VegBlogger - a vegan / vegetarian blog

World Wide Vegan Bake Sale - Event Re-Cap and Tips

Did you participate in the World Wide Vegan Bake Sale this year? We did! With the Daytona Beach
Vegetarian Society, we held the World Wide Vegan Bake Sale today, at the Green Affair in Downtown DeLand, Florida.

The Green Affair is a green living/Earth Day type of event. Right up my alley! So it seemed like the perfect venue for our vegan bake sale. We got a grant from VegFund, and I spent $107 purchasing everything I needed to make over 350 tasty vegan baked treats. I spent the week making:

zucchini muffins
brownies
peanut butter cookies
chcoloate chip cookies
oatmeal raisin cookies
apple muffins
gingersnaps
chocolate chip muffins
mini-chocolate chip muffins
almond shortbread cookies
cocoa banana muffins
raisin bran muffins
sugar cookies
snowball cookies
peanut butter chocolate chip cookies

We also spent $30 on vegan gluten free baked goods from a specialty bakery in the area (mini cupcakes
and brownies). In addition to all this, there were a couple of other people who baked some things and dropped them off. So we were well stocked!

The sale was on for four hours and we ended up making $312! Awesome! Those funds will go to support out veg outreach work. We also chose to donate a portion of the proceeds to Stable Haven, a local horse rescue. This event was a success and it is something that every group can do to raise some funds. The public loved it. They were lined up to get vegan baked goods, we had incredible feedback on how everything tasted, and everyone got literature as well. They all got info about how their diet impacts the planet with sustainable living and water saving brochures. We also discussed egg alternatives with people. We planted lots of seeds today! 

Here are my tips for holding your own vegan bake sale:

• Don't worry about trying to bake everything in one day. That's exhausting! Spend the week baking
  a few things each day. Let them completely cool and then store them in the freezer in air tight containers. The night before the sale just pull out all the containers and leave them on the counter (closed). By the next morning everything is thawed, wonderful, and ready to go.
• Aim to be as environmentally friendly as possible. This means avoiding wrapping things individually in plastic. Instead, just set things out on trays and have some eco-friendly paper sandwich bags on hand for those who want to buy and save for later (most people buy and eat right then, so all that packaging is not necessary). The eco-friendly sandwhich bags can be purchased inexpensively at Whole Foods Market and you can fit 6-8 cookies per bag. Most people don't want a bag, so don't offer them to everyone. Just offer to those who are buying mutliple items, or those who say they want to save it for later. Also, recycle anything you can from the event. There are also eco-friendly cupcake/muffin liners at Whole Foods (we used those as well).
• Have a few things pre-bagged for multiple cookie purchases. For example, we had an eco-friendly
  bag of 6 oatmeal raisin cookies all ready to go, as well as a bag of 12 granola cookies in a bag for one purchase price. 
• If possible, buy organic ingredients. This is available at Whole Foods and many other grocery stores. It does not cost that much more and it is a nice extra for the public. They appreciate that they are buying vegan, organic baked goods. Our baked goods were almost all organic.
• Set everything out nicely on trays. Remember that presentation is everything when trying to sell things like this. You need to make the table look nice, clean, and make a good presentation.
• Make up little slips of paper with the name of each item and tape it to the trays. That way you will not have to repeat the names of everything 300 times throughout the day.
• Be sure to give out literature to people regarding veg diets. We were at a green living event, so we handed out info on sustainable eating and saving water with a veg diet.
• Be ready to answer questions about egg alternatives. People are curious and this is the best time to educate them. Have an empty Ener G egg replacer box on hand to show them what it looks like. Also, you can type up a list of egg alternatives and how much of each item you use, and post it for people to see.
• Try to have some gluten free options on hand for those people who need that. If you can, purchase from a dedicated gluten free bakery, in order to avoid cross-contamination.
• Have rubber gloves on hand for touching food. We let people get their own goodies, but some people wanted help, and as you sell things you need to move items around. It's important to wear
  gloves to do this.
• Get the word out about the vegan bake sale. I sent the information about the sale to our local papers, as well as posted it on our facebook page every other day. Some people attended because they saw it in these places.
• Get others to help so that one person doesn't do all the baking. Ask various people in the group to bake things so the burden is shared.
• Start out with higher prices and then an hour before the sale is over drop the prices to help get rid of left overs. We started out having our cookies be $1 each, or three for $2, and our muffins be $2 each. In the last hour we dropped it to $2 for four cookies, and $1 per muffin.
• Throw nothing away! If nobody wants to take it home, walk around and hand it out to people for free. That way there is no wasting and you are still giving people the opportunity to try vegan food.

