Carnivores Schooled in Vegan Basics

By Broadside Correspondent Katie Miller

The Office of Sustainability offered a free vegan cooking class to students last Thursday to explain how eating little to no meat benefits our physical and environmental states. Hosted by Sustainability Research Assistants Danielle Wyman and Ashlae Smith, the two provided an inviting, informal and informative look into the benefits of vegan and vegetarian cooking.

Using produce from the George Mason University Farmer’s Market with other less accessible vegan cooking ingredients, like olive oil and chick peas, the group learned how to make the French dish Ratatouille without using any animal products. The dish, which filled the room with smells of basil, red pepper and fresh veggies cooked in a mere 30 minutes, provided a sound example of how vegetarian and vegan options are both easy and scrumptious.

The women added in chickpeas to the Ratatouille to boost the protein and a salt supplement called Braggs Liquid Aminos to enhance the flavor. Braggs not only packs less sodium than regular salt but also has extra amino acids to improve the additives nutritional content.

Junior biology major Merhawit Girmay said to the group that being a vegetarian made her feel better physically.

“I saw a lot of difference in my skin” said Girmay, “It was less oily when I wasn’t eating meat.” According to Girmay, being vegan is not only physically beneficial, but decreasing the amount of animal farming could drastically improve our planet.

“Factory farms are an extremely huge strain on the environment,” said Wyman. She added that, according to the Smithsonian Institute, “enormous amounts of land are needed to grow crops to feed billions of animals we use for food,” and to accommodate these animals “the equivalent of seven football fields are bulldozed every minute.”

Wyman said that you don’t have to become strictly vegan to lessen the negative impacts of animal farming. Simply incorporating more vegetables in your diet and less meat can cut down the environmental impacts of animal farming.

The event presented a plethora of resources for how to find vegan food, restaurants and books. To find local farmer’s markets or locally and organically grown food, one simply has to take advantage of http://localharvest.org, a search engine designed to find local food options in your area.

For more information on how to go vegan or buy locally and organically, the group recommended the books Veganomicon by Terry Hope Romero and Isa Chandra Moskowitz; Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen by Anna Lappe and Bryant Terry; Raw: The Uncook Book by Juliano Brotman with Erika Lankart; as well as the magazine Edible Cheaspeake, (located at ediblechesapeake.com) which provided the ratatouille recipe for the class.

Vegan restaurants are also readily available in the District, including Vienna’s vegetarian eatery Sunflower, Maryland’s vegan Great Sage Café, and D.C’s animal friendly version of soul food, Soul Vegetarian Café. 

Wyman assured the class that being a vegan or a vegetarian isn’t impossible. In fact, it’s simple as long as you use the resources available to you. She feels it’s worth it in the end, because being conscious of our food choices betters both our surroundings, and ourselves, neither of which we can live without.