Vancouver is for veggies | Vancouver Sun

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Have you seen the price of beef lately? Prime cuts have gone up an estimated 15 to 30 per cent since the beginning of the year, and are expected to go even higher, thanks to a costly mix of labour shortages, supply chain issues and summer’s devastating heat wave.

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Holy cow.

Actually, you might want to make that “Holy Cow,” the new half-beef, half-plant-based food product line from Paul Rivas, better known to Vancouverites as the owner of the Spanish restaurant Bodega on Main. His lineup includes meatballs, patties and crumble, with a range of fully plant-based items in the works.

“If you’re craving a burger, it tastes like a burger even though it’s just half beef,” he says. “You can have dinner really quick and you don’t have to feel guilty about what you’re feeding your family.”

Rivas wants to eat less meat these days, and he’s not alone. Vancouver is a hub of people hungry for plant-based cuisine — and a generation of innovators ready to feed them.

Curious eaters, ambitious creators

“There are a lot of eaters out there that want good-tasting sustainable food, but are also entrepreneurial,” says Joni Berg, co-founder of KitsKitchen and interim CEO of Modern Meat. “In Vancouver, we have curious eaters, and the beauty of plant-based food is it’s inventive. If you’re a curious eater, you will find plant-based eating very exciting.”

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It wasn’t always that way. David Isbister remembers travelling with his indie rock band Mass Undergoe about a dozen years ago, when eating meat-free on the road often meant a lettuce sandwich from Subway.

A lifelong vegetarian, he began cooking for himself, sharing his soups and curries with bandmates and fans, and eventually started a secret supper club out of his East Van home.

Five years ago that became PlantBase Food , a line of vegan alternatives including the popular souvlaki-style ChickUN Cubevlaki, smoky seitan-based BacUN and Tigerzord, a creamy herbed cheese-type spread.

“It’s really a pop-up deli, a charcuterie store,” Isbister says.

These days, he can laugh about the culinary challenges he faced on the road. But for those new to plant-based dining, the struggle is all too real.

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“It’s not super-convenient. You have to relearn your relationship with food,” says Jeffrey Ma.

He’s a food scientist who worked with plant-based products for nearly a decade before becoming vegan himself and striking out with his business partners to launch Komo Plant-Based Comfort Foods in March.

He describes their menu items such as the best-selling family-sized frozen lasagna as “easy, wholesome, hearty and share-worthy.”

“People are trying to eat at home more and that’s why we decided to do bigger-sized meals, because no one was doing it,” he says. “Food just tastes better sharing.”

He adds: “We try to focus on wholesome ingredients, not a lot of overprocessed food. Being plant-based, I just want to eat good foods and I don’t want to compromise on that.”

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That was Berg’s motivation, too. She started KitsKitchen with her business partner Amy Kaye in 2014, selling vegan soups based on family recipes.

“At the time there was only one ready-made soup on the market and it was filled with flour and cornstarch,” Berg says, noting that last year KitsKitchen was acquired by another Vancouver company, Modern Meat .

“A lot of products on the market have a lot of overprocessed ingredients,” she adds. “We have no additives, no preservatives. We’re dairy free and wheat free. It’s all vegetables. It’s as close to a home cooked soup that you can buy.”

Vancouver is for veggies

But why, you might be wondering, is Vancouver such a hub for all this plant-based innovation?

You could attribute it to the lingering impact of the counterculture movements of the 1960s and ’70s, or to the waves of Asian immigrants whose culinary traditions have long embraced plant-based dining, or to the passionate environmentalism that spawned movements such as Greenpeace.

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Or you could credit Yves Potvin.

Potvin trained as a classical French chef in his native Quebec before moving to Vancouver, where he began experimenting with meat substitutes. Then, in 1985, he launched a vegetarian hotdog.

More products followed and eventually Yves Veggie Cuisine dominated the meat-substitute market. By 2000, the company was worth a reported $35 million. A year later, Potvin sold it to Hain Celestial Group, then launched Gardein, a meatless protein brand that was itself acquired by Pinnacle Foods in 2014.

Potvin’s innovation has inspired countless others. There’s even a locally created vegan substitute for egg whites in cocktails, Ms. Better’s Bitters Miraculous Foamer.

It’s a Vancouver lifestyle thing, Berg says. “People have become so much more aware of the environmental impact and animal welfare. In Vancouver, we are such environmental advocates.”

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“There’s also a captive market that leans healthy,” adds Isbister. “This coast is fraught with all sorts of good practices and advocacy.”

And, he notes, our attitudes to plant-based eating have fundamentally changed. “It used to be jeered, but now most of the time people respond, ‘My daughter is vegan’ or ‘I’m trying to eat more plants.’ There’s many, many, many reasons for it.”

Good for the planet — and you, too

Eating less meat, even if it’s just a couple of times a week, “is better for our health, for animals and for the planet,” Ma says

Many advocates believe that reducing the amount of meat we eat may be the single most effective way to alleviate the impact of climate change. Indeed, in 2019, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report urging us to do just that.

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Aside from the greenhouse gases it emits, meat production uses shocking quantities of water, produces enormous amounts of waste and destroys vast tracts of forest and wildlife habitat. It’s not always great for animal welfare — or the people working in feedlots, factory farms and processing plants — either.

Then there’s the question of our health. Diets high in red and processed meat have been linked to increased risk of diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, as well as premature death.

But that doesn’t mean you have to completely give up your favourite foods. The new approach to plant-based eating is a bit more relaxed. Call it flexitarian, if you like. If you enjoy a burger or steak once in a while, it’s not the end of the world.

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That’s exactly what motivated Rivas to start Holy Cow , which combines quality beef with vegetable protein from peas, beets, carrots, cauliflower and tomato powder.

“If I can’t say it, I don’t want it in the product,” he says. “We try to really work on making the flavours as healthy and natural as possible.”

Rivas recognizes that it’s not always easy for people to adopt a plant-based diet, especially when they’re shopping and cooking for others. For them, a product like Holy Cow is a good way to eat less meat “without having to sacrifice meat.”

After all, he’s just the same.

“I definitely saw a need during COVID when I was trying to feed my kids, looking for a way to get veggies into them without letting them know,” says Rivas. “And I’m no spring chicken. I want to eat healthier. I want to reduce my intake of beef where I can.”