Today, there are more vegetarians and vegans than ever. This means that you can probably find a vegan-friendly restaurant in your area and that there will be at least one item on the menu that you can eat. Still, it isn’t always easy eating out as a vegan. The only vegan option is usually something boring like pasta with plain marinara sauce or a wrap – which they will charge you full price for even though you asked for no meat or cheese.

The truth is that you will probably stop eating out so much after you go vegan. Yes, this might mean missing out on a luxury you used to love, but it also means that you will be saving a lot of money by cooking your own meals. If you usually ate out for lunch before going vegan, you’ll probably find that you now pack your own lunches – thus saving you money and also boosting your health in the process.

How to Find Vegan and Veg-Friendly Restaurants

As a vegan, one of the first resources for dining out that you need to know about is Happy Cow (www.happycow.net). It was founded in 1999 as a resource to assist vegetarian and vegan travelers. You can go to the website, type in your location, and you will be given a list of veg-friendly places to eat. They also have an app (including a free and a paid version). Just open the app and you’ll be shown all the nearest veg-friendly places to eat. It is worth noting that Happy Cow isn’t just for the USA. I use it when I travel abroad and it is really helpful.

Another cool app is VeganXPress. This app lets you know what is vegan and vegetarian at popular fast food chains and restaurants (costs $1.99).

Choose Ethnic Restaurants

If, for some reason, you don’t have any veg-friendly restaurants in your area or can’t check Happy Cow, then ethnic restaurants are probably your best bet. Specifically, these ones usually have a vegan option:

• Indian: just make sure to ask for veggie fare without ghee or butter.
• Chinese, Japanese, and Thai: At these restaurants, you can almost always get steamed or fried veggies served on top of rice. Make sure you ask them to hold the fish and oyster sauces!
• Middle Eastern: You will really have a large selection of accidentally-vegan food to choose from, like falafel, okra, lentils, broad beans, couscous and veggies.
• Mexican: Traditionally, Mexican beans usually have lard in them. However, most restaurants are aware of the demand for vegetarian food and don’t use lard or cook their beans with meat. Be sure to ask! Then tell them to hold the cheese and sour cream and to give you extra guacamole instead.

How to Eat at Restaurants which Aren’t Veg-Friendly

If you have no say in the restaurant you are going to and know it isn’t exactly veg-friendly, then try to scout out the menu in advance.  Call the restaurant and ask any questions you have, such as whether they use butter or olive oil in their pasta. It is a lot less annoying to ask these questions in advance than at the dinner table.

If you can’t scout out the restaurant ahead of time, then you’ll have to get a bit creative when ordering. First, ask the waiter if there are any vegan-friendly options.   You can also look for menu items which can easily be veganized.

There is usually at least one dish on the menu which is easy to veganize — like ordering a veggie wrap without the cheese. But don’t assume that, by asking them to hold “xyz” ingredient, that the dish will be vegan. A lot of times, there are animal ingredients in food which aren’t listed. For example, you might order the grilled potatoes and veggies without cheese, only to have it delivered to your plate with bit of bacon. Funny how the menu didn’t mention anything about bacon! Ask questions (politely) about what is included with the menu item and be specific about your requests.

Here are some vegan fallbacks that you can almost always find at a restaurant. They might not be the most exciting options, but at least you won’t go hungry:

• Salads without meat or cheese, and oil/vinegar dressing
• Pizza without cheese
• Spaghetti with marinara sauce, no meat, parmesan or butter
• Soup made from vegetable stock
• Rice not cooked in meat stock
• Wraps or burritos with veggies and beans
• Baked or roasted potatoes or veggies with olive oil and herbs

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

When eating out, try not to sweat the small stuff. For example, the monoglycerides in bread can come from animal origins and some brands of juice are filtered with bone char. At home, you can eventually learn to avoid these hidden animal ingredients by calling the company and asking whether the ingredient is from animal or plant origins. But, if you were to ask the waiter at a restaurant whether their monoglycerides are plant or animal origin, you’ll probably just get met with stares of confusion.

