Food Festival Put Spotlight on Veggies

There are more than 7 million vegetarians in the United States, and judging from the traffic on Naperville and Warrenville Roads and the jam-packed parking lots around the , they all converged upon Naperville Saturday for Veggie Fest 2011. 

One of the largest vegetarian festivals in North America, the two-day event featured an international vegetarian food court, cooking demos, free samples and dozens of experts speaking on vegetarianism, spirituality, and healthy living.

Sarah Hudgins, owner of Smack Lips, traveled to Veggie Fest 2011 from Honolulu to showcase her company's line of organic, "eco T's for the fashion-forward foodie with a conscience," printed with soy-based inks. The T-shirts feature simple veggie-friendly messages like "quinoa," "chard," or "wasabi."

Hudgins, who has been a vegetarian for 25 years, offers advice for those considering the vegetarian lifestyle.

"Start off easy and slow and start with some new foods," Hudgins said. "Try something different, make simple recipes and ask other vegetarians and vegans what they eat."

For a quick primer, a vegetarian is a person who does not consume meat, poultry, fish, or seafood, while a vegan is the strictest category of vegetarians, not eating any animal products or byproducts, including honey, dairy and yeast.

Paul and Patti Dann, owners of Cafe Indigo in Concord, N.H., were at Veggie Fest selling their vegetarian desserts including carrot cake, whoopie pies, dark chocolate cake and chocolate chip cookie bars.

"Our mission at Cafe Indigo is to make vegan food that people can enjoy," Dann said. "We've set the bar very high so that when anyone eats our desserts, their minds are immediately changed about vegan foods. We took all our old family recipes and made them into vegan dishes."

In fact, Cafe Indigo's carrot cake was named "Best Carrot Cake Ever" by Veg News, they said.

Rachel Lichtfuss of Bolingbrook came out to Veggie Fest with her husband and 2-year-old son.

"We thought it would be something fun to do. I don't eat red meat and I wanted to see what they had to offer," Lichtfuss said. "I tried the macaroni and cheese, which was served cold, and it was surprisingly good along with the chocolate cheesecake."

Throughout the festival grounds, signs were posted with interesting  facts promoting the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, such as:

• Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of food, while the same amount of soybean production only utilizes 2,000 liters.
• Switching from a "standard" U.S. diet to a vegetarian diet saves as much energy as switching from driving a standard SUV to a small hybrid car.
• About 40 percent of the world's grain harvest is fed to animals. Half of that grain would be more than enough to feed all the hungry people on the planet.
• The livestock industry produces more greenhouse gas than the entire transportation sector combined.

Admission to Veggie Fest was free and tickets could be purchased to buy food in the international food court. Offerings included veggie kabobs, veggie sushi, masala dosas, veggie corn dogs and fresh squeezed juices and smoothies from national and local vendors including Chicago Hot Breads, , Soul Vegetarian East and .

Guests were also treated to live music, cooking and food demonstrations, speakers and a children's tent where families could enjoy face painting, arts and crafts, entertainment and healthy snacks.