Is this vegan thing becoming main-stream? There certainly seems to have been a proliferation of vegan cookbooks, blogs and even stars lately. I did a quick search on Amazon.com and found 9,743 entries under "vegan" books alone! Wow. I had no idea. I mean, the vegan population is only 1.4% of the total U.S. population according to a 2006 poll by the Vegetarian Resource Group. That's approximately 4.4 million of us here. It seems like a large number of books on a topic that might have a limited audience. Unless that audience is growing.
On Wednesday morning, January 23rd, we vegans will have a representative on The Today Show, and she is Ann Gentry. Ann is the founder of Real Food Daily (an excellent vegan restaurant with two locations here in Los Angeles), the Executive Chef of Vegetarian Times magazine, and host of the cooking show "Naturally Delicious" which airs on the Veria Network, which I don't get to see unfortunately. Ms. Gentry is also the author of one of Jane's absolute favorite vegan cookbooks, Real Food Daily Cookbook
. (The Today Show airs on NBC in the 7am - 10am EST/PST time slot.) It appears she'll be on in the 9.30 segment, but I could only find that info here, and I'm not sure how valid that information is, so set your TiVos or VCRs for the full three hours if you don't want to miss her. I'm going to!
According to the RFD newsletter, she will be cooking up some delicious vegetarian fare. I'm hoping that means "vegan." If you miss the show, here's a link from an old interview with Ann that provides some valuable vegan cooking tips. Jane and I hope to record the episode, and we'll report on it later in the week, if we are successful.
It's a great to see vegans being represented in such a mainstream media source. Hopefully this is not a fad, but is indicative of a change in the way American's are eating and thinking about food.
Related Information:
- “Today” was not a Vegan Day
- What’s Cooking?
- Tonight Show Comic Disses Vegans
- Spanakopita
- Petition to Oprah – Revisited
ADDITONAL INFORMATION
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It’s great to see chefs cooking healthy on TV. Many more folks would purchase and eat differently if they were better informed and blogs like this help! Here is my link to a totally organic, whole food dietary supplement that is awesome, convienient and affordable. It replaces synthetic vitamins.
http://www.uriinternational.com/realfoodforlife
For all that there seem to be so many vegetarians and vegans online (I am one of the former…can’t give up my cheese!), you would never know it from the menus of most restaurants! Still tough to find a truly vegetarian choice at most American chain restaurants, much less avegan option. I can’t understand it…it would cost them next to nothing to have one or two choices for us on the menu…and their costs per serving are usually lower than on meat dishes! Guess it’s not quite mainstream yet…
Yes, it is wonderful to see so many vegans and vegetarians represented online. It would be great if we could translate that into better restaurant options, and more vegan products in the grocery store. I was very excited to learn about Ann Gentry’s appearance on The Today Show tomorrow. How much more mainstream can you get?