Even Peta (who are usually pretty hardcore in their vegan message) recommends that you “take one for the team” and just eat the food – even if it may have some animal-derived “xyz” in it.   Their reasoning is that, when you stress about the small stuff, you are telling your waiter and friends that “being vegan is hard” (not to mention that vegans are annoying).   You’ll end up turning people off from the idea of veganism instead of getting support. Remember, being vegan isn’t about perfection. It is about doing the best you can.

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+Barbie Queues: "My wife and I have found it to be a struggle whenever we go to barbecues. We bring our vegan food, but when all the food is placed on the table, the vegan stuff gets eaten quickly and we are left with the animal-based food which we can't eat! What's the correct etiquette, as I can only eat the plant based food I prepared?"

That is a really good question, +Barbie Queues! It's a problem that pretty much every vegan has faced, but I haven't seen much discussion on it.

My advice is to approach the problem like one would a battle-plan. For me, this mean you'll need to determine your objectives, identify your obstacles, and implement a strategy for which all roads lead to your success.

So, in this case, what you want is to actually eat at the BBQ, but to not be perceived as a jerk-wad by ordering peeps to keep their greasy mitts off of your "special" food, all while possibly engaging in some implicit/subtle advocacy without being "that guy" (i.e. the "vegan preacher"). o.O

The problems you're facing are that you either go hungry because people take your food, or that you're a big-fat-jerk for protecting your need to eat. =o/

Therefore, (IMHO), your plan needs to include both the idea that people are absolutely going to take and eat your food (because the vegan stuff always goes fast at these things), and that by doing so they will be exposed to how awesome vegan nomz are. Just take it as a given that this is going to happen -- heck, go ahead and encourage it! =o)

At the same time, you need to hold some food in reserve somewhere. My personal strategy is to bring all the food in a cooler, with a large "publicly available" serving in one container, and with smaller "private use" containers that are clearly marked as being "For YOUR-NAME Only!" (just in case some helpful passer-by tries to move my food for me).

When it comes time to eat, if there is sufficient food left in the public container, then I eat from that and no one is the wiser; if not, then I joyfully go to be plan B, being careful not to be overly obvious or anything, but being politely candid about things if someone notices and asks. If I do manage to get to the end of the event with my backup nomz intact, then I'll often ask if anyone would like a take-home portion of "that dish which was so darn popular" (which is always all gone by then regardless), which has the net effect of additional vegan advocacy. =oD

So far, this approach has been a win-win for me every time.

—☆—★—☆—★—☆—★—☆—★—☆—★—☆—★—

This post is one in a series in which excerpts of discussions on veganism from other threads are reposted (or paraphrased) for the sake of expanding the conversation. As always, your thoughts and questions are welcome. See the full collection via the #spommveganchats hash (or perhaps with a more robust search, such as goo.gl/JoxZC).

(for anyone requiring/desiring more context, the original conversation can be found at goo.gl/69htmU)

#vegan #bbq #picnic #advocacy

There are two ways that people generally go vegan: gradually or cold-turkey (though turkey obviously isn’t the best term to use here).  Both methods can work well, but there are some pros and cons of each to consider before you make the transition. 

The Gradual Approach

Going vegan gradually seems to be the popular choice.  Think of it like putting your toe in the water before slowly lowering yourself in, eventually becoming completely submerged.  It’s not that exciting, and you won’t make a big splash, but you also don’t risk going into shock from the sudden change.

Pros:

• Less pressure: You don’t have to make a big announcement saying that you are veg, so there is less pressure.  This might also be a downside too depending on your personality.
• One change at a time is doable: If you aren’t the type who does well with change, taking baby steps towards veganism (like first cutting out beef, then chicken, then milk, etc) means you are less likely to suddenly hyperventilate when you go to supermarket and are overwhelmed by all the things you can’t eat.
• Gives you time to learn new recipes: I usually recommend that new vegans try at least one new recipe per week.  Over time, they gather up all sorts of new recipes to replace their old meat dishes. Check out these best vegan cookbooks.
• You are less likely to miss the foods you “gave up”: Actually, you might not even feel like you gave up anything because you are gradually filling in the gaps with new, exciting foods.
• You are less likely to have health problems: vegan nutrition isn’t rocket science, but it can be difficult to be a healthy vegan if you aren’t used to doing things like putting greens in your tortillas.  By taking the gradual approach, you will give yourself more time to figure out the nutrition aspect so you don’t suffer from deficiencies in iron, calcium, or B12.  Because, if you feel like crap on the vegan diet, you probably won’t stick with it.

