Vegetarian Journal

Excerpts

Volume XVI, Number 5

This issue of Vegetarian Journal contains our third and final eight-page "Family Matters" insert of the year. We've received a great deal of positive feedback on this series and hope to continue to produce it in some form next year.

We believe this issue's edition of "Family Matters" is our best yet. Raising vegetarian children is a daunting task. The experiences of our peers are among the best resources we can access as we help our children navigate their way to adulthood. Rene Wheeler's article on the importance of vegetarian culture emphasizes the need to tell our children the truth about food and its origins. JoAnn Farb's piece addresses the difficulty of enabling our children to interact with non-vegetarian kids in social situations, and also how to deal with grandparents who might have reservations about their grandchildren's lifestyle. Carol Coughlin, R.D., points out the importance of educating educators who have an influence on our kids when they're at school.

Each of these pieces addresses an important aspect of vegetarian family life. If it's important to these parents of vegetarian children, we're sure it's important to our readers. Sharing and learning from our own personal experiences are among the most useful tools we have. Along that line of thinking, we'd love to hear any issues or concerns you'd like to see addressed in future issues of "Family Matters." Remember, if it's important to you, it's important to others. Let's try to keep up an ongoing dialogue.

September means school for many of our kids; so the pages of this issue of Vegetarian Journal contain an article and several wonderful recipes and ideas by Lisa Rivero on the making of brown bag lunches. I whipped up a serving of Lisa's Wheels, Peas, and Peanut Butter Sauce for my daughter, and the poor girl wound up fighting with her dad for the rights to the last morsel.

Those full-fledged adults out there will enjoy Larry Litt's recipes for Chinese Dumplings, from skin to filling to dipping sauce, and also Jacqueline Dunnington's piece on risotto, a laborious dish with a wonderful, palatable payoff at the dinner table.

Another area of concern to vegetarians is the labeling of foods. While food labels have become somewhat easier to read over the years, you still have to be a chemistry whiz to decipher those multi-syllabic, tongue-twisting "ingredients" that are found on the shelves of our supermarkets. Our crack research team-which consists of one very dedicated VRG staff member, Jeanne Bartas, and several VRG volunteers-has spent the past year investigating those mysterious food additives. Jeanne's diligent work has culminated in a 28-page reference guide to food ingredients. To order a copy, see the back page of this issue.

Finally, we'd like to issue a reminder to federal government workers and uniformed service personnel. The Vegetarian Resource Group is on the 1997 Combined Federal Campaign National List. This gives federal civilian and uniformed personnel an opportunity to support vegetarianism and the work VRG does over the course of the year, like Jeanne's thoroughly researched food ingredient guide. The campaign will be conducted over a six-week period from September 1-December 15, and the number that donors should use to contribute to the VRG is 2962.

Thanks for your support. We hope there's something for everyone in this issue of Vegetarian Journal.

Michael Vogel, Senior Editor of The Vegetarian Journal