5:02 PM
Vegetarian
It was an overdose of cheese pizza that did it for Steven Kern. A vegetarian since high school, Kern became a vegan after having a bad reaction to pizza in college. It just did not go down well, and a decade later, Kern still hasn't touched dairy or eggs.
"After going vegan I feel a lot lighter and healthier," says Kern, 28, who now has a business supplying grocery stores with vegan meat and dairy substitutes. "Growing up, I would always feel kind of bad after eating a big meal of a steak. But I never made the connection until later."
Like others who opt to eliminate animal products from their diet, Kern wanted to improve his health. But that's not the only motivation for today's vegans. Concerned about global warming, food safety and animal welfare, more people have turned to the plant-based diet, bringing veganism from the fringes of the culinary world closer into the mainstream.
"The term 'vegan' is less scary now," says Bryant Terry, the Oakland author of "Vegan Soul Kitchen," who has appeared on television with Martha Stewart and Emeril Lagasse. "A lot of the negative perceptions people had about who vegans are, and what vegan food had to be - i.e. boring or bland - are being exploded."
That shift has translated to the Bay Area restaurant world, too. Chefs are putting more animal- and dairy-free dishes on their menus, several new restaurants are focusing on attracting vegan diners, and food carts and pop-up restaurants with vegan options have large followings among vegans and carnivores alike.
After opening in Taiwan two years ago, the vegan restaurant chain Loving Hut now has 159 locations around the world, including five in the Bay Area; a new one in San Francisco's Westfield Mall is the vegan answer to Panda Express. Gracias Madre opened in San Francisco's Mission District late last year, with an organic, vegan Mexican menu, and Encuentro, a new wine bar in Oakland, offers vegetarian and vegan tapas exclusively. Half of the menu at Gather in Berkeley is sustainable meat dishes; the other half is vegetarian, with many vegan items.
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