All the world is nuts about
The Nut Gourmet
As we light the eleventh candle on the VegParadise Birthday Cake and embark on our twelfth year of publication, we reflect on the challenging experience of publishing a monthly internet magazine for our staff of two who function as webmasters, researchers, writers, and editors. The experience has been labor intensive but quite rewarding, though not monetarily. Even though we are listed as a dot com, we are strictly nonprofit and not a commercial site.
We are especially gratified that we are able to reach such a wide audience. Our email inbox is continuously filled with with questions and congratulatory comments from people in 187 nations around the globe who visit our web magazine. We were thrilled by this email we received last January:
Subject: Thanks and Congratulations!
Howdy, friends!
Your monthly posting is a joy, and the joy deepens by spending time exploring your website. Thank you for all you do to encourage us to walk in health.
I especially enjoyed the 10-year review. I wasn't around most of that time, but got here as soon as I learned about you.
I've been working my way through the protein basics page and find it very helpful. The main thing I see missing is very hard to express rationally: those who insist that they have to have animal protein to feel right. I believe that it is mindset rather than bodily necessity, but have no way to prove it one way or another.
Something that is easier to quantify (also on protein basics) is the conversion of pounds to kilograms. As an engineer, I learned long ago (about 1955 to put a handle on it) that there are about 2.2 pounds per kilogram rather than 2.3 as stated (more precisely, it's about 2.204). I would rewrite that expression as "take your body weight in pounds and divide by 2.2 lb/kg".
I wish for you long life and great health (as I enjoy), and many more decades of serving up such fine support for the vegan community.
Myron
We realized that our message was truly global when we received these comments from readers who were thousands of miles from our home base in Sunny Southern California.
Subject: stunning and very helpful website
thanks for all the amazing information, links and recipes you have on this website. It's a Vegan dream website.
Much appreciated
B (South Africa)
Subject: Thank you!
Hello,
About one year ago I started with macrobiotics, I followed a class to understand better what microbiotics is all about and I also took some cooking lessons. Your wonderful website is a great help and gives me a lot of inspiration. Thank you so much !!!
Greetings from my heart,
Nicole
Deinze
Belgium
And there were many more that gladdened our hearts and made us feel that all of our efforts in producing this publication were worthwhile and appreciated.
How It All Began
When we began our online magazine in January 1999 with a do-it-yourself, homsteaded website on Angelfire.com, we did not think of producing an international publication, but had as our goal to become a public service resource for the Los Angeles vegetarian community. We started with these features:
In late summer 1999 we received an offer of sponsorship from VegSource that we gratefully accepted. In August we secured our domain name www.vegparadise.com, and on September 1 made our debut. By then we had added three new features:
During our second year we added a number of new features and found ourselves listed by all the major search engines. At that time we realized that Vegetarians in Paradise was no longer a local Los Angeles web site, but had become a destination for people all over the world. Our readership now blankets six continents.
And Then our Duet Year
In 2000 we began to collect honors. Britannica.com listed Vegetarians in Paradise as one of "The Web's Best Sites" in the vegetarian category. Suite101.com selected our site in their "Top Five Web Sites" in the "Vegetarian Cooking and Lifestyle" category. Their annotation states, "Based in L.A., but a great resource for anyone, this site contains tons of info, including a list of airline vegetarian offerings, a great Vegetarian Basics 101 section, vegetarian restaurant reviews in L.A., tons of links, recipes, cookbook reviews-- wow!"
Many of the features added during the year 2000 have broadened our content beyond the Los Angeles area and have increased our readership. These additions included:
The Baby Reaches Triple Time
During 2001 we continued in our efforts to make Vegetarians in Paradise more attractive, easier to use, and more informative. Recognizing our international readership, we made all of our recipes more accessible to our foreign visitors by including metric equivalents for the ingredients. Instead of an alphabetical listing, the Recipe Index is now by category.
Four new features were added.
A Quartet of Years of Service
In 2002 we we added The Road to Vegetaria (vegan substitutes for common animal products). We gained national recognition by being mentioned on the USDA Food and Nutrition Information Center's Vegetarian Nutrition Resource List. Vegetarian Basics 101 appeared as a web resource for "General Information on Vegetarian Nutrition" while The Road to Vegetaria appeared as a web resource for "Vegetarian Cooking and Foods."
