Guest blog post on March 12 World Peace Diet Compassion and Health Campaign from Dr. Will Tuttle via VegSource:

Great to be here on VegSource for my first blog entry – and not to let the opportunity slip by, I do hope you’ll check out the March 12 World Peace Diet Compassion and Health Campaign I’ve decided to initiate, and which has been getting the most terrific support from the North American (and international) vegan & veg community. It’s this Friday!

What is it? Well, I’m the author of a book called The World Peace Diet, and it’s been out now for several years, and I’m constantly getting emails and messages from people that after and while reading it, they go vegan, and when they give it to others, they go vegan too. The World Peace Diet gives the BIG picture of our culture’s practice of food, and of the ramifications of our routine mistreatment of billions of animals for food – physical, emotional, psychological, cultural, historical, ecological, spiritual.

So it’s a new attempt to bring the vegan message of compassion for all life, nutritional awareness, and sustainability to the mainstream. And the good news is that you can be a big help to this March 12 campaign by finding out more about it, and spreading the word. The more we spread the word about this, the more we are spreading the message of compassion for all life. And it’s just one day away!!

I’ve been working hard on this, and it’s magically been coming together! People have been amazingly supportive and cooperative!!

We now have over 50 vegan and vegetarian businesses, authors, coaches, groups, artists, musicians, yogis, media specialists, wizards, mystics, and altruists offering free bonus gifts, discounts, and prizes to people who partake of The World Peace Diet Compassion and Health Campaign on March 12 (only).

YOU are the key to the success of our project to integrate vegan ideals and behaviors into mainstream North America in the next ten years. It can happen! It must happen if we’re going to have a world to leave to our children. Critical mass is reachable! Spreading the message of The World Peace Diet is an essential key.

To find out more, please go here: http://worldpeacediet.org

Animals, the Earth, starving people, and future generations are counting on each of us to learn, understand, and spread the word. Tell your friends about this March 12 Campaign. Together, we can make it happen.

If you’ve ever had one of Lisa Burke’s Bahama Bars or Cowboy Cookies, you’ll love that she’ll be sampling her all-natural vegan breads, muffins and bars for your Thanksgiving gathering noon to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 25 here at Park + Vine.

Lisa has baked for local health food stores, restaurants and coffee shops for more than 10 years under the name Naturally Yours Vegan Baking and Catering. She makes wholesome, healthy (they are about 90 percent organic) and vegan breads, cookies, muffins, scones, cakes and bars.

A vegan Thanksgiving is as simple as a lentil or nut roast, stuffed squash, corn chowder soup, candied yams, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. Get inspiration from local restaurateurs, chefs and food craftspeople for a Thanksgiving meal centered around festive plant-based foods at two events Nov. 11 and 14 at Park + Vine. Actually, Vegan Thanksgiving Love Fest Nov. 11 is SOLD OUT so unless you’re already registered, be sure to sign up for Saturday’s cooking class with Mark Stroud.

Carrots courtesy of cute Nikki Pierson Mayhew

Vegan Thanksgiving Love Fest: 6 to 8 p.m. Nov. 11
Registration is $11 and includes food samples from Chocolats Latour, Five Star Foodies, Lavomatic, Loving Cafe, Lucky John Market, Melt, Myra’s Dionysus, Naturally Yours, Tucker’s Restaurant and World Peace Jubilee. Drinks from Whirly Girl Coffee are separate. Music provided by Kate Haralson and Doug Kreitzer. Proceeds benefit Live Green Planet Eco Garden Project in Over-the-Rhine. This event is SOLD OUT. E-mail info@parkandvine.com or call 513-721-7275 for details.

A Traditional Vegan Thanksgiving with Chef Mark Stroud: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 14
Join Culinary Olympic award-winning chef Mark Stroud for this hands-on cooking class on preparing a wholesome vegan Thanksgiving. Participants will learn what staple ingredients and equipment to have in the kitchen, where to purchase products and how to transform traditional holiday dishes into vegan delights. Registration is $36. RSVP anna@worldpeaceyoga.com before Nov. 12.

Join Will Tuttle, author of The World Peace Diet, for a free discussion on Eating for a Cooler Planet 6:30 to 8 p.m. Nov. 4 at Park + Vine. Tuttle will make explicit the invisible connections between our culture, our food, and the source of our broad range of problems—and the way to a positive transformation in our individual and collective lives. A savory vegan dish from Chef Mark Stroud and Mary Beth King’s vegan cupcakes will only add to the greatness of this talk.

The World Peace Yoga Conference is coming to Grailville just outside Cincinnati Oct. 23-25. The conference is filled with classes that will appeal to “yogis, environmentalists, foodies, animal lovers, peaceniks and health nuts,” said Anna Ferguson in an Enquirer story. Look for Park + Vine in the Art + Bookstore area.

