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Our family and a couple of our friends headed over to the Worcester Vegfest today. And boy are we glad we made the effort! Even though we don’t live in Worcester anymore, we make a point to get out to this event, and this year did not disappoint. The folks at VegWorcester have grown this event by leaps and bounds. Four years ago, 20 or so booths gathered into a college student center…this year it was a full on all day trade show at Worcester’s largest venue, the DCU Center. Go VegWorcester!
We were able to sample lots of vegan food from local restaurants to specialty vegan bakeries to national distributors who cater to a veg*an, health conscious market. We happened to only catch a few minutes of Robert Cheeke’s talk, as our toddler was not interested in sitting still, but we were psyched to see so many people participating in this event.
Why? When we were both starting out as vegetarian and vegan in the late 1990s, it was still sort of difficult to find specialty vegan items, and often times they weren’t very tasty. (Brown, lumpy soy milk in aseptic cartons comes to mind…ew!) But awareness about all the benefits of eating vegan and vegetarian have exploded since then….better for overall heath, better for the environment, kinder to animals, lower in saturated fat and cholesterol….you name it.
Being veg is no longer weird. Okay, it may still be weird to your Grandma, but its no longer just for old hippies and college students. Awareness and outreach, including events like Worcester Vegfest are a big part of why. The Worcester Shark fans even came through before the game. It was awesome.
Thanks to all the volunteers at VegWorcester for a great afternoon and another excellent fest! We can’t wait to see what you plan next year!
***The only downside of the day, was that the Like No Udder line was just too long for us to wait for. :'(
