Vegan and Vegetarian FAQ : Answers to Your Frequently Asked Questions

Compiles information for readers ranging from neophyte vegetarians to committed vegans, discussing food ingredients, recipes, kosher foods, wine, pet food, and airline meals, as well as non-food items.

Davida Gypsy Breier has compiled Vegan & Vegetarian FAQ: Answers to Your Frequently Asked Questions, including a nutrition section by Reed Mangels, from the most frequently asked questions on the Vegetarian Resource Group Web site. Nonvegetarians, newcomers and veterans can find discussions of the basics of vegetarianism, as well as solutions to problems and sources for hard-to-find foods and products. Where can one find nonleather ballet shoes? What about holiday dishes? What's kosher, what's not? Is wine vegetarian? Especially revealing is the chapter on food ingredients that demystifies the package-label lists of additives that might be derived from animals. Equally enlightening is the travel section advising on airline meals and how to get along in other cultures.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Davida Gypsy Breier and Reed Mangels, from the Vegetarian Resource Group, have prepared a volume of Vegan & Vegetarian FAQ, frequently asked questions about virtually every aspect of shunning meats and other animal-based products. Providing short answers to questions about food and food ingredients, the book guides readers to other publications and dozens of useful Web sites. Some questions cover basic issues on nutrition and food sources and the role of vegetarianism in children, adolescents, seniors, the sick, and pregnant women. Along the way readers find out minutiae such as the fact that no flu vaccine can be vegan. Recipes are not the book's focus, but there are some examples of dishes from this regimen. Young people especially will profit from this survey of current vegetarian practice. Mark Knoblauch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

This book takes the form of a series of questions and answers, grouped by themes such as food ingredients, recipes, veggie kids, and vegetarianism in daily life. An idiosyncratic table of contents lists every question in each section, from "What is tofu? What do I do with it?" to "Is tattoo ink vegan?" There are also several useful appendixes listing vegan and vegetarian fast-food options, the vegetarian status of most food additives, and many resources for further research. There's plenty of basic information for the neophyte, while more experienced vegetarians may enjoy a deeper dip into the vegan lifestyle, learning where to buy vegan ballet and bowling shoes or vegetarian suet for feeding birds. At times the book acts too much like a clearinghouse rather than a direct source; instead of simply answering questions on, for instance, vegetarianism and pregnancy, it will refer the reader to an online or print source. There is also an assumption that all readers have access to the Internet. More disturbingly, the book tends to refer almost exclusively to its own specialists and the publications of its own governing body, the Vegetarian Resource Group. While these affiliations are clearly stated, they nonetheless show a weighty bias. Given this and the highly specialized nature of much of the information provided, this is recommended only for large public libraries or those with a strong specialty interest. Karen Munro, MLIS Student, Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.