Do you have a strict vegan in the family who has a birthday or celebration coming up that traditionally calls for cake? If you"re not familiar with vegan dietary practices, you might not know what vegans do not eat. Even worse, you might have no idea how to replace what they do not eat.

Do you have a strict vegan in the family who has a birthday or celebration coming up that traditionally calls for cake? If you"re not familiar with vegan dietary practices, you might not know what vegans do not eat. Even worse, you might have no idea how to replace what they do not eat.



But don't worry. In a few short paragraphs, I"ll explain exactly what you need to make the perfect cake for your vegan friend or relative. And best of all, no one will be able to taste the difference.



Let's start with what strict vegans do not eat. They do not eat eggs. They do not drink milk. They don't eat certain types of sugar. They don't eat butter. And they don't eat frosting.



Eggs can be replaced by "EnerG Egg Replacer," which you can purchase at many grocery stores. The box will explain how much replacer to use per egg.



Cow's milk can be replaced by organic rice milk, which doesn't contain any animal byproducts. You can buy rice milk at your local grocery store, too.



Many vegans do not consume sugar, either, because it is often whitened by animal bone char. You can avoid sugar that is whitened by bone char by purchasing "unbleached" sugar, sugar in the raw, or beet sugar. There are some cane sugars, too, which were not whitened using bone char, but they hard to distinguish from others, unless you know the exact name brand.



Strict vegans will not eat food made with butter, either. If your cake recipe calls for butter, you can simply replace it with margarine or vegetable shortening.



In addition to butter, sugar, milk, and eggs, strict vegans also will not eat dairy frosting. If your recipe calls for frosting, you can look for a similar flavor of "non-dairy" frosting or you can make your own, replacing butter with margarine.



And there you have it: an ingredient replacement key for your vegan cake. Simply follow the key, replace vegan -unfriendly items on your recipe, and your cake will be perfectly fit for even the strictest vegetarian!

As a prospective vegetarian, you probably question whether or not it really matters if you stop eating meat. You might wonder how much of a difference one additional vegetarian can make.

As a prospective vegetarian, you probably question whether or not it really matters if you stop eating meat. You might wonder how much of a difference one additional vegetarian can make.



And while it might be true that one vegetarian wont make huge statistical difference in a world of meat-eaters-- and while it is also true that one more vegetarian probably isn't going to turn the tide in the movement-- you can do a lot as an individual that will be good for you and good for hundreds of animals animals.



Take, for instance, the number one cause of death in the United States and other countries with meat-centered diets: heart disease.



If it weren't specifically for meat, eggs, and dairy products--which are the three largest sources of cholesterol--heart attacks and other heart and circulatory problems would be far less prevalent. According to EarthSave, the average vegetarian has about 1/4 the chance of having a heart attack as the average nonvegetarian. As for people who are pure vegans, it gets even lower: they have less than 1/10 the chance of having a heart attack as nonvegetarians.



In addition to heart health, you will get a number of other health benefits as a vegetarian. For instance, you wont be exposed to nearly as many preservatives, which are common in meat and are linked to cancer. You wont be exposed to various hormones (that are packed into animal feed), which often disrupt normal hormonal processes in the body. And you wont consume as much lactose, which most people cannot digest properly--and which some dietitians have suggested is a cause of digestive problems.



In addition to health benefits you will receive as an individual, you will also reduce your share of the suffering human beings inflict on animals.



According to veganoutreach.org, the average American consumes 2,714 land animals in their lifetime. If you quit eating meat now, you could literally prevent the suffering and death of hundreds of animals of the course of a couple decades.



In addition to this, if you stop eating eggs and drinking milk, you will also reduce your share in the suffering and death of battery hens and their offspring, as well as dairy cows and their offspring, too.



So the answer is yes: it does matter whether or not you become a vegetarian. It matters to the thousands of animals you could potentially save and it matters to you as an individual because you can greatly reduce your chances of getting cancer and heart disease.