We offer elegant and delectable goodies fit for any corporate occasion, from gift sets and gourmet samplers, to gourmet coffee gift baskets and monthly clubs. And, we have everything you need to make a good impression: beautiful packaging, including option gift wrap or your choice of basket filling colors, hand-written gift card messages, and guaranteed on-time delivery when you choose FedEx shipping. No more stale crackers, questionable patés and cheap snacks no one should actually eat. Give your colleagues a taste of just how gourmet and delicious business gifts can be.

What Does Stress Do to the Body? by Judd Handler, Mother Nature Network
How many sabre-toothed tigers tried to maul you to death today? Hopefully, the stressors in your life don’t involve an apex predator chasing you through the bush. Still, ever wonder, “What does stress do to the body?”

Stress affects us the same way it did our cavemen ancestors. We are still wired for stress physiologically much the same way we were millennia ago, with our primordial fight or flight response well alive within us to keep us alert and safe.

Though not all stress is bad, we need a break from bad stressors, otherwise our health may begin to deteriorate.
Modern humans battle bad stressors that might not seem like a fight or flight scenario—staying in an unhealthy or challenging relationship with a partner; financial hardships; job dissatisfaction; drug and alcohol abuse; nagging mother-in-laws— all this distress may cause the body to:

• Elevate blood pressure
• Increase heart rate
• Slow down digestion and metabolism
• Flood the bloodstream with chemicals like adrenalin and cortisol
• Tense up muscles

Have a white-knuckle commute on the freeway to work every morning? Welcome to this modern life’s version of the caveman being chased by the sabre-tooth tiger. Though you might not have to flee your car and run, the same chemical cocktails are coursing through your body as the caveman’s.
Read the entire article on MNN by clicking here.

Allison Rivers Samson: You co-own a beloved vegan restaurant in Seattle called Wayward Vegan Café. What’s it like for you to run a restaurant? Do you spend a lot of time there yourself or is it mostly staff-operated?
Doh Driver: Being a part of such a popular vegan restaurant is really rewarding, because I love making people happy. I find it especially gratifying that so many vegan customers bring their omnivore friends and family to our place, knowing they’ll leave satisfied and impressed by vegan food. There are four owners, and two of them (Tami and Colin Blanchette) manage the day-to-day operations, including menu development. For the most part, I do the bookkeeping and other administration-related tasks, and I do the really boring stuff like schedule the maintenance, pay the bills, and take the annoying sales calls. I also write the e-newsletter, which I try to have some fun with. We do have a great group of employees who keep things running smoothly when the owners are not there. We think it’s really important to employ only vegans, for many reasons. We want vegans to have gainful employment, and we want our guests to know that they don’t have to explain anything or wonder if the staff will respect their veganism.

ARS: That makes a lot of sense to me, what a great situation! What’s the best-selling menu item at Wayward? What’s your favorite?
DD: Best-selling? Oh, that’s a tough one. To some degree it’s seasonal, and at times it just seems like suddenly, inexplicably, one particular item becomes high-demand. Still, the biscuits and gravy (and all their variations) will probably always be top sellers, because, y’know, yum. My favorite changes, too, and I’m on a burger kick for lunch these days, but ever since we started serving dinner my real favorite is the filet mignon (vegan of course!). Tami developed a truly melt-in-your-mouth creation that is just divine. Finish that off with our strawberry shortcake and I’m in a food-induced state of bliss.

ARS: I’ll be right up! Here at AG we’ve also had the experience of a product suddenly becoming a wild seller. I bet someone, somewhere has studied that phenomenon.  You also manage a vegan store, Sidecar for Pigs Peace, that supports Pigs Peace Sanctuary. Do you spend a lot of time with the animals? How do they affect your work?
DD: I do not (unfortunately!) get to spend a lot of time with the lucky residents at Pigs Peace Sanctuary, which is an hour north of Seattle. I make up for it by making a visit or participating in a work party there several times a year. The animals are, however, ever-present in my mind, because most of the decisions I make about how I run Sidecar for Pigs Peace are informed by one question: will this benefit the pigs? Obviously, the store exists to support the sanctuary and as the store’s manager and only paid employee it’s my job to think in that way, but also, as a dedicated vegan, decisions in most areas of my life are informed by animals and how they will be impacted. I will say that working to benefit animals has radicalized my veganism, and has made me appreciate other vegans tremendously. My work is my activism, and I’m extremely fortunate to have the jobs that I have.

