the process of making friends at a new school. My first year, I was restricted to one dining location where nobody wanted to eat. On Fridays I had to stock up on premade meals only offered one weekday at the one vegan-friendly dining hall, and this meant I had to eat those meals alone in my room lest I felt awkward bringing them into other dining halls. Though I could eat a salad at dinner and be accompanied by friends, it was just not feasible to do everyday. At that time I was dedicated to running, and required plenty of whole grains to keep me feeling satisfied. I was very upset about the dining options and the fact that I, all too often, had to eat alone.

If you are experiencing difficulties obtaining proper vegan foods at your college, the first step is to arrange a meeting with someone in dining services by either walking into their office or sending an email to set up an appointment. According to Eitan Fischer, a vegan and rising senior at Yale, developing personal relationships with individual dining hall managers is crucial. Victor Galli, a recent Penn graduate, also stresses the importance of developing an ongoing relationship with dining services, one characterized by a “spirit of collaboration.” When meeting with your dining services administrator for the first time, be aware that kindness is advantageous, and that it will help you if this individual is on your side. Depending on how veg-friendly your college already is, you may need to define veganism, and suggest the implementation of a labeling system to make vegan options more accessible. Some college dining services have a particular symbol they label each vegan entrée with, others use color-coded serving utensils, and some include entirely vegan dining stations.

Eitan recommends offering to make constructive suggestions for improving the options, and to request meetings with high-up dining hall administrators. You may be up against administrators who are reluctant to change, and who believe vegetarian options will not be well received. If you find your dining hall administrators to be impervious, you will need to cast a wide net. Join forces with your school’s animal rights or vegetarian club; you may even find the environmental club is interested. Eitan suggests gathering petitions, getting the newspaper to cover the issue, and, depending on the way your institution works, getting the student government to pass a resolution in support.

The Penn Vegan Society sought a relationship with dining services through which each could be a resource to the other. According to Victor, this sort of engagement made dinging services more responsive and eager to help. Victor states, “You must discuss the business elements of implementing vegan options in order to get dining services to really listen.” When going into a meeting, it is important to reinforce common objective values: “You want to help the dining service make money by providing more and better plant-based options for students.”

Penn’s Vegan Society provided Penn dining services with market research and product recommendations. To support his hypothesis that omnivores who eat mostly plant-based foods, “consume the overwhelming majority of vegan products on campus,” Victor provided the article, ‘Flexitarians’ Driving Global Move Away from Meat Consumption: Study. By providing his dining services with research-backed evidence, Victor successfully illustrated the growing demand for vegan food. Victor also cited the VRG’s press release, How Many Adults Are Vegan in the U.S.?, to show Penn dining services that there are more self-described vegans than there are vegetarians, and to perhaps point their attention to the benefits of providing a variety of vegan options rather than just vegetarian. Another article presented by Victor, 5 Interesting Facts About Plant-Based Food Choices, based on the VRG’s Sugar, Vegan Deli Slices, Whole Grains, Meat Genes – What Will Vegans and Vegetarians Eat? VRG Asks in a New National Harris Poll, showcased rising trends among those eating vegan dishes, including the desire to eat more leafy greens as opposed to processed vegan meats, as well as the desire to have more dishes based on grains and beans. When Victor meets with Penn’s dining services, he provides a printed “Market Research Summary,” highlighting the main points of the research he is drawing from.

To access marketing information, see:
http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/market.htm
http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/market.htm#market
http://www.vrg.org/nutshell/faq.htm#poll

Due to the work done by Penn’s Vegan Society, Penn is in the process of offering a vegan station in each of its dining halls.

In convincing Dartmouth dining services to provide better options, I found it effective to point out the implications the lack of options had on my Dartmouth experience, and how I felt as if my nutritional requirements were not being properly met. To my surprise, those working in Dartmouth’s dining services were exceedingly kind and dedicated to doing whatever possible to bring about greater student satisfaction. Luckily for me, Dartmouth had major dining renovations – including an entirely vegetarian station, “The Herbivore,” – already in the works. Like Victor, I provided product and recipe recommendations packaged in a 15-page vegan food guide. When “The Herbivore” was first launched, it was far from perfect, and would oftentimes fail to offer vegan entreés. With my continued involvement with the dining services administrators, the options have improved significantly: textured vegetable protein Sloppy Joes, vegan ribs, vegetable Pad Thai, and textured vegetable protein tacos, to name a few. Another recent improvement has been the permanent addition of faux chicken and beef at the sandwich bar. The vegan dining options, according to dining services workers, become so popular that they had to increase supply orders to satisfy growing demands.

DAWG, the Dartmouth Animal Welfare Group, hosted a conversation dinner with the assistant director of Dartmouth’s dining services. This was an extremely productive event: multiple perspectives were able to be voiced, the dining director met a good number of vegetarians interested in dining improvements, and we became better educated about the constraints faced by dining services to provide certain options. Though Dartmouth’s vegan options have improved tremendously throughout my three years as an undergraduate, I plan to continue my involvement with its progression during my senior year, as there are definite improvements that have still not been made. Advocating for better vegan options is a process, one that hinges on continuous, appropriately-placed efforts.

Vegan options in college are more important than you might think. As a freshman, I tried to make do with the meager offerings, but soon realized Dartmouth’s lack of vegan options was more detrimental than I initially understood. There were students I met who used to be vegan, or wanted to be, but felt as if they could not do it healthily at Dartmouth. Dartmouth’s lack of options conveyed veganism as unsatisfying and difficult to maintain. Furthermore, college gives way to freedom and exploration; many find it a convenient time to experiment with vegetarianism. Ensuring great tasting vegan options are available at college is more important than satisfying the requirements of current vegans; it is about offering appealing foods that will invite others to enjoy more sustainable, compassionate food choices, and hopefully, offering the kinds of foods that cast an accurate representation of veganism, so those interested will feel more inclined to adopt the diet. The process of getting your dining hall to implement proper vegan options may seem daunting, but with persistence, you will savor the results. The fruits of your efforts will do more than please your own taste buds. You will help guarantee that other vegans – as well as future vegans – enjoy their time at college; you will increase the amount of plant-based foods consumed in your dining hall; and you will be opening the door, extending a warm welcome to the many potential vegetarians accepted to your college, year after year.