VegFest features food, music, more
With six bands, a beer garden and expanded hours, the second annual Spokane VegFest is expected to be twice as large as last year’s inaugural event.
Organizers predict Saturday’s free, daylong, vegan expo will draw 3,000 or more people, compared with about 1,100 attendees at the first-time fest.
Most won’t be vegans.
Only about 20 percent of the people who went to VegFest 2014 maintained diets devoid of animal products – from meat and dairy to eggs and honey – according to founder Josh Meckel. He based the estimate on surveys from the first fest.
“People are just curious,” he said. “We’re giving them the idea it’s not scary to go vegan, to introduce more fruits and vegetables into your life, to eat healthier. It’s just a fun festival.”
VegFest features cooking demos, vendors, food trucks and speakers from across the country and Canada. The mission is to promote the ethical, environmental and health benefits of a vegan lifestyle as well as introduce people to vendors who sell products that are vegan and free from animal testing.
Meckel aims to fulfill that mission in a “not aggressive” manner. Vegan, he said, “has become like a four-letter word to people.”
Meckel is the founder of both Spokane VegFest and Inland Northwest Vegan Society, or INVeg, the Spokane-based nonprofit that hosts the festival and aims to support people interested in learning about plant-based diets.
He stopped eating meat when he was 12 and went vegan about three years ago after nearly 20 years as a vegetarian.
“I used to get sick four times each winter,” he said. Since adopting a vegan diet, “I don’t get sick anymore. I’ve gotten sick two times in 2 1/2 years.”
He also dropped about 35 pounds and said he feels more energetic and requires less sleep.
VegFest volunteer and INVeg board member Maria Vandervert went vegan about five years ago for three reasons: “I wanted to support the environment because we need a healthy planet, for my health and for the ethical piece. I feel like my values are in alignment with my actions.”
Saturday’s event “promotes great dialogue,” she said. “It’s about unraveling the myths. I think there’s the misconception that vegan is difficult. It can be very easy and inexpensive.”
Speakers include cookbook author Emily Von Euw, creator of the vegan food blog This Rawsome Vegan Life, and Jasmin Singer and Mariann Sullivan of the nonprofit Our Hen House, which strives to “mainstream the movement to end the exploitation of animals,” according to its website.
More speakers are: ceramicist, video artist, fashion designer and vegan Joshua Katcher and vegan cooking and life coach and animal communicator Karen Cleveland.
Local vegans will also staff an ask-the-experts panel to discuss everything from making your own plant-based meat substitutes to raising vegan children and what’s wrong with honey.