ARS: I couldn’t have said it better! If all those activities weren’t enough, you have an awesome vegan son. How old is he and what has it been like for you to raise a vegan child? What’s the biggest challenge?
DD: I’ve had a lot of good luck raising my awesome vegan son, who is nearly 13 years old. While raising a vegan child is not hard, overall, there were certainly times when he was younger that I just wished the world was vegan so that food wasn’t such an issue! I went to great lengths to make it easy for the omnivore adults around my son – his distant relatives, his teachers, his friends’ parents – to feed him vegan food without stress. When he was in daycare, I got a copy of the kitchen’s menu plan and gave the caregivers ready-to-serve vegan versions of everything. Once he hit elementary school, I gave his teachers vegan alternatives of whatever snacks they served. Come to think of it, the challenges were always the parties! A classmate would have a birthday and so the parents would show up at school – surprise! – with cake and ice cream, often without even alerting the teachers. I kept cupcakes in the teachers’ freezers, and whenever possible I would find out in advance what the parents would be serving at parties, but sometimes I would learn later that poor Griffin was given dry crackers while all the other kids had cupcakes, or that he was given non-vegan cake, among other disappointing revelations. He has such a sweet soul, the little guy never cried or complained. Mostly, though, people have been respectful, and those bumpy times did not rule our lives. It’s gotten easier as he’s gotten older. For example, he’s old enough to pack his own lunch each morning now, thank the stars. I have to admit, packing a lunch every day, year after year, was one parenting task I loathed and am glad to be done with!

ARS: We have similar situations with our 5.5-year-old daughter, Olivia, who is also very committed to being vegan. I’m relieved to hear that it gets easier and I dream of the day when she makes her own lunch; thanks for that signpost!
DD: That somewhat addresses the nuts-and-bolts of raising a vegan kid in a non-vegan world, but there was also the challenge of raising a child to value and respect the lives of animals in a world that devalues and abuses animals everywhere you turn. From the lyrics of beloved kids’ songs and rhymes (in our house “This Little Piggy” ate tofu, and “Baa-Baa Black Sheep” kept all his wool) to the billboards that Griffin would read when he was still learning how (try to explain why cows who can’t spell would paint “eat mor chikin” on a sign, to a 6 year-old who’s learning to spell and doesn’t eat beef or chicken). The way society really views animals is pervasive and heart-breaking. I mean, when you’re an omnivore you just don’t realize the degree to which non-vegan messages dominate… everything! They’re all over the place! Do we really have to use animals to sell freakin’ insurance?

ARS: Doh, you and I are of one mind on this. A good friend of mine shared with me the concept that “Privilege is blind to itself.” And in the instance of being an omnivore in our culture, there is a lens through which animals are viewed that is, to severely understate it, extremely limited. When we begin to recognize oppression toward animals, it can be overwhelming and that feeling quickly escalates to agonizing when raising a human being to be sensitive and “awake” to what is true and alive in her/his innocent heart.
DD: Plus, we didn’t have Ruby Roth when Griffin was little. When he was a toddler I just said that animals are our friends and we don’t eat our friends. That served him well enough for a few years, but when he was around 6 years old, he said he didn’t want to be vegan. When I asked what he wanted to eat that wasn’t vegan, he didn’t really know. I realized then that while a six-year-old can understand that vegans don’t eat animals, a six-year-old does not automatically understand the converse: that if we are not vegan, we do eat animals, and in order to eat them, they have to die. I had to update, for his age, my explanation of what it meant to be vegan. I then did another “update” when he was around 9 years old, because I realized that some of his friends may say things like, “chickens don’t die to lay eggs!” So I explained to him, more graphically, what happens to chicks and chickens in order for humans to eat eggs, just to give him one example of how animals can suffer and die even if we’re taking something from them while they’re alive. He was stunned! A couple of years later I took him to a screening of the newest version of Peaceable Kingdom: The Journey Home, from the amazing folks over at Tribe of Heart. It’s such a great film in many ways, one of which is that it alternates between horrifying images of animal abuse and heart-warming scenes of rescues and love, so viewers have a chance to recover and balance their sadness with hope and happiness. Griffin teared up a few times, but he watched the whole thing with open eyes and an open heart, and was able to get why we’re vegan in a way that no amount of words alone could have conveyed.

