More on the SFVS Veg Fest

As you can see, whole families came out for the 19th Annual World Veg Fest, and a lot of the rooms were packed. It was a treat to see Patricia and Dave Koot of Wellness Central, who provide wonderful dinners and speakers/documentaries every Wednesday evening at Opera Plaza--sponsored by SFVS and friendly to animals and the environment! Next to them you see Patly Rohrback and Christy Griffin. Speakers included Chef Babbette here with her signer. Scientist Julie Sinistere was also an engaging speaker.

World Veg Fest Very Well-Attended and Diverse

The World Veg Fest on Saturday, October 27, 2018 was a huge success-- well-attended, stimulating, and--best of all--diverse.  Kudos to Greg and Patly Rohrbach, Festival Organizers,  and the rest of the Festival Team, San Francisco Veg Society board members, and volunteers who carried this off!

Plant-powered athletes Monk & the Plant Powered Bothaz spoke about gaining strength--both physically and spiritually--after giving up meat and dairy.  I want to get the names of the other two men.  The man on their left, Cam F. Awesome, the #1 heavyweight boxer in the US, introduced them.  (I was trying to get pictures at three different presentations going on at the same time--a total of 27 plus all the vendors and volunteers.)

The cooking demonstrations included RG Richgail Enriquez on Filipino vegan dishes as well as Joe Geeseman on Russian ones, showing how we can keep ethnic and family traditions without causing animal suffering and environmental degradation.

Grey, the Vegan Rapper, closed the program with a funny and warm tribute to his girlfriend, whose decision to stop eating animals, eggs, and dairy products was for both of them!  "My girlfriend says we're going vegan, we're going vegan!"  He said that changed his life for the better in many ways--health, strength, and career when his vegan Thanksgiving rap went viral.

In addition to the cooking demonstrations, there were  more than 18 speakers between 10:30 am and 6:00 pm and 9 cooks, including Patricia Koot of Wellness Central, who was also a vendor, here with her husband and partner at Wellness Central.

A Vegan Analogy: Fair Trade Coffee

How often have you heard a friend, who's made an animal-free dish for you, tell those who aren't vegan, "And I made another cake for you"?

Another version of this is when the non-vegans like a dish a lot and ask for the recipe, which is free of animal products.

"But you can add eggs and milk," the cook says.

These good people--and I acknowledge that they are better people than I am--are acting as if the vegan choice were based on allergies rather than on concern for animals, the environment, and social justice.

It's as if they were saying, "I got fair trade coffee for Tina, but don't worry.  I have the regular coffee for the rest of us." 

An Open Letter to Sarah Fritsche with Thanks for "Our top vegetarian restaurants"

This is the letter I just sent to Sarah Fritche after reading (more than two weeks later) her September 30th spread  "Our top vegetarian restaurants" in the San Francisco Chronicle's Sunday Food section.

Dear Sarah Fritsche,

Thank you for your two-page spread "Our top vegetarian restaurants," which I just found today, when I was going through my vacation packet.  (For more than you want to know about the complications getting the promised vacation packet, I'll send a separate e-mail.  Maybe you know who would LIKE to read it.)  

I missed your spread when I was in NYC enjoying its Eat for the Climate Week, September 24-September 30.  

You had a good list, naming all but three of my favorite places, and I appreciate your beginning with "It has never been easier--or more delicious---to embrace a plant-based diet."

Those of us following and promoting a plant-based diet for reasons regarding animal welfare and the environment know that it's not a great sacrifice because, as you say, it's delicious, and we really want people to know that.

I plan to write a letter to the SF Chronicle, but before I do that, I'd like to name the three you didn't mention and also add a note of caution.   

First the caution:  It's easy to find vegetarian dishes.  It's rare to find a restaurant that doesn't include at last one warm entree that's vegetarian.  I think it was in 2013 that the National Restaurant Association recommended that all restaurants have at least one.

But it's not as easy to find dishes that are free of dairy and eggs, as I found out after I realized dairy animals and hens/chickens aren't treated much better than animals killed for meat.

I understand that the word "vegan" can be a turn off.  (At one time it made me, in my meat-eating days, cringe.  Even when I was a vegetarian, I cringed a little at the extremist sound of vegan.)  But if you could use the word plant-based, I think that would send people on the right path.   I hope all restaurants will be encouraged to have at least one warm plant-based entree.  Taking off  the cheese or hard-boiled egg from the vegetarian entree does not create the perfect vegan dish.  

