Boring, disgusting, too healthy, just different types of salads. These are a few of the many stigmas associated with vegan food. Not all vegan food has to have kale, quinoa, and 83 different types of antioxidants. Yes, most people who adopt a vegan diet do so to become healthier, but not all vegan food has to be overly healthy. Most people aren't aware that there are actually several types of vegan diets. There's the "I want to be the healthiest person on the planet and I have a jaw of steel so I'm only eating raw fruits and vegetables" diet, the "I want to be healthier, but I'm not that crazy so I also eat cooked foods" diet, and then there's the "I want to eat the same foods but I want to live a sustainable lifestyle and not eat animals" diet.
Thankfully, there is a vegan restaurant trying to shed a new light on what vegan food can be. Doomie's Home Cookin' in Los Angeles, now with a new location in Toronto, Canada, is taking a different stance on veganism with its comfort-food based menu. Offering items such as a BBQ pulled pork sandwich, a bacon buger, and chili mac and cheese, they are steering away from the typical clean eating that is normally associated with vegan food. They even offer a Big Mac that comes boxed up just like your typical McDonald's burger would.
As a vegan, I'm so excited by what Doomie's and other similar restaurants are doing for vegan food. They are proving that eating vegan doesn't have to mean being a juice-cleanse-obsessed, whole-foods-shopping, fat-carb-sugar-GMO-free hippie (although there's nothing wrong with that either). If veganism is ever going to appeal to the masses, there is going to have to be more than just a salad bar and plain tofu to offer them. Restaurants and brands like Doomie's are making it possible to be vegan and eat burgers, hotdogs, pizza, cookies, cakes, ice cream, etc. At the end of the day, whether someone wants to eat healthy all the time is up to them, so why should vegan food be limited to that? Now I just need Doomie's to open a location in Memphis ASAP!