ARS: Now I’m tearing up. Griffin sounds like an amazing person. Olivia once said that she wishes she wasn’t vegan and after we discussed the alternative, she decided she’d just prefer that everyone else was vegan. Sometimes I fear that I’m burdening her with this information, but truly it’s our society’s unconsciousness about it that permits these atrocities to continue and I value integrity, so I’m happy to give her that gift. I hear so many sad stories of adults who were tricked as children into eating animals and their deep sadness when they discovered the truth. I comfort myself with the thought that Olivia hasn’t been desensitized to the truth, which helps her sustain her open heart.
DD:  Griffin doesn’t like any attention on him, especially attention that highlights how he’s different from other kids, so he’s fairly subdued about his veganism. When he has to do projects or essays at school, he doesn’t choose veganism as a topic. But he keeps himself vegan, everywhere he goes and under all circumstances. I hope that he always stays vegan; I tried not to make our veganism such a weighty topic that it becomes the thing he uses to rebel against me, but I also wanted him to grow up thinking it’s just weird to eat animals, and that animals are not food. And if he does decide as a teen that the way to assert his individuality is to eat animals, I take comfort that, as an adult, the food he’ll go back to, the things he considers his comfort foods, will be vegan.

ARS: Sounds like you’ve gracefully walked a very delicate balance with that line, Doh. I have that same hope about Olivia’s future vegan comfort food. Can you share with us your current fave Griffin saying?
DD: My all-time favorite Griffin quote comes from when he was five. At the dinner table one night he announced nonchalantly, “I was born to do cool stuff.”

ARS: That’s a great one, Griffin! Olivia tells me she’s here to teach people how to go vegan, among other things. Maybe we could connect these two one day.  Do you have a favorite Allison’s Gourmet goodie?
DD: Seriously, you want me to pick just one?! Well, I could eat your caramels and truffles all day long, but I admit that I still lovingly remember the vanilla chai fudge I ate, like, 3 or 4 years ago. A-ha! I know what to ask for as a Mother’s Day gift!

Thanks for talking with us, Doh! I so appreciate all your insights on veganism, animal rights and vegan parenting. Happy Mother’s Day!

And while you’re thinking about it, why not check out some of our Father’s Day gift ideas, too? Father’s Day is on June 17th (that’s only 5 weeks away), and with our delayed delivery date option, you could order a tray of brazil nut brownies, a dozen soft peanut butter cookies, or an organic coffee sampler for Dad right now and have your gift delivered just in time for your Dad’s Day BBQ.

The school lunch conditions our nation’s children have historically faced are beyond unthinkable. (Even recent conditions…7 million pounds of pink slime? Really?!) And while recent efforts to make the meals healthier have not gone unnoticed thanks to folks like Michelle Obama and Jamie Oliver, it’s going to take monumental efforts to make healthy food the default every day. So we love this inspiring story about a lunch lady union in Chicago making sure to get functioning kitchens in schools. Hopefully we’ll see vegan menu items for our children regularly soon enough, too!

Revenge of the Lunch Ladies By Tom Philpott, Grist

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how our public school lunch program has been systematically starved of both money and time—to the point that kids now get a median of 25 minutes, and often quite a bit less, to wolf down lunch.

