Posts Tagged ‘vegan’

We stumbled upon the Grange one Sunday while looking for a place to have brunch. After a rich dinner the night before at Persimmon in Providence, RI, we really didn’t want to go the route of eggs, sausages, and other heavy stuff. What a great surprise to find a vegetarian restaurant with a great atmosphere and surprisingly flavorful food!

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My kale Caesar salad was super-fresh and absolutely delicious. But the real winner was the “carrot pastrami” reuben sandwich. Served on French rye, it’s got the kraut, Swiss and Thousand Island…but carrots filling in for the pastrami…and you just don’t miss it! Full of flavor and texture, I don’t know what they do to the carrots, but it rocks! My wife had the roasted veggie bowl: delicious and big enough to take half of it home to enjoy again.

Reuben sandwich with "carrot pastrami."

Reuben sandwich with “carrot pastrami.”

They’ve got a full bar for those that crave a cocktail…though their house-made juices are fantastic.

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We will be back!

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Do vegetarians and vegans secretly want to be carnivores? Why do so many vegetarian foods need to look, taste and even have names that sound like meat products?
Why do we need to call it this?image
 Is it because the real name: ” ‘Repulsive cubes of tofu’ salad” wouldn’t sell?
 
What about this one?
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Looks like dog food, with one difference: I wouldn’t give it to my dog.
Or perhaps my favorite:
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“Chick’n?” CHICK’N?! Are you effing kidd’n me?!
My vegetarian and vegan friends have legitimate reasons why they choose their lifestyle. Some don’t like factory farms or the way they treat animals and the environment. I don’t either. I buy grass-fed and pastured meats which come from small farms which use humane practices.

Some find the death of any animal for their food, even it’s done humanely, not acceptable. I feel that my manly omnivore cravings are nothing to be ashamed of, and obtaining animal protein in a sustainable way, whether farming, fishing or hunting, is the way to go. And for me, no plant protein can replace the quality of animal protein.

There are those that don’t eat red meat because of the negative effects on their health. Grass fed beef instead of corn and grain fed beef all but eliminates this problem. And we’re now seeing the negative health effects of meat substitutes like soy, even organic soy. Non-organic soy, which makes up 80% of the world’s crop, is Monsanto’s Round-Up Ready seed that gets oversprayed with herbicides.  Sorry…I’d rather have healthy beef, pork and chicken than GMO Frankenfood in my family’s diet.
If I was a vegetarian or vegan, I would write to the people who make these crappy products. They’re making them look bad. I’d be carrying that organic broccoli stalk high above my head and showing my pride, not hiding behind food disguised as quasi-meat.
Proud carnivores would never allow a piece of meat to be shaped to resemble a vegetable. A dinosaur chicken nugget, maybe. But never a vegetable. Now pardon me while I cook up some bac’n.