If you’re not aware, sorry to inform you about it, but they eat dogs in China. 

That sounded kind of horrifying, but there’s a lot of bad news stories that we hear about. So I would have just scrolled past it like anything else. But what I saw in the comments of that news article was somebody said, “If eating dogs in China is wrong, then eating cows, pigs, and chickens in America should be wrong too.” And then it said to go vegan.

For me, I didn’t even know what the word vegan meant. I kind of knew it was associated with not eating meat, but I didn’t know any details. So that’s when I started searching for more information on it.

That led me to looking more into what animals go through as standard practice on these farms. Even the mom-and-pop organic [farms], the really nice farms, still do a lot of the same practices. 

When I also saw how easy it was to be vegan today, even in my city with no vegan options or vegan restaurants, it really was a no-brainer. It’s like, why would I want to support all of this if I didn’t need to?

DF: So how have you been active in the vegan movement? Are there any moments that are particularly meaningful to you?

AS: I mainly got started, I guess in about 2021, and it just got to a point where I was tired of not knowing any other vegans. I didn’t know anybody locally. We had a Facebook group here that wasn’t super active, so I figured, “Let’s start doing regular restaurant meet-ups.” And I started to do food meet-ups at restaurants that are kind of vegan-friendly locally.

And our first meeting, surprisingly, had 11 people show up. I didn’t know a single person; so, we were all strangers. We got to know each other and talk.

 

The first Springfield, IL Vegetarians and Vegans meeting at La Fiesta Chatham

We have several people from that very first meet-up that still come to our monthly food meet-ups. And we went from having 11 people to, sometimes, buffets with 70 people. This is a smallish town that just never saw anything like that before.

That’s kind of how I got started being more active; it was really through food.

Now, where I live in Springfield, IL, we really do have a lot of vegan-friendly restaurants where there were none previously.

That’s what led to me wanting to organize our first Vegan Chef Challenge here. Now I have the position to be able to do that in other cities across the Midwest, and even in Greenville [South Carolina], like we did recently.

DF: I wonder what’s driving nonvegans to try out the menu items from the Vegan Chef Challenge.

AS: So I’ve actually got a chance to meet some of them here in Springfield. We did a raffle just for the voters. I know a lot of people locally, and I didn’t remember them [raffle winner] as a vegan. When I handed them the raffle prize, they said they were a nonvegan, and I asked, “What got you interested in the event?” They said they just loved the restaurant, and they wanted to try their new dishes.

So, sometimes it’s as simple as that. They already know the chef, and they’re excited to try what they come up with. I think that’s probably pretty common.

Also, a lot of times we’ll do radio interviews or sometimes TV interviews. So they might hear about it from sources like that.

And I don’t know. If you’re already nearby one of the restaurants, or you already know of them, it’s just interesting if you’re used to getting the same thing. Why not try something new? And if you hear other people are talking positively about it, maybe that’ll inspire you to try it too.

So I think that’s probably the main way that nonvegans will get interested in them.

DF: Have any restaurants experienced significant transformation due to the Challenge? If so, is there a standout story of this?

AS: So this is one of those hard questions, just because there’s so many examples I could probably think of. It’s like, what’s a good one? 

I do know, overall, it’s always neat going back to these restaurants after the event ends. Months later. First of all, most of them have the awards up still. So I’ve come back a year after the event ends to invite them for the next year’s event. You’ll see they’ve got their award hung up. Like, it’s their most prominent award for having the Best Dessert or something. So, that’s always neat. 

El Paraiso’s award, from the 2023 Champaign Vegan Chef Challenge, displayed over a year later

I know here in Springfield, we have a restaurant called La Fiesta Chatham, and they previously had good vegan options. They’re actually who I went to for our first vegan food meet-up when I was just getting people involved with restaurants. 

They’ve really expanded it [their menu] since the event and their first Best Entree dish.

It’s still on the menu, and they actually list it on the menu as winning the 2023 Springfield Vegan Chef Challenge. So it is neat that they really make use of the popularity they got during the event, and they’re still successful months and years later. Since then, they’ve only grown in the amount of vegan options they have.

I think the big thing is, we just see restaurants really taking vegan options more seriously.

DF: Vegan Outreach envisions a future when sentient animals are no longer exploited as commodities. How do Vegan Chef Challenges complement other forms of animal advocacy?

AS: Vegan Outreach does a lot of different things, so the Vegan Chef Challenge program is just one of the many things we do.

We also have our college leafleting that we do, and we’re starting to do more of that this year. It kind of dwindled down with COVID, but we’re really trying to bring it back. 

We’re trying to educate people on what animals go through, and also, how easy it is to go vegan today. I think throughout all the things that we do, we try to make it clear that what animals go through on farms is terrible for them, and we want to try to move away from that the best we can.

Going vegan is the best thing for all of us to strive for, and it’s the best way we can individually make a difference.

But we also don’t want people to think that that needs to be a hurdle. So if you are busy with life, you don’t have the time to look up new recipes. If you just don’t feel like you’re ready to make the jump to go vegan, that’s okay. We’re actually more excited to see nonvegans participate in things like our Vegan Chef Challenges because it really shows that we’re getting our reach out to the people that need it and people that otherwise wouldn’t be eating vegan food.