Elizabeth’s guilty pleasure

This month marks my half-year anniversary of turning vegetarian. So far, I delight in having a narrower (but often healthier and more environmentally-friendly) palate.

But even thought tofu and beans and soy have entirely supplanted meat in my life I’m not missing out on the culinary scene about town. No restaurant or food truck I’ve encountered has failed to produce a good vegetarian option. And, I’ve unearthed a whole trove of meatless and wholesome places to dine — from the Eritrean cuisine at Dahlak in West Philly to the Cherry Street Chinese Vegetarian Kosher Restaurant. It also doesn’t hurt that these options are easy on the pocketbook.

Less meat also means more room for desert. As an insatiable carb-lover, I’ve replaced meat with chocolate chip cookies and frozen dairy treats. And, by paying more attention to my diet, I’ve become more wary of artificial additives in processed foods. I was horrified to learn that even Special K — that paragon of breakfast health food—contains high fructose fruit syrup (a sugar additive usually derived from genetically modified corn and, therefore, virtually unfound in Europe). And you know something shouldn’t be good for us when it isn’t even good enough for the French.

For me, turning vegetarian marks a shift in thinking about organic, local, non-processed foods. Scrutinizing ingredient labels has increased my paranoia of prepackaged goodies like Twinkies. My rule of thumb is not to eat much of what my grandmother would not have recognized. Beware the unnatural horrors of calcium sulfate, partially unhydrogenated soybean oil, or polysorbate 60. Having said that, I usually cave in and buy a package of those nifty new Rainbow Twizzlers for kicks.

While I’m still attached to my eggs and dairy, it’s also a lot easier than you might think to be vegan in Philadelphia. Vegan cupcakes are all the rage at Whole Foods — the chocolate frosting is absolutely to die for. Gianna’s Grill even markets a vegan cheesesteak. And Fuh-wah’s in West Philly makes a mean tofu hoagie.

Philadelphia’s culinary treasures aren’t just for the omnivores among us. Options abound — explore!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 18th, 2007 at 1:14 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.