If they're lucky, the meal they're being forced to inhale as quickly as possible will have been prepared by actual cooks working with fresh ingredients. More likely, though, they're getting reheated prefab fare. Fewer than half US schools operate working kitchens, The New Yorker reported in 2006—and the Great Recession and the resulting pullback in public spending has only accelerated the trend toward school cafeterias as reheating centers for industrially made food. Last summer, for example, the city of Philadelphia shuttered 26 school kitchens in a budget-cutting move.

The city of Chicago, steered for years by privatization-happy Democrats Richard Daley and now Rahm Emanuel, has been heading down a similar path. Of the 11 new schools the city has built under a $1 billion program since 2006, 9 have no kitchen facilities and serve food based on what the Unite Here union, which organizes Chicago's cafeteria workers, calls the "frozen food model."

But the workers fought back—and the famously contentious Mayor Emanuel and his education team blinked. In their contract negotiations with the city, the workers won a five-year moratorium on building any new kitchenless schools or converting old ones over to the heat-and-serve model.

Now, in the grand scheme of American schools and the grim state of lunches, the union's victory might seem like a relatively small one. But I think it's significant. As the above-linked New Yorker article shows, the trend of dismantling school kitchens and replacing trained cooks with machines and unskilled workers dates to the Reagan area. The mechanization of the lunchroom has happened quietly, with very little backlash.

To read the entire article on Grist, click here.

Allison Rivers Samson: You co-founded the beloved Vida Vegan Con, the world’s first international vegan blogging conference. What would you like to share about your vision for the conference, how the idea came about and how it was executed with your co-producers?
Janessa Philemon-Kerp: The idea came about because I started a blog called Epicurious Vegan and knew next to nothing about writing blogs. I didn’t know what an RSS feed was, I thought WordPress was for technical geniuses and had no idea you could tell how many people visited your blog, let alone what site they came from. I started fantasizing about a blogger conference that I could attend that would teach me what I wanted to know, but as a vegan blogger, I wanted a vegan blogging conference. That didn’t exist. So I approached my friend Jess and asked her if she’d like to be involved. This was in late 2009. We worked on it together for about six months before asking Michele to join us. These two ladies are so talented and driven, the conference just spiraled into creation from there. We are lucky enough (knock on wood) to work together really well and we all really like each other, which is such a blessing when working in such close quarters and with such lofty goals.

ARS: I had an amazing experience at the inaugural VVC last year and eagerly await the second in 2013. Everyone I talked with or heard from about VVC was ecstatic about the event. How did the conference meet your expectations?
JP-K: Oh my gosh. The conference surpassed my expectations beyond my wildest dreams. I always had a gut feeling it would be a success, but to see the sense of community being built right before our eyes–WOW. I think I had an enormous grin glued to my face the whole weekend. It was just so amazing to see the connections and friendships forming. The conference could only be as big as what everyone put into it, and we were so thrilled to have such involved and inspiring attendees and speakers. It still blows me away to think about.

ARS: Me too! Everything was so well-planned! How long did it take for you to recover?
JP-K: Thank you! I’m still recovering! Ha. No, it honestly did take a few months for me. All three organizers have day jobs, so to plan a conference while also working 45+ hours a week was certainly exhausting; luckily, we were all fueled by exhilaration and excitement and couldn’t slow down even if we wanted to. Thankfully I discovered how hydrating and energizing coconut water is; I lived off the stuff for the weeks leading up to the conference. After the conference we held a few meetings to wrap up loose ends, then we sort of unofficially took a month off to decompress and remind our loved ones and jobs what we looked like.

ARS: I have a mini-version of that experience every January after the holiday rush. You’ve also founded and directed another benevolent project, Modified Style Portland, which is an annual fashion show fundraiser for three local charities. Any words of advice for someone seeking to create community events that support good causes?
JP-K: Just do it. If you want to do something, try it. If you don’t know how, that’s even more reason to try it. Running toward the things that scare us are some of the most rewarding things we can do. I knew nothing about fashion or fundraisers, but wanted to try. Because why not, right? I knew nothing about blogging or organizing an international conference, but wanted to see it happen so jumped in. We’re all here because of the crazy expansiveness of the universe, and what better way to celebrate that than by diving in and trying new things and supporting causes you believe in? If you want to get involved, talk to someone who’s done it before (email me, I’m happy to share anything I know!), read books on the subjects you’re interested in, find a motivating friend you want to work with, make friends with a lawyer or banker or community organizer–someone you can learn from, learn how to write a business plan, get involved in a non-profit and discover the ways your unique talents could help. But seriously, if you want to do, don’t let fear or lack of experience stop you–you’ll find so many rewards on the other side.

