Vegetarian Giant to Devour Seattle

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This weekend a vegetarian giant takes over Seattle, Washington.

The United States is a huge consumer of animal flesh, but a virtual vegetarian city will come alive on March 24th & 25th at Seattle Center's Exhibition Hall. An estimated 12,000 people will attend Vegfest to see cooking demos by top chefs, to look at new products, to listen to talks by dietary experts, and especially to taste trendy foods. Vegetarians of Washington (VW), organizer of the festival, expects 500-600,000 food samples to be handed out by 200 companies. Specifically, the companies will give out 500 different foods; that’s two, three, or even four types of foods offered from each of the companies.

Creating the veg-city takes the work of seven hundred volunteers, says Stewart Rose of VW and author of the forthcoming book The Vegetarian Solution. Rose says Vegetarians of Washington has been working for months to put together the giant food festival, the largest of its kind in the United States.

One hundred seventy years ago, at the birth of the vegetarian movement in this country, Boston, Massachusetts was the center of meat-free living. In the 21 st Century, that center has shifted to the West Coast. For example, San Francisco’s chic meat-free restaurants such as Millennium and Greens have garnered great publicity and reviews. Portland, Oregon is another popular place for vegetarian eateries and events.

Now the spotlight is on Oregon’s neighbor to the north. Rugged individualism – that is the American way of living and believing as one chooses (and eating what one wants) rather than how society demands – is embodied in Vegetarians of Seattle, the city that sprouted centuries ago as hearty pioneers inhabited the land of towering evergreen trees. Vegetarians flock to Seattle to dine at dozens of meat-free restaurants, to choose from hundreds of social gatherings, and to meet thousands of like-minded individuals.

While other veggie groups experience various degrees of success, some struggling to survive, Vegetarians of Washington thrives. “…Many people find something in us that I do not believe they find in most other organizations, and that something has been critical to our success. In addition to that something, there are a heck of a lot of people working really hard to grow the event ever year,” says Stewart Rose, who is Vice President of the group.

Antithetical to the stereotypes of vegetarian groups, that they are ‘preachy’ or that they are ‘radical’ is Vegetarians of Washington. The group welcomes everyone to join; thus, conservatives and liberals, religious believers and atheists, whites and minorities, teens and retirees, and animal liberationists and, yes, even meat-eaters work together for the cause.

Baby-boomer Rose says people of his generation are active in vegetarian advocacy, and older and younger folks are involved. Across America, teens become vegetarians- and many of them vegan -- to boycott the killing of animals for their flesh, or all use of animals.

Abstaining from animal flesh, or all substances derived from animals, as a boycott against killing and exploitation of animals motivates a number of folks to attend VegFest, as does belief that eating lower on the food chain is best for the environment and a way to help end world hunger, but a safe bet is most people will attend the festival not because of ethics or concern for other beings, but because of the food.

This year, “…hemp foods are bursting onto the scene,” says Rose, “and vegan foods are growing quickly in popularity.” He says that in addition to milks made from nuts, rice, or soy, vegans and others now have hemp milk to pour over their breakfast cereal. Of the hundreds of Vegfest free food samples, “95% vegan….It's a lot easier to be vegan today than it was years ago when I started,” says Rose. The variety of milks and cheeses not derived from cows “…seem(s) to grow without limits.”

Other fast-growing food categories: “veg food for kids” and “the public is constantly in search of ever better meat analogues and finding them at Vegfest,” says Rose. Analogs, also known as mock meats, are those burgers, hotdogs, sausages, bacon, cold cuts, and other ‘meats’ made from plant sources such as soy, grains, or vegetables.

Mock meats were once strange to mainstream America, and now the fakes are available at the supermarket, sometimes right next to animal flesh. At the 1853 vegetarian convention held in New York City, prominent newspaper publisher and social reformer Horace Greeley stated the world needed a substitute for meat because such a creation would cause people to break their carnivorous habit. However, today plenty of Americans are purchasing mock meats right along with beef, chicken breasts, and boiled lobsters.

Newspaperman Greeley probably could not have predicted the truly strange creations now concocted in laboratories. Scientists threaten the right to be vegetarian as they genetically engineer plants to contain the DNA of animals. Major vegetarian and animal rights groups are supporting the development of another bizarre creation: 'cultured meat.' Also known as 'laboratory-created meat,’ the biotechnology ‘treat’ is touted by some vegetarians as the perfect substitute for animal flesh; however, animals are still exploited to create ‘cultured meat.’ Not all vegetarians are ready to swallow the laboratory-created meat argument. Stewart Rose says of Vegetarians of Washington: “we do not currently support the production or ingestion of lab meat. This to us is very different than meat analogues, which we very strongly support. Today's meat analogues are very good, and I don't think lab meat is necessary.”

No one will dole out samples of Frankenfoods this year at the Seattle meat-free mini-city, but who knows what the future might bring. Meanwhile, hungry vegetarians and curious meat-eaters will find plenty of food, and food for thought, at the vegetarian giant known as VegFest 2007.