Best of luck with your sale. We had a successful one and will do so again next year. Having a vegan bake sale is a lot of work, but it's also fun, rewarding, and you get to introduce a lot of people to vegan baked goods. Many people were skeptical and then loved the items once they tried them. It's well worth the effort!

You can see all the pictures from the event here.

Ignorance In Raising Vegetarian Children

Came across another article this morning about raising vegetarian children. It was the kind that makes
me roll my eyes, as it offers up the typical stuff that you read over and over in these articles.

First off, I had to roll my eyes at the mom of a vegetarian child being quoted as saying that she would do "anything" to have her child eat a chicken nugget. Really? If she's that worried about protein, why not introduce the child to compassionate (and healthier) protein choices, such as nuts, seeds, quinoa, beans, etc.

Secondly, I am so tired of comments like this: 

"A young person can get all of the nutrition they need with a carefully planned vegetarian diet," Gidus says.

Gidus, a registered dietician, is using the same saying most of them do. That vegetarian children need "carefully planned" diets. Yes, folks, it's the vegetarian kids we should all be worried about, not the meat-eating children who are now suffering from obesity, and even high cholesterol before the age of 10. Omnivore parents don't get the "carefully planned" diet warnings that us vegetarian parents do.

Yet I would go out on a limb here to say that we parents who are raising vegetarian children pay far more attention to our child's diet to begin with. Most of us opt for natural foods, prefer organic, skip chemicals, and avoid things like hydrogented oils and high fructose corn syrup. That's because we are already leaps and bounds ahead of other parents in terms of understanding more about our food supply. But according to all the nutrition experts it is us who needs to carefully plan our child's diet. Sheesh!

Furthermore, the article points out that one out of every 200 children in America is now vegetarian. Yet later on in the article they site reasons why some children go vegetarian and one of them is peer pressure. This one almost makes me laugh out loud. No, not almost, it really does! Peer pressure to go vegetarian? Where in the country is this happening, I would love to know! That's a school I want my children to go to.

When vegetarian children make up less than 1 percent of all children it is really unlikely that they are laying on the pressure for others to become vegetarian, and becoming successful in transforming a lot of them. My two vegetarian children have not put the pressure on anyone and they are the only vegetarians in each of their classrooms. In fact, we only know of about 5-6 vegetarian children in their whole school. Peer pressure to go vegetarian? I think not.

Omnivores need to start paying more "careful" attention to their child's diet. That way they can help them avoid obesity, diabetes, clogged arteries, etc. Any dietician who uses the "carefully planned" scare tactic regarding vegetarian children is one that doesn't know much about vegetarianism and one that has met very few vegetarian children. If they met mine they would see they are healthy, intelligent, growing like weeds, and they know more about the food industry than most adults in this country do! Anyway, that's my rant for the day. 

You can read the article here. Pictured above: My two vegetarian munchkins (vegetarian since conception, and no, I don't carefully plan their diet. But I do feed them healthy and nutritious food, like all parents should do).

Simply Organic Cocoa Brownie Mix Review - Vegan Brownie Mix, Gluten Free

Yesterday at Whole Foods Market I came across Simply Organic Cocoa Brownie Mix. I was wanting to
make some brownies and had planned on buying all the ingredients and then making them. But once I saw this brownie mix I just felt like I had to try it!

Today I made the brownies. They were so easy to make! And they even  offer the vegan directions on the back of the box. I love that they do that! To make them vegan you just use the brownie mix, 1/4 cup of melted butter, and egg replacer for two eggs. Simple and quick.

The brownies came out looking great. I cut them into about 20 small pieces (although they say it makes 16 servings... I wanted smaller servings for the kids). They taste great! Everyone in the house thought they were great. 

I love that Simply Organics offers this. They have made vegan baking simple, tasty, and with no compromising of values. The brownies are even gluten free and they are fair trade.

Two thumbs way up for Simply Organic Cocoa Brownie Mix. I use some of their gravy packets regularly and plan to try some more of their baking mixes.