Loving Cafe, Vegetarian Foods

Happy Weekend!!!!

As a weekend treat, instead of slaving in the kitchen, Dave and I decided to go out to eat!

The Loving Cafe is a volunteer-based (read: "more affordable for the customer!") vegetarian/vegan restaurant that promotes "green" eating - local, organic, sustainable foods! So, of course, I had to go try them out!

And it is such a nice little place! A small back room is bright and spacious, with a cute little waterfall set up. Service was friendly, and the food was declicious!! ...Not necessarily healthy - after all, refined grains, abundant soy cheese, and oils for deep frying are technically vegetarian...

But it was still a fun experience, and even Dave LOVED his vegan steak burger! (He was more surprised than anyone!)

And I just went with the sampler platter: salad, spring roll, veggie wrap, soy mac and cheese, soy ziti, and various forms of mock chicken, including a BBQ drum stick and chicken fried rice.

I will opt to avoid the processed soy in the future most likely, but the salad was good, and they do have many other recipes that looked great! Raw pizza, kelp-noodle veggie pasta, Black Rice burger... all sorts of fun things to experiment with!

On their website, The Loving Cafe lists some of their reasons for "Why Go Veg?"

BENEFITS OF A VEGETARIAN / VEGAN DIET
Conserves up to 70% clean water
Saves over 70% of the Amazonian rainforest from clearance for animal grazing
A solution for world hunger: Free up 3,433 million hectares of land annually Free up 760 million tons of grain every year (half the world’s grain supply)
Consumes 2/3 less fossil fuels than those used for meat production.
Reduces pollution from untreated animal waste
Maintains cleaner air
Saves 4.5 tons of emissions per US household per year
Stop 80% of global warming
Lower blood pressure
Lower cholesterol levels
Reduce Type 2 diabetes
Prevent stroke conditions
Reverse atherosclerosis
Reduce heart disease risk by 50%
Reduce heart surgery risk by 80%
Prevent many forms of cancer
Stronger immune system
Increase life expectancy up to 15 years
Higher IQ

So, there's some food for thought :)

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend, and getting plenty of water! It's a HOT one!

~Katie

(Sorry! I didn't think to photograph my plate till after I'd already eaten some of it!)