Our investigative reports in News from the Nest were attracting national attention. Our story on the Burger King Veggie Burger, published in our April issue, was read by almost 10,000 visitors by the end of the year. During 2003 it added 5,000 more readers and still gained readers in 2007.
Other stories like the Tropicana juice colored with insects, Quorn mold sold as food, nondairy creamers that contain dairy, and vegetarian prison food are still being read by thousands.
That same year we helped make life easier for our readers wishing to cook grains and beans by adding our Beans and Grains Cooking Charts.
A Quintet of Annums
In 2003 we proudly responded to a request by University of Toronto researchers to include our recipes in their study of the Portfolio Diet as an effective means of lowering cholesterol without drugs. Click here for our story on the Portfolio Diet. Our biggest boost came that year when we received a special Certificate of Tribute from the Los Angeles City Council.
During the year we added three features:
- Protein Basics (an essay designed to answer the question: How do you get your protein?)
- Vegetarian Holiday Meals (menus and recipes for those special occasions)
- Using Your Bean (descriptions of different beans with recipes and their importance in a diabetic diet)
Our readers have caught the spirit by responding enthusiastically to our holiday meals. One of the holiday meals, A Vegan Halloween Party, was featured on the Librarians' Index to the Internet and brought thousands of visitors to our magazine during the last four years. In 2005 we followed up with A Bewitching Halloween.
Reaching the Quintet Marker
In 2004 Ask the Vegan Athlete made its debut. In this feature Ironman Brendan Brazier responds to questions relevant to vegan athletes.
During the year we gave permission to the Sierra Club to reprint our Los Angeles Vegetarian Restaurants in their Southern Sierran publication. We continued to update our databases as we added to the magazine's knowledge base.
Columnist William Safire brought us to national attention in 2005 when he quoted from our Donald Watson 24 Carrot Award interview in his article on the word "vegan" in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, January 30.
A Sextet of Information
In 2005 we proudly added one new feature, The Nutty Vegan, the working title for Zel's cookbook scheduled to be published in the spring of 2006. This page has included recipes, quotations. nut facts, and health information, Now renamed The Nut Gourmet, to reflect the new title of the book, the page has additional information about the book and purchase details as well as reviewers comments.
During the year we researched and printed three stories about Emes Kosher Jel and their fraudulent efforts in marketing their Kosher Jel they claimed to be vegan. We paid for laboratory tests that proved the product contained more than 50% animal ingredients. Our letter to the Illinois attorney general led to the company declaring bankruptcy and going out of business.
Gannett News Service made us quite proud when they featured our magazine in an article about web resources for a "turkey-less Thanksgiving." Their story read:
- "Hip vegetarians in the Los Angeles area log on to www.vegparadise.com, an online resource for vegetarians in Southern California. But you don't need to live in Los Angeles to check out their trendy ideas for preparing a turkey-less Thanksgiving. From their home page, Click on 'Experiencing a Vegan Thanksgiving to Remember,' Revisiting a Vegan Thanksgiving,' or A Special Thanksgiving Feast.' Each story includes recipes."
Playing the Septet
With excitement and trepidation, we began 2006 by introducing our Vegetarian Survival Kit that spotlights our readers' suggestions on preparedness for emergencies and disasters. The project follows up on a suggestion by one of our readers. By the end of the year over 30,000 people, hopefully, had obtained information to help them be better prepared for the next disaster.
We were also honored to be featured in a Gannett News Service column called Versatile Vegetarian. In the story, writer Liz Kohman described the beginning of Vegetarians in Paradise and gave information about Zel's cookbook, The Nut Gourmet. The story also contains a Hazelnut and Mushroom Curry recipe from the book.
In November 2006 we received an email from Stephen Morris of Green Living with a request to reprint one of our articles:
- "You folks have done a great job with the article on garlic that appears on your website. I'd like to request permission to reprint all or part in an upcoming issue of Green Living and our related websites and book projects.
"Green Living is a small independent publication that serves "friends of the environment" in our local area. We've recently selected garlic as our graphic symbol."