I was surprised that you omitted the Loving Hut from your list.  I admit that the Supreme Leader video makes me squirm, but I think their food is good, and they can be found on Irving, in the Westfield Shopping Center and other places.  What about Enjoy?  There's an Enjoy on both Kirkham and in Chinatown.  

But I think you'll be happily surprised as I was as a diner by Cybelle's Front Room Pizza on 9th near Judah--and right across from an ice cream place that has 12 kinds of vegan  (pardon me--plant-based) ice cream.  The manager of Cybelle's has a daughter who is vegan, and she wanted to be able to enjoy the taste and texture of  all the dishes she enjoyed before she became a vegan, so she created an astonishingly good menu.

One more thing--the most important of all:  The San Francisco Vegetarian Society is celebrating its 50th year with the 19th annual World Veg Fest on Saturday, October 27.  Would you like to do an article on that?

Here's a link:

WORLD VEG FESTIVAL

Ananda Fuara Had More to Offer than the Beer Fest 'n' Vegan

Ananda Fuara had more to offer than the Beer Fest 'n' Vegan I went to afterwards to.  

What Scientists Say about Reducing Meat and Dairy

Here's a link to the October 10, 2018 article in The Guardian.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown?CMP=share_btn_fb

I'm taking this directly from  One Green Planet:

According to a comprehensive new analysis on the ways in which our food system impacts the environment, global meat consumption needs to be cut enormously if we hope to limit global warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F) and prevent seriously dangerous climate change effects as our world population skyrockets to 10 billion people in the coming decades.

By just how much does meat-eating need to be reduced, you ask? This latest research, which was published in the journal Nature, estimates that the average world citizen needs to eat 75 percent less beef, 90 percent less pork and half the number of eggs they currently consume in order for us to avoid a climate catastrophe.

And here in the U.S. as well as in other wealthy Western countries like the U.K., the necessary cuts need to be even greater since people in these nations currently consume more animal-sourced foods on average than those in developing countries. To be specific, U.K. and U.S. citizens need to begin eating 90 percent less beef and drinking 60 percent less dairy milkwhile increasing their consumption of beans and pulses between four and six times, the research team concluded.

In the words of one of the researchers, Professor Johan Rockström at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, “Feeding a world population of 10 billion is possible, but only if we change the way we eat and the way we produce food. Greening the food sector or eating up our planet: this is what is on the menu today.”

Even Mel's, Our Old 1960's favorite, Has Evolved

A friend and colleague at CARA took me to lunch at Mel's Diner yesterday, October 11, and I saw that even Mel's has evolved and is now indicating on its menu what's vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, etc.

I had the avocado toast, from which she'd removed an egg and added a side dish of ground peanuts.  

May Mel's continue to evolve.

Eating for the Climate Week in NYC, Day 2

Mothers Out Front Omits Diet

There was a very pleasant gathering of SF's small group of Mothers Out Front and kids in Precita Park today, Sunday, October 7.

There were several dishes that were, perhaps accidentally, plant-based, and I understood that the cake was not.  What shocked me was that on the list of 'What Should Mothers Out Front SF Tackle Next?"
there was no mention of eating for the climate!

I think there may even be a resistance! 

Look at this:

I gave our two leaders Kathie Piccagli and her daughter Maia a copy of Nil Zacharias' book Eat for the Planet, and after talking to Anya Deepak of Women's Environmental Network and SF Department of the Environment, I thought she was the perfect one to get the third copy.  She told me that the city workers were advised not to vote meat and to go easy on the cheese, but they weren't really willing to follow this directive.  Experts in the field were brought in to educate them, and they became a bit more convinced.

Eat for the Climate Week in NYC My day 1

Jonathan met me at the airport and led me through Port Authority and back to his neighborhood, where we left my suitcase and went to Spring Natural Kitchen 474 Columbus Ave, New York, NY 10024!

Vegan NYC Eat for the Climate Week, September 24-30

It was "Eat for the Climate Week" in NYC for several of the days I was there!  I'm going to post photos of dishes and a tiny bit of commentary on the places I ate them--just, of course, to help the climate along.