By John Deetjen, Outreach Coordinator

It’s freezing cold and snowing in Toronto, Canada, yet a crowd is gathered outside of a new restaurant waiting to be seated. This restaurant is called Mythology Diner, and it’s the latest creation of Toronto-based, vegan chef Doug McNish and The 5700 Inc.

Mythology Diner is the city’s first all-vegan, late-night diner, and it bills itself as, “The Classics, Veganized.” Through a series of teasing posts on their social media accounts and news coverage from Toronto news outlets, the city’s foodies—vegan and non-vegans alike—were abuzz with excitement to try this new restaurant.

The location is right in the heart of Parkdale, which has been nicknamed “Vegandale” because of how vegan friendly the neighborhood has become. The 36-seat restaurant has everything you could want in a diner—an enticing menu, a sizable bar, funky artwork, and a warm ambiance. A DJ played hip-hop music to the packed restaurant of patrons enjoying their plant-based creations. It wasn’t surprising that we had to wait for almost an hour to be seated.

The menu is exactly what the restaurant advertises—veganized classics. Appetizers include wings, poutine, and garlic bread. Main course options include meaty sandwiches, mac and cheese, and Salisbury-style steak.

After much consideration of what to order, we decided to order french onion soup, cheesy garlic bread, and “The Bloomer”—a breaded Vidalia onion with chipotle sauce. We also ordered the “Classic Burger,” cinnamon bun pancakes, and a root beer float for dessert!

The french onion soup was hot, had great flavor, and was topped with two pieces of bread with vegan mozzarella melted on top. It was the perfect appetizer for a snowy Canada night!

The garlic bread was soft and covered with the restaurant’s house-made, cashew-based cheese and topped with colorful, edible flower petals!

The Bloomer was amazing! I’ve never tasted anything quite like it. Fried, perfectly crispy, and paired with a creamy chipotle sauce—it’s a match made in vegan food heaven!

The Classic Burger was fantastic. The mushroom tempeh patty was grilled crispy and topped with maple chipotle barbecue sauce, caramelized onions, and shaved pickles.

My wife and I both agreed that our favorite dish was the cinnamon bun pancakes. They were topped with cinnamon sugar swirl and cream cheese frosting, accompanied by house-made cashew butter, maple syrup, and tempeh bacon.

The root beer float was a delicious, sweet, and bubbly treat to round out our meal. It was topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream made from tiger nuts.

Mythology Diner is busting every myth that you can imagine about vegan food, and it joins Toronto’s massive and growing vegan restaurant scene as a true creative gem! If you’re ever in the area, it’s a restaurant you’re not going to want to miss.

By Lori Stultz, Outreach Coordinator

Last week, in celebration of students’ return to school, the folks at Vegan Outreach offered a few helpful pointers for leafleting.

Today we wanted to discuss a similar form of activism: tabling. Like leafleting, tabling can be an effective way for students to educate others about factory farming and other animal abuse related issues. It provides a great platform to engage in conversation and offer information and advice on how others can most effectively help prevent animal suffering. That is, through reduction of their meat and dairy consumption.

Most often, tabling is done as a group activity (perhaps with an animal advocacy group on campus), but it can also be done solo. Before setting up a table on campus, though, you will need to check in with the campus student activities center to find out where and when you can table on campus. Many campuses have designated locations and times that are acceptable for tabling.

Whether you’re by yourself or with a group of animal-loving friends, your information will be more compelling if you keep these things in mind:

Appearance and Displays

• Personal appearance is crucial! Instead of dressing in counterculture attire, which may send the message to your audience that your worldview is radically different from theirs, dress conservatively. Be clean and well-groomed. This will prevent your audience from assuming that you’re not relatable.
• Make sure your visual displays clearly and simply relay your message. Think big pictures and big words—limit the amount of small text on your display.
• Limit your available materials to one or two issues. Don’t overwhelm your audience by offering literature on five or six different issues. And when laying literature out on the table, fan it in a straight row (instead of a semi-circle). This detail may seem insignificant, but it will drastically increase the rate at which your audience picks up the literature and reads it.