The classes will be led by some of the biggest names in the movement: Sharon Gannon and David Life, yoga teachers to Sting, Russell Simmons and Gwyneth Paltrow; Will Tuttle, author of “The World Peace Diet”; and Julia Butterfly Hill, who protested logging by living in a California Redwood tree in the late ’90s.

Registration closes Wednesday, Oct. 21

An unflattering look inside America’s corporate controlled food industry opens today at the Esquire Theatre. Food, Inc., directed by Robert Kenner, is a riveting call to action about “what we eat, how it’s produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.”

Buy-one, get-one passes
We here at Park + Vine are urging everyone to see this important film. Our pals at the Esquire have set us up with 50 buy-one, get-one-free passes. To get yours, call 513-721-7275, e-mail info@parkandvine.com or just visit the store. We’ll be at the Esquire 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 14 showing off some of our products and handing out coupons. Let’s fill up this theater.

Food, Inc. (rated PG, 94 min.)
This documentary explores how our nation’s food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations. These corporate food giants often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, insecticide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won’t go bad, but with that we also have new strains of e-coli and heavily processed foods. Starring Eric Schlosser, Joel Salatin, Richard Lobb, Carole Morison and Troy Roush.

For the second year in a row, VegNews Magazine has nominated Park + Vine for “Favorite Storefront” in the annual Veggie Awards. Yay!! Last year, 30,000 readers cast their vote in the world’s largest survey of vegetarian people, products, and places.

Voters have a chance to win fabulous prize packages, including a Tropical Vacation Getaway, a His/Her Urban Goodie Bag, a Vegan Ice Cream Starter Kit, and a Chocolate Madness Gift Box. Veggie Award winners receive–among other things–a feature in VegNews Magazine and bragging rights for being the best of the best.

The polls close at midnight July 31. Winners will be announced in the November+December “Best of Vegetarian” holiday edition of VegNews.

Cincinnati’s second annual Queen City Bike + Dine kicks off at noon Saturday, June 6 at Park + Vine, 1109 Vine St. This 22-mile, five-hour bike tour highlights some of Cincinnati’s best vegan options at four local restaurants (Speckled Bird Cafe, The Loving Cafe, Maribelle’s Tavern, Otto’s), while emphasizing the ease of getting around on a bicycle. Advance tickets are $35 and available at Park + Vine (513-721-7275). Cool ride T-shirt available during the ride for an additional fee. Proceeds benefit Imago Earth Center in Price Hill. Hurry, because space is limited.

Thanksgiving can be a daunting occasion for vegetarians and vegans. Usually, the awkwardness stems from loved ones who aren’t quite sure how to handle an herbivore. It is possible to have a complete Thanksgiving meal, minus the traditional turkey as the main course, that is both satisfying and lacking uneasy moments for everyone sitting around the kitchen table.

Park + Vine is hosting local cook Adrienne Cooper for a Veggie Thanksgiving Cooking Class 10 a.m. to noon Nov. 8. Adrienne will share tips on how to create a healthy, locally-produced and plant-based Thanksgiving meal. Registration is $35 and includes food samples, recipes and educational materials. Space is limited to 25 students. Students receive 15 percent off any Park + Vine items used in the class. RSVP 513-721-7275 or info[at]parkandvine[dot]com before Nov. 6.

When we first opened in June 2007, it was obvious that our customers liked the idea of adding a bottle of Izze (hello, Jenny Kessler, Brian Mehring and many others) or a nutty snack bar to their tab. So we gradually added more snack foods, including the raw organic bars and breads from Love Force and Lisa Burke’s vegan baked goods.

A couple months ago, after the effervescent Julianna Bloodgood innocently attempted to buy our personal stash of Melt buckwheat noodles, we started offering sandwiches, noodles and other vegan fare from this Northside comfort food haven. They’re housed in our refrigerator, along with vegan marshmallows, kombucha, locally-made ginger cider from Five Star Foodies and other bottled drinks.

Far short of becoming a health food store–and completely in line with maintaining our “green general store” descriptor–we’re gradually expanding our selection of vegan non-perishable foods. Looking to add strand-like chains of protein enzyme molecules to your salads? Try Bragg Organic Apple Cider Vinegar. Looking for a low-glycemic natural sweetener? Try Wholesome Sweetners’ Organic Raw Blue Agave or SweetLeaf’s Stevia, a naturally sweet plant native to Paraguay whose leaves are 30 times sweeter than sugar.

Other foodie items include hemp oil, lemon and lime juice, hemp milk, quinoa, olive oil, sprouted-grain cereal and pasta, organic pasta sauce and the best mayo on the planet: Vegenaise. Now in our cooler: tofu (bean curd).

E-mail us at info[at]parkandvine[dot]com with your suggestions on what you’d like to see in our foodie section