How to have a Vegan Thanksgiving
And Why it’s Good for the Environment
By Sarah G and Parie K
Although you can’t have some classic Thanksgiving foods as a vegan, there are many delicious alternatives that are better for you and better for the environment. We are going to talk about many tasty options for the highlights of an orthodox Thanksgiving dinner and other vegan options.
1. A typical side dish during Thanksgiving dinner is cranberry jelly or sauce. Some types of jelly contain gelatin, which is made from boiled tendons, ligaments, and bones, which are not vegan. Honey, a sweetener sometimes used in cranberry sauce, is also not vegan. There are ways to work around these limits and still have a delicious dish! When finding a jelly, there are options at grocery stores without gelatin, such as Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce, Jellied. Check the nutrition label on the packaging and see if gelatin, or honey, is an ingredient. If you are making your own cranberry sauce or jelly, you can leave out specific nonvegan ingredients, find alternatives, or choose a vegan recipe instead. An excellent substitute for honey is maple syrup, which does not have the same flavor, but works well when combining it with other ingredients.
2. Thanksgiving would not be the same without mashed potatoes. Although potatoes are vegan, milk and butter, common ingredients in mashed potatoes, are not. A good replacement for milk is any lactose-free milk, such as almond milk or oat milk. Vegan butter can be a bit more challenging to find, although many grocery stores have it. So, if your quest for vegan butter fails, another option is to use olive oil or any other kind of oil.
3. Stuffing is another classic Thanksgiving dish and can easily be made vegan. Some stuffing includes meat, but that can easily be left out or substituted with a plant-based alternative if you want. Most stuffing recipes contain butter, which is not vegan. Instead of regular butter, a few vegan options you can use are coconut oil, avocado or olive oil, and vegan butter. Bread is another ingredient in stuffing, and many types of bread are vegan, but some have milk, making it not vegan. A simple solution to this is to check the ingredients to ensure that your bread is vegan. Here is a vegan stuffing ingredient list: vegan butter alternative, sage, white onion, carrot, celery, apples, garlic, vegetable broth, cayenne pepper, vegan bread, Craisins/dried cranberries, salt, and pepper.
4. The main course of Thanksgiving dinner is usually turkey, but that is not vegan. Instead, have a vegetable-based dish. Roasted vegetables are a great option. You can roast Brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus, broccoli, and more in your oven with oil, salt, and pepper. Another equally delicious and nutritious alternative is baked tofu. Tofu is not only a great source of protein, but it is easy and convenient to make and there are SO many different recipes online. All you must do is press and season the tofu, and then bake it until it gets crispy. Last but not least, you can make stuffed squash. This is a tasty dish and allows you to have a lot of creativity when making it. You can add brown rice, kale, onions, garlic, and plant-based meat to your seedless squash.
5. A tasty and simple vegan food to make as part of your Thanksgiving dinner is a salad. You can be very creative with your salad and even make it festive with fun colors. You can choose to make a fruit salad, roasted vegetable salad, or a green salad. Here is a salad you could make: Cut up a granny smith apple or pear thinly and add it to your choice of greens (spinach, kale, romaine, etc). To give the salad color, add craisins. Then, add your favorite toasted nuts to add a crunch! Then add a simple salad dressing such as balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
6. Dessert is a large part of a Thanksgiving meal, and there are already so many vegan store-bought deserts one could use, such as vegan pie, vegan ice cream, cookies, and cake which are all SO delicious. However, if you want something homemade there are many ways to make your favorite homemade dessert vegan! There are also many vegan recipes online. Here are some great alternatives for commonly used non-vegan baking ingredients:
Eggs — apple sauce
Butter — vegan butter or oil
Milk — any nut or dairy-free milk
Chocolate chips — 100% dark chocolate or any dairy-free chocolate chip brand.
The Halo Top brand and many other popular ice cream brands have vegan ice cream options; be sure to check the ingredient label to ensure that your food is vegan. Most types of sorbet are also vegan, which can be a great Thanksgiving dessert.
Sustaining a vegan diet is beneficial for the environment and here’s why — many people believe that all the greenhouse gasses are from car emissions and gas, but a common diet consisting of dairy and meat makes up for a significant part of the greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere today. According to the New York Times, a whopping 14.5 percent of those gasses are from the animals and animal product consumption industry. You might be wondering, why does this industry make up for so much of the greenhouse gasses? Think of it this way, how many plant-based eaters do you know? And how many meat-eaters do you know? I am going to go ahead and guess most of your friends are meat-eaters. If not, you and your community are ahead of the game. “It’s often more efficient to grow crops for humans to eat than it is to grow crops for animals to eat and then turn those animals into food for humans”(NY Times). Not only does it take more effort and energy to eat meat than regular crops, but “A California study found that a single dairy cow ‘emits 19.3 pounds of volatile organic compounds per year, making dairies the largest source of the smog-making gas, surpassing trucks and passenger cars’” (PETA). This Thanksgiving, with the help of the dishes listed above, we want you to try and do your part to help make the Earth a better place.
Works Cited
Farris, Emily. “The Best Vegetarian Stuffing Ever.” Epicurious, 20 Nov. 2020, www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/the-best-vegetarian-stuffing-ever-50009976. Accessed 23 Nov. 2020.
Moskin, Julia, et al. “Your Questions about Food and Climate Change, Answered.” New York Times, 30 Apr. 2019, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/30/dining/climate-change-food-eating-habits.html. Accessed 23 Nov. 2020.
“Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce, Jellied — 14 oz.” Google Shopping, www.google.com/shopping/product/5988197693856146876?q=is+cranberry+jello+vegan&prds=epd:14518573083164937790,prmr:3,eto:14518573083164937790_1,rto:1,tpim:CPaG0KWv6pGU-QEQ0Y3NzIHnge0RGPCFYSIDVVNEKKDS8f0FML5O&utm_medium=tu_prop&utm_content=eid-lsjeuxoeqt&utm_campaign=10046. Accessed 23 Nov. 2020.
“Veganism and the Environment.” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, www.peta.org/issues/animals-used-for-food/animals-used-food-factsheets/vegetarianism-environment/. Accessed 23 Nov. 2020.
“What is gelatin made of?” People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, www.peta.org/about-peta/faq/what-is-gelatin-made-of/. Accessed 23 Nov. 2020.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cranberry_Sauce_(3617909597).jpg
https://www.today.com/food/how-roast-vegetables-oven-without-oil-more-t177419
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vegan_Cherry_Pie_(14282790114).jpg