When we received the book The New Village Green in 2007, we opened it to find this statement from Editor Stephen Morris: "You'll find garlic lore and legend in tasty factoids throughout the world of The New Village Green. It's our vegetable of default. Why have white space when you can learn something new about one of nature's most intriguing creations … garlic! Garlic information was provided by Zel and Reuben Allen, publishers of Vegetarians in Paradise, a monthly internet magazine (vegparadise.com)."
As we thumbed through the book, we found 26 pages that featured garlic quotes from our VIP article, "Garlic--Stinking Rose or Revered Medicine." All were shaded gray with the white garlic symbol. They ranged from small boxes to an entire page. The full story can be found at http://www.vegparadise.com/news71.html.
Significant changes and updates occurred during 2007. For the benefit of our Los Angeles readers we added two new features:
Our nutritional information was enhanced with one major addition:
- Calcium Basics (Calcium questions answered by respected authorities)
Just when we thought the Emes Kosher Jel affair had been laid to rest in 2005, CNBC producer/reporter Elizabeth Jensen reopened the investigation that led to "A Puff Piece," a report on CNBC that initially aired in May 2007. Our few minutes of fame occurred when we we appeared on the program to discuss our role in the Emes matter.
Into the Nonet
In 2008 we headed toward that magic tenth birthday. Our readers may not have noticed the redesign of the website because the changes were very subtle. We are grateful to Eric Brent of Happy Cow for his time, expertise, and effort in making these changes posssible. This revamping now allows our readers to bookmark any of our features, an impossible task previously. The new format allows us to change our table of contents and our footnote links with ease.
The year began with a barrage of visitors on January 8 when BoingBoing, a website that describes itself as "a directory of wonderful things," decided that our Vegetarian Survival Kit was worthy of mention.
BoingBoing Editor David Pescovitz began the survival entry by writing, "Vegetarians in Paradise has a [Vegetarian Survival Kit] page outlining what a vegetarian might need in his or her survival kit to prepare for hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, terrorist attacks, or the coming apocalypse. Some of the suggestions are from a book that sounds like a lot of survivalist fun, titled Apocalypse Chow: How to Eat When the Power Goes Out. The majority of tips come from the site's readers." Other blogs picked up the posting that brought thousands of readers to our website to read "snarky" comments by people who hate vegetarians. For more information, see http://www.vegparadise.com/news73.html
What a surprise to find that a review of our publication on Yelp, a social networking, user review, and local search web site reaching over 10.6 million people each month! The reviewer wrote the following complimentary remarks:
"This site is Vegetarian Central! Not only is it a source for all the veg restaurants in the greater L.A. Basin area, it's a source for: organic foods of all types and where you can get them; recipes; nutrition information; L.A. resources (eateries, markets, veg yellow pages, farmer's markets); book reviews; directories; environmental activism and even spirituality. If you're a vegetarian or are thinking of investigating vegetarianism, this is your starting place!"
During 2008 we did major revisions of the following nutritional information pages:
- Vegetarian Basics 101 (information on how to become a vegetarian)
- Protein Basics (an essay designed to answer the question: How do you get your protein?)
- The Road to Vegetaria (vegan substitutes for common animal products)
We also made major revisions on the following databases:
- Heirloom Gardening (benefits of preserving ancestral varieties of plant seeds as well as websites, books, and organizations engaged in seed preservation)
- Vegetarian Associations Directory (a database of vegetarian organizations listed by states)
Zel hit the radio airwaves for interviews about her book The Nut Gourmet. John Schumacher, co-host of the "Potluck Cafe" on station WTMA in Charleston, South Carolina, wanted her to share her expertise on nuts. Louie Free of station WASN in Youngstown, Ohio, interviewed her to find out more about the health aspects of nuts as well as her role in publishing Vegetarians in Paradise. Free also included her recipes in his blog. Zel made three appearances on Free's program, "Brain Food from the Heartland."
More than 6000 people each month now access our most popular page, Los Angeles Vegetarian Restaurants. Other pages that receive a large number of hits are Protein Basics, Recipe Index, and Vegetarian Food Companies, all averaging between 3,000 and 4,000 visitors each month. By the end of 2008 our readers could find over 1000 entries in the Recipe Index. The restaurant listings have become the most accurate, up-to-date information source for Los Angeles vegetarian restaurants on the internet. Not only do we meet people who tell us they constantly use this page for suggestions on where to eat, but we also are thankful to the many readers who email us information about restaurant closings