Sanitarium, the health food company that makes weet-bix, is ramping up the promotional effort for their vegetarian meat replacement range, Vegie Delights.

For awhile they’ve been running a campaign called Meat Free Monday. It’s backed by a TV advertisement and a website. The idea is to encourage people to have a lighter meal following the weekend. Interestingly, the ’spokesperson’ is a butcher, perhaps to reassure customers that vegetarian food isn’t just for wusses (or that even the most hardened carnivore can mend their ways?)

Sanitarium has now launched a second campaign, called the 2Day Challenge. The idea is that for six weeks you have to buy two of their fake meat products per week (and therefore have two meat free meals per week). At the end of the six weeks you fill out a form and send it back to Sanitarium to go into a prize draw.

I’m curious to see how it turns out. I don’t think it will appeal to people who are already vegetarians because they are already meat free and the cost of buying the products is relatively high (Their sausages, stir fry strips, and mince meat cost about $4.50 - $4.80, so it costs you almost $30 to enter). On the other hand, maybe it’s a good excuse for vegetarians to try something new (I have registered for the challenge out of curiosity).

Alternatively, maybe the idea is that the the prize will be an extra drawcard for people interested in sampling a vegetarian lifestyle, but unwilling to give up the idea of meat. Love to know how many people fall into that category, and have emailed Sanitarium to see if they’ll tell me!

My favourite idea on the website is a DIY cookbook. Vegie Delights have pulled together about 15 - 20 recipes featuring their products. You can choose to download all of them, or just select the ones you want to create your own cookbook.

Anyhow, it’s great to see Sanitarium putting a strong marketing effort behind their Vegie Delights product range. This support is consistent with the company’s position statement on plant based eating, which advoctaes a healthy, vegetarian diet, consistent with Sanitarium’s Seventh Day Adventist origins. It always fascinates me that so many commercial vegetarian ventures have a basis in religion.

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A few weeks back Reb from Cucina Rebecca put out a call to Sydney food bloggers to cover Good Food Month.

I was excited by the idea, until I checked out the program of events and discovered that there was almost nothing for vegetarians to eat. I just don’t get this oversight, given Sydney sustains a number of vegetarian restaurants and diners seem to be increasingly interested in ethical food choices.

Anyhow, from what I could tell, there were no cooking demonstrations of vegetarian food. Of the many lunch deals, I only saw a couple that offered a vegetarian specials. And as Kathryn pointed out to me, even the tour of the food and vegetable markets was preceded by a trip to the fish markets.

In desperation I checked the “special” events category, thinking this might be a euphemism for weirdo / vegetarian food. Alas, “special events” was code for “ethical, biodynamic, organic”… none of which, strangely, included a vegetarian option.

This all made me feel a bit of a loser compared to the other food bloggers, so I’ve decided to offer the unoffcial (and belated) Good Food Month guide for vegetarians. Here’s my top 5 ways to celebrate:

1) Have vegetarian yum cha to celebrate your right to choose. I rate Bodhi’s, Green Gourmet, Purple Lotus and Sydney Pitt Street Vegetarian.

2) Head to Cabramatta and visit An Lac, or one of the two - three other vegetarian restaurants surrounding John Street. Afterwards, wander through the great food stores and pick up some tasty treats from the food stalls.

3) Enjoy Bollywood movies and an Indian tasting plate with the Maya Masala thali lunch on Cleveland Street.

4) Support one of Sydney’s newest vegetarian restaurants, Thien, which has just opened in Newtown.

5) Visit your favourite vegetarian restaurant, tell them how special they are, and encourage them to participate in Good Food Month next year!

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