ARS: What a motivating answer! It’s so true that through self-connection to our individual inspirations and connecting to others, we are each unstoppable forces for good on this planet. Tell us more about your blog, Epicurious Vegan. What’s it all about? What was your inspiration for starting it?
JP-K: I started Epicurious Vegan in 2008. I wanted to document the food I ate, whether at home or out and about. I’m an over-sharer, so I thought, ‘What better way to share my recipes and restaurant reviews with my friends than by writing a blog they can all read?’ I still forget that it’s not just my friends reading my blog, which is probably why it’s still capricious, slightly disorganized and why I don’t monetize it. I’m not in it to make money, I’m in it to share with my friends–and readers–some of the fun stuff in my life. I don’t write according to a schedule and I don’t write anything I don’t want to. I am only beholden to my short attention span and wide range of interests; there’s a little bit of everything on there, and that’s just the way I like it.

ARS: Freedom is a beautiful and expansive thing. Living in the vegan mecca that is Portland, OR, do you find it more difficult to find good vegan food when traveling?
JP-K: You know, it is more difficult, but there’s a certain thrill in it. Growing up as a vegetarian, I remember how hard it was to eat a vegetarian diet in the ‘80s. It is so easy in Portland to eat a vegan diet–a fact which I absolutely appreciate but probably take for granted sometimes. When I get out of Portland, I find it kind of fun to go searching for vegan food. To remember that the pizza parlor down the street from my hotel probably doesn’t offer vegan cheese. To hear servers ask me if chicken broth is vegan. To have to eat a granola bar for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I know it’s terribly annoying if you have to do that all time, but it’s sort of a nice wake up call to me to get out of the bubble occasionally. And I find I generally eat healthier when I don’t have access to vegan corn dogs and reubens and grilled cheese sandwiches and nachos.

ARS: Yes. One of the things I’m passionate about is moving beyond junk food. With our ever-expanding options, eating vegan no longer provides the automatic safety net of “healthy” foods. What’s it like managing a bustling brewpub in Portland? Is there a significant portion of the menu that is vegan? What are the most popular items?
JP-K: Good question. It can be really hard, with long hours, constant small fires to put out, and 13,000 square feet to run around. Requirements of a restaurant manager: positive attitude, good with people and with spreadsheets, and good shoes. It can also be extremely rewarding–the restaurant industry attracts some of the most intelligent and inspiring people. The people I work with are so great. There’s a bartender who runs a successful vegan cheese company in her spare time, a server who’s also an up-and-coming local fashion designer and over a dozen employees who are attending Grad School while working. The people help make the job great. And it’s so awesome to work at Portland’s oldest craft brewery–we get so many tourists in who love beer and are excited to explore Portland, and I LOVE getting to talk to guests with questions and send them to the best places and talk beer and food with them. I especially love it when I meet vegans who come in–we have several amazing vegan dishes on the menu that all sell really, really well. There’s even a dish named after me–The Nessie! It’s a tostada with mini red bean burger patties, spicy coleslaw, butternut squash sauce, spinach and pepitas.

ARS: Mmmm… I’ll take one Nessie right about now! If you had an Allison’s Gourmet wish list, what would be on it?
JP-K: Um, one of everything. Really, I’m a sucker for truffles and vegan peanut butter cups. And the Artisan Chocolates with flavors like Coconut Joy Truffles and Salted Chocolate and Butterscotch Pecan Caramel? Those have to top my wish list!

Thanks for chatting Janessa. It sounds like you are living the perfect life for your engaging, interested and bubbly self! Next time I’m in Portland I’m going to look you up and eat my way through PDX.

