y d n I n a Veg Three Carrots’ seitan bahn mi is one of the many vegan options available across Indy.
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Twenty years ago anyone could be forgiven for assuming the diet of Indianapolis residents was comprised of two food groups, “Fast” and “Fair.” Ask any vegetarian from the mid-’90s. Better yet, ask a vegan. They’ll likely tell you about the desert landscape of options in most major grocery stores, of sparse health food sections (if they existed at all), of traditional food alternatives that were both uncreative and unappetizing. They will laughingly describe the selection of milk alternatives and insult the meat substitutes as a choice between soft tofu and firm tofu. They will explain with rolling eyes the term “Vee-gun” was consistently mispronounced as “Vay-gun.” What
Herbivore friendly menus and restaurants around our city
story by scott spitz • photos by stacy kagiwada they won’t tell you about, however, was the availability of vegetarian restaurants in the city or the oases of restaurants with menus they could choose from without concern of consuming obscure animal ingredients. Yes, things were quite different 20 years ago. Fast forward to today and in the relatively short span of twenty years, the conditions have changed dramatically. Groceries have built out health food sections with plentiful vegetarian options and entire stores are dedicated to health food. The options for milk alternatives can be confusingly extensive and traditional food analogues now include luxury items like vegan pepper jack cheese, vegan
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cookie dough and vegan marshmallows. Ex-presidents have adopted a plant-based diet along with professional athletes, and the cultural awareness of veganism has swelled to such a state that New York Magazine deemed 2014, “The Year of The Vegan.” Despite all these advancements, markers that Indianapolis might be more culturally progressive than we are given credit for, some things have stayed the same. Most tellingly, Indianapolis still lacks a vegetarian or vegan restaurant, despite being surrounded by Midwest cities of comparable size offering multiple vegetarian restaurant options. Although countless restaurants have begun adding vegetarian and vegan selections
to their menus, no one has stepped forward to establish an all-vegetarian restaurant. The reasons for this can be as elusive as they are obvious, but a few cultural pioneers have begun laying plans to remedy this oversight. Ian Phillips, creator of the locally popular meat alternative “Seitan HighFives,” is the among the cultural pioneers working to open a vegetarian restaurant in Indianapolis. Motivated by the popularity of his High-Fives and the realization of a much greater market for vegetarian food in the area, Phillips began detailing his plans for the Three Carrots vegetarian restaurant just over a year ago. Since then he has hosted multiple sold-out fundraising dinners,