Veg Talk Fridays: Dining Out for New Vegans

So, you're with a group of people (friends, family, co-workers, etc.). Everyone is hungry and wants to go out to eat. You are the only vegan of the group so trying to convince them to go to your favorite vegan restaurant may be out of the question. How do you eat? What do you order besides water?

First off, I highly suggest you make sure you have the Happy Cow app and the VeganXpress app if you have iOS. The Happy Cow app will show you different vegan and veg-friendly restaurants and stores that are closest to you. The VeganXpress app has a menu guide of some popular restaurants and the different things on their menu that are vegan-friendly. It also has a guide for beer, wine, liquor, and other food brands that are "accidentally vegan".

Thankfully, many places are including vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free and/or egg-free alternatives to their menus. Sometimes all it takes is visiting the restaurant's website or asking your server. If I'm at a restaurant that I've never eaten at before and I didn't have time to research the place, I ask to see their allergens menu. Here you can get a better idea of what foods are animal-free.

The next tip is something that I've heard many other vegans say over and over again. So I'll say it to you. Think about ingredients required to make different meals and what is available in the kitchen. Talk to your server to see if a substitution can be made for a particular meal. For example, I went out with some friends one time and found out that the veggie burger on their menu was made with milk and eggs, so instead I asked for mushrooms in place of the patty and the rest of the veggies that you would normally add on a burger.

So what do you do if you're eating at a place, like a bar, that serves meat, cheesy foods, beer and not much else. Ask about plain fries and order a plateful. Is it ideal? No, not really. There's not much you can do there except leave a kind comment asking them to include more veg-friendly option on their menu. In those cases, I be sure to eat when I get home or eat before hand if the group insists on going to that particular place.

Dining out while vegan isn't hard. It just requires you to think a bit differently. ;)