Cons:

• You won’t realize how much good it is doing your body: If you are eating a lot of meat and dairy, you probably feel sluggish all of the time.   By switching to a healthy vegan diet which is rich in fresh fruits, veggies, whole grains, and plant proteins, you can do wonders for your body.  You might not realize how much good the vegan diet is doing you if the change comes gradually.
• You can become complacent: You might get lazy and put off the big changes you need to make because you already feel like you made some progress.
• It can be a very long road! You’ll be battling with a long, drawn-out process of giving up foods and coping with new social situations instead of getting it over all at once.

The Cold Turkey Approach

I personally like this method better because I do better with big changes than trying to draw things out.  I had even planned on going vegan gradually but, the moment I decided I wasn’t going to eat animal products anymore, I couldn’t bring myself to eat them.  I even still had a half-eaten container of sour cream in the fridge which suddenly — against all logic — I found too disgusting to eat — even though I had been greedily eating it the day before (I gave it to my cat to finish off).

Pros:

• You are full of adrenaline: Making changes is scary, but it is exciting too!  Take advantage of the surge of adrenaline that comes from the decision to go vegan.  You will feel happy and in control.  By the time the adrenaline rush wears off, you will be 100% vegan.
• It is faster: After the initial shock of the switching to vegan wore off, I didn’t even have to think about it anymore.  This is a lot less willpower than having to carefully remove one item of animal food from your diet weekly, monthly, or whatever.
• There’s no wiggle room, so you are more likely to stick to it: I am an all-or-nothing type of girl.  By putting all animal products off limits, I was more likely to stick to it.  For example, let’s say I decided to take the gradual approach and cut eggs but not cheese from my diet. If a friend invited me to dinner and served eggs, I’d probably eat them “just this once” because “I’m still eating cheese anyway.” Well, just this once usually turns into twice, trice…
• It’s less confusing for friends: When you try to go vegan gradually, it is pretty confusing for the people around you.  One day you are eating chicken but not beef.  Then the next time you come over for dinner you aren’t eating chicken anymore but say fish is okay.  On the next visit, fish is off limits but you say you will eat eggs.  Good luck getting support from family when they can’t understand what your latest diet rules are!
• You are accountable: Once you tell your friends and family that you are now vegan, you are being held accountable.  I don’t know about you, but this alone is a big motivation to stick to something!

Cons:

• It is a big shock: When that adrenaline wears off, you might find that you haven’t completely adjusted.
• You must give up your favorite foods all at once: You suddenly realize that you can never eat cheese again, and those cashew cheese recipes seem really confusing.
• In a moment of weakness, you give in to your cravings: Feeling defeated due to your all-or-nothing mentality, you throw in the towel completely instead of giving it another go.
• Grocery-shopping and cooking chaos: Your stockpile of vegan groceries runs out and you realize you have no clue what you want to eat this week and how to shop for it.

The Bottom Line:

No matter what approach you take to going vegan, it is important that you go for it.  Even if it takes you a year to give up cheese, or you keep “falling off the wagon” because the pressure of going vegan is too much, all those small dietary changes you make add up to a big difference.  Not only are you directly helping animals and the planet by going vegan, but you are also serving as a  positive example to the many other people considering a vegan diet.   Don’t underestimate the impact that one person can make!

Confused about How to Go Vegan? Download Vegan Made Easy

This ultra-modern eBook is divided into 3 parts: What Do Vegans Eat, Vegan Nutrition, and Making the Transition. It gives you the straight-forward information you need to feel empowered to make the switch to plant-based eating and living.  Learn more here.

Whether you want to improve your overall health, shed a few pounds, demonstrate your compassion for animals, or help the environment, expert Colleen Patrick-Goudreau gives you the tools and resources you need to make the vegan transition. Addressing your every question and challenge, Patrick-Goudreau holds your hand the entire time, helping you to break free from old habits and to experience lasting benefits – both tangible and intangible.