Alternative Thanksgiving Holiday Potluck

Celebrate the holiday with fellow vegetarians! Kids are welcome. Our Thanksgiving potluck is usually the BEST potluck of the year. Some people go all out to bring their best dish.

This year we’re having a joint potluck with the Resource Center for Nonviolence, right in Santa Cruz! They have a brand new facility with a complete kitchen. Mark your calendars!

Set up: 11am (volunteers welcome)

Potluck: 12pm

Note that this event is limited to 60 attendees. This event is normally full. Five meetup groups are attending, including social groups.

A modest donation toward the cost of the room is appreciated. Donations go to the Resource Center for Nonviolence. RCNV is a non-profit that offers trainings, speakers, exhibits, and workshops on active nonviolence, justice, peace, climate change education, and more in our community. We’re trying to raise around $140 at least, to cover facility expenses. If more is raised, it will support RCNV’s ongoing programs.

Recommended: I recently went to a great party where people were encouraged to bring a friend. It could be someone you want to know better or someone you think is interesting!

What To Bring

1. Bring about 8 side-dish-size servings per person of meatless food. Better to err of the side of more than less.

2. Bring a recipe that lists all ingredients so that people with allergies or food restrictions know what they can eat (even better, recipes to hand out). Some common allergens are milk, soy, tree nuts, peanuts (which are legumes, not nuts), wheat, and so on.

3. Something for yourself to drink.

4. Please change your RSVP if you’re not coming so we don’t stress if you’re not there. We will watch for you.

5. Please say what you’re bringing so we have a balance of dishes for our meal.

6. The facility has 30 place settings. If you can bring your own place setting so we have enough, that would be great. Don’t forget a soup bowl!

At the end of this event description are some links to recipe collections so you can get some ideas of what to bring. If possible, since there will be people there who don’t eat animal products (because of allergies, health, and so on), if you can bring vegan food, that would be appreciated. It’s not a judgment about how you eat: it’s merely practical so we have enough food for everyone. Plus, eating fewer animal products is even better for the environment than eating vegetarian! Another alternative is to cook part of your dish vegetarian and leave out the animal product in the other half, or have it as an optional add-on (such as blue cheese on a salad).

Vegan food doesn’t contain animal products. Some vegans eat honey, and some don’t. Also, if a faux cheese doesn’t say “vegan” on it, it probably isn’t: many contain casein, a milk-derived ingredient. Some dark chocolate contains milk, and some doesn’t. Just check out the ingredients and you should be fine. We aren’t going to police you about obscure non-vegan ingredients in your food, like what your sugar is filtered with, so no worries. We can all relax and enjoy the holiday food!

Why a vegetarian potluck?

You would have to have a heart of stone to not be alarmed by the climate-related disasters happening all over the world. The scientific consensus is that these disasters will continue and worsen due to climate change. These disasters disproportionately affect the poor, who did little to cause it.

Did you know that reducing animal product consumption dramatically reduces greenhouse gases, including the shorter lived climate forcers, which when reduced would cool the earth quickly? Here’s some scientific research on the subject.

Drawdown plan for reversing climate change

http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/plant-rich-diet

http://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank

MIT Climate: Fast solution to climate change is on your plate

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2013/06/19/1217235/-MIT-Climate-Fast-Solution-to-Climate-Change-Is-On-Your-Plate

Top experts including UN IPCC ex-chair Dr. Pachauri, NASA climatologist Dr. Hansen, and World Bank environmental scientists say that it’s the most significant lifestyle change you can make to stop climate change:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoIh9J6b-iQ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYAUYDdgXqI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfbxeAFk8mY

http://meatonomics.com/2014/09/04/how-to-reverse-climate-change-before-its-too-late/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26gx-Ut_fzo

Our Earth Day flyer explains some of it, and there’s plenty of info online:

http://files.meetup.com/161345/EarthDayFlyer2014b.pdf

Just doing what you can to reduce animal product consumption can make a huge difference!

Recipe Ideas

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/holidays/our-favorite-recipes/vegan

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/41-delicious-vegan-thanksgiving-recipes

http://theveganroad.com/recipes/10-last-minute-vegan-thanksgiving-ideas/

http://www.vegkitchen.com/recipes/vegkitchens-favorite-vegan-thanksgiving-recipes/

http://wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/vegan-thanksgiving-feast(http://wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/vegan-thanksgiving-feast?utm_source=email&utm_medium=&utm_term=Holiday&utm_content=Cooking&utm_campaign=2013_11_06_Specials)

http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianli…(http://vegetarian.about.com/od/vegetarianlifestyle/tp/thanksgivingrecipes.htm)

http://www.vegan.com/recipes/vegan-thanksgi…(http://www.vegan.com/recipes/vegan-thanksgiving-recipes-robin-robertson/)

http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/vegan-…(http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/vegan-thanksgiving-recipes-recipe.html)

http://vegweb.com/search/vegweb/Thanksgiving%20vegan

http://www.food.com/search/vegan+thanksgiving?pn=2

http://www.peta.org/living/food/thanksgiving-main-dishes-to-be-thankful-for/

http://www.peta.org/living/food/celebrate-vegan-holiday/

http://www.mercyforanimals.org/thanksgiving-recipes.aspx

http://www.marthastewart.com/274911/meatles…(http://www.marthastewart.com/274911/meatless-thanksgiving-recipes/@center/276949/everything-thanksgiving)

http://www.meatlessmonday.com/thanksgiving/

http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes_menus/collections/vegan_thanksgiving_side_dishes

http://www.veghealth.com/bonus_ebooks/All_Vegan_Holiday.pdf

http://ohsheglows.com/categories/recipes-2/holiday/holiday-thanksgiving/

https://www.vegetariantimes.com/recipes

http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/blog/do-you-have-someone-special-diet-coming-dinner

Please Show Up If You RSVP
Remember, if you RSVP please be cool and show up. We prepare for and look forward to your attendance. If it looks like there won’t be enough participation, we’ll cancel the event, and it reduces the likelihood of having potlucks in the future. Remember that you attend this event under your own liability.

Do Native Americans Celebrate Thanksgiving?

The holiday has had some controversy in light of the treatment of Native Americans, so our celebration benefits an organization promoting nonviolence.

https://www.thoughtco.com/do-native-americans-celebrate-thanksgiving-2834597