Conversation

• Actively listen to your audience members. Acknowledge their valid points and observations and ask thought-provoking questions. Find issues that you agree on (common ground). They are much more likely to listen if you’re coming from a place of commonality instead of difference.
• If your audience says they are unable to make a lifestyle change (e.g., “I could never give up meat” or “I could never afford to go vegan/vegetarian”), offer your personal experience of the lifestyle changes they are concerned about. For example, if someone claims that he or she could never give up meat, you could respond by saying, “I used to feel the same way, and at first, I just cut back on meat. Now that I’m vegan, I’ve found that I really don’t miss meat. In fact, I feel good about my diet and am more at peace with the world around me.”
• Refrain from getting into an argument. Some audience members may try to start an argument by saying something rude or obnoxious. They are usually doing this because they are uncomfortable with their own emotions in relation to the topic. Therefore, rather than reacting hastily, simply smile and wish them a good day. Remember that you’re the spokesperson for the animals.

Keeping these points in mind will ensure a successful tabling experience! And be sure to visit the Vegan Outreach website to find accurate and useful information regarding animal-related issues and tips for how to go veg. You can also order literature to use at your table through our website!

 

Helping Vegetarians and Vegans Sustain Their Choices

Hi! My name is Brian Ottens and I’m honored to be today’s VO guest blogger. Thanks for checking out this piece about vegetarian retention and recidivism.

The Situation

I went vegetarian almost 20 years ago and took out the eggs and dairy 14 years ago. Like so many, my heart is in the farm animal advocacy movement, but my employment isn’t directly related to it. So throughout those 14 years, I’ve volunteered with VO and have been fortunate to find a group of friends who are also veg. The social connections, both in-person and remote, are the primary reason I remain veg and in the movement. Thank you friends!

But for most vegetarians and vegans (current and former), I suspect having good veg social connections is the exception, not the rule. And veg recidivism, a regression from making the best choices you can for animals, is rather high–a 2014 survey found there are five times as many former vegetarians and vegans in the population as current ones.

But you can help. Because humans are heavily influenced by our friends and environment, you can be a positive influence to help current vegetarians and vegans sustain their lifestyle as an effective complement to recruiting new vegetarians and vegans.

Influence Others to Remain Veg!

Research has shown that it’s important for vegetarians and vegans to make social connections and make the lifestyle part of one’s identity. This means you can do a lot to prevent recidivism by connecting with vegetarian or vegan acquaintances. Whether they be be co-workers, neighbors, fellow churchgoers, classmates, or sports teammates, you have a unique connection to them, so develop that connection into a social one.

Whenever you meet someone who is vegetarian or vegan, see if they have other connections with you. Maybe you have friends in common? Maybe you like the same restaurants? Maybe you enjoy cooking a similar cuisine at home?

Of course there’s plenty of non-veg things that could be a social connection – humor, recreation, worldview, etc. The point here is to find ways to make social connections in order to fight veg recidivism. You don’t have to change their views or diet–they’re already veg. You’re just making a friend. Can it get any easier?

What Opportunities Work For Me?

I work for a large employer and I use that opportunity to develop a community of vegetarians, vegans, and veg-minded coworkers. Every month or two, I arrange a meet-up. It can be lunch at a veg-friendly restaurant, an invitation to the local vegfest, or another common interest. Sometimes a lot of people show up and other times only a few. But there’s always good conversation because we have an important connection. My veg co-worker group currently has ten members, so I’m not talking about major organizing. Scale it to as many or as few as you’d like.

A social connection happens whether they attend or just read my invitation and decline. Tip: My invitation is usually personalized with more than just a meet-up invitation which can lead to a better response.

By choosing to develop social connections with vegetarians and vegans, you’ll reinforce their habits as well as increase the overall quality of life for you both. Because there’s such a large percentage of vegetarians and vegans who cease to identify with those labels, if you influence their commitment to staying veg, you’ll be doing a great service for the animals!

Now get out there and make some friends!