Chocolate gifts are usually my go-to answer for most people seeking gift guidance. It’s hard to go wrong with chocolate, especially right now. With Mother’s Day coming up on May 13th and Spring and Summer brides in search of the perfect vegan wedding favors, chocolate answers the call for decadent Mother’s Day gift ideas and elegant favors to make even the most stressed-out bride smile.

The only real down-side to chocolate as a gift is that it’s prone to melting in the summer heat. Starting this time of year (depending on the shipping destination), I begin pointing out un-meltable baked goods like organic brownies or a cookie of the month club to those wishing to send fair-trade gifts to the hotter parts of the nation. 

But baked goods aren’t your only summer chocolate option. Our vegan confections also do well in the heat, especially the individually wrapped caramels, classic almond toffee, and peanut brittle. There’s always vegan hot cocoa, too, which we call “drinking chocolate” because it’s excellent hot or cold. I especially love the peppermint drinking chocolate for wonderfully chilly chocolate milk, smoothies, shakes, and even fudgesicles. YUM!

Multinational food companies sell everything, from polo shirts to tampons By Sarah Laskow, Grist

Imagine that this past weekend, you went out in New York City and bought a new pair of fancy Diesel Jeans. Then, because you were feeling good, you indulged in a KitKat bar. You forgot your reusable water bottle at home, so you bought a bottle of Poland Spring. On the way home, you stopped by the Kiehl’s store and picked up some face lotion. Oh, and you were running out of cat food, so you grabbed some Fancy Feast at the bodega around the corner. All of those purchases would have benefitted the same company — Nestle.

Nestle doesn’t own all of those brands. But it’s got a large stake, for instance, in L’Oreal, which owns Diesel. And Nestle’s chief executive just joined the L’Oreal board last month.

It’s not just Nestle, of course, that dominates the food system, as this map makes clear.

If you’re buying brand names, your money’s likely going to benefit one of just a few giganto food corporations. And although this particular map focuses on mainstream consumer brands, increasingly “green” brands also live under the reign of multinational food corporations.

What’s wrong with that? Well, these folks suggest, among other problems, that the concentration of political power and the environmental irresponsibilities of these companies are cause for worry. It’s also just a little strange that the same company (P&G) has an interest in toothpaste, batteries, tampons and Lacoste polo shirts.

Allison Rivers Samson: You write two blogs: JL Goes Vegan and Stop Chasing Skinny. Tell us about them.
JL Fields: After being vegetarian for eight years I went vegan two years ago. I read many, many blogs to help me along on my plant-based journey. They were immensely helpful but I did feel a bit like the odd-woman out, as someone approaching my mid-forties. I decided to start JL Goes Vegan: Food & Fitness with a Side of Kale as a way to chronicle my experience as a new vegan and to encourage other 40+ folks to consider life changes, regardless of age. I started writing about my love and appreciation for vegan cooking and how it shifted my relationship with food. While I have not experienced an eating disorder, I had certainly bought into the cultural phenomena that thin = beautiful and found myself yo-yo dieting for about six years leading into my 40s. Going vegan liberated me from dieting and I decided to embrace a larger, rounder me. I wrote the post January diet? Nope, I bought bigger clothes and readers really connected to it. I felt the topic was worthy of its own blog so I started Stop Chasing Skinny: Find Happiness Beyond the Scale, a community blog, last year.

ARS: Our relationship with food is such an important one to heal. You went vegan after 40! How did that come about?
JLF: Initially, I went vegetarian in my 30s. I was in Kenya for work in a small village in the Rift Valley. There was a celebration held for an auspicious occasion and my colleagues and I were guests of honor. Early in the day an elder from the community brought a goat to the site of the celebration – a true demonstration of generosity. The goat was presented and subsequently killed and boiled. That evening, we were offered the goat for dinner. To refuse it would have been an affront (or so I told myself?). Essentially I met a goat, shook his hand then ate him. I became a vegetarian. Years later, never intending to go vegan, I did a nutritional cleanse and discovered after two weeks that I had removed all animal products from my diet, except for one hard-boiled egg. I realized I was an egg away from being a vegan so I just decided to do it.

ARS: Way to go for it! Do you notice a big difference in going from vegetarian to vegan on your health?
JLF: Yes! As a vegetarian I really bought into the “what about protein?” myth and consumed incredible amounts of dairy (yogurt, milk and cheese). My body felt completely different when I removed it from my diet. My emotional health improved, too. It didn’t take me long to shift from a dietary vegan to an ethical one. The more I learned the more I could not ignore what we are doing to animals. I feel physically and emotionally healthy living a life based on compassion for all living beings.

ARS: I have seen time and again that the best blend is a marriage of both the healthful and ethical aspects of being vegan. You’re a hardcore athlete doing marathons and triathlons. How has the transition to a vegan diet impacted your performance?
JLF: Well, I was a hardcore athlete. Part of my body image journey was to become honest with myself. In my late 30s and early 40s I ran two full marathons, seventeen half-marathons, and eight or ten triathlons in six years. It was pretty excessive and I now realize I was doing it to keep weight off. I worked out like mad but was unable to eat like an endurance athlete. Once I embraced a larger size I became less interested in working out so hard. I now prefer moderate exercise – slow running, road cycling, yoga, walking, easy gym workouts, etc. I do love the sport of triathlon and plan to do more of them. For fun. As for vegan nutrition, I have no problem fueling my body before, during and after hard workouts. Plants are amazing! One of my favorite energy bites, during a long run, is my Medjool Date for the Runner.

ARS: I couldn’t agree with you more about plants. In fact it’s a topic I’m a touch obsessed with. What do you think is one of the most common misconceptions about the vegan diet? Why?
JLF: I think non-vegans believe we are “deprived” and sometimes I think we vegans can perpetuate that misconception. I just returned from vacation in Florida. I found myself whining at restaurants. No beans? No tofu? Boo-hoo. I was offered vibrant, colorful vegetables and, yes, if I had been back in New York I would have had an amazing seitan dish with them, but vegetables are awesome and I need to remember that I am, as Colleen Patrick-Goudreau would say, an “ambassador of compassion.” As a vegan I eat a wider variety of foods than I ever did when consuming animal products. Quinoa and kale were not a part of my vocabulary or diet before. And seitan? Never heard of it, but now I make my own! Vegan foods can be simple, complex, flavorful, nourishing and delicious!

ARS: Variety indeed! Like me, you are utterly smitten with kale. What’s the most unusual kale-containing dish you’ve made or eaten?
JLF: I recently found kale granola at Lifethyme Natural Market in Manahattan. It had me at hello.

ARS: Ooohhh… I am so gonna make that! What’s your go-to quick-fix meal?
JLF: The food bowl! I bulk cook on the weekends and therefore always have home cooked grains and beans on hand. During the week I simply reheat a bowl of beans, greens and grains – like this Flageolet Bean & Millet Stew - and my heart swoons!

ARS: Do you have a favorite Allison’s Gourmet goodie?
JLF: Girl, your Salted Vanilla Caramels rock my world!

Thanks so much, JL, for your compassionate, self-adoring, food-loving point of view!

Photo by Jessica Mahady

For this week’s DVD Giveaway we asked a rather in-depth question and got some really inspiring and detailed answers. Thank you to everyone who told us your stories! There are many reasons to go veg and in our experience, the people who are the most successful, healthy and happy vegans tend to be the ones who do it for ethical and health reasons.

Mary Kate is our winner this week; she had this to say about her transition to a veg lifestyle:

I didn’t have a specific a-ha moment going veg but it was more of a cascade of “shock factors” that inspired me to go veg. I would first see the health benefits, followed by delicious recipes and seeing more of the terrors of factory farming all led up to my transition.
The most educational and helpful tools for me were various blogs throughout the internet. Knowing that other people were going through what I was going through and thought what I was thinking about going veg was the most helpful. I also think cookbooks are very important for showing how much variety there is in a plant based diet.

We agree, good cookbooks are key! Mary Kate will receive her own copy of the Vegucated DVD to share with her friends, family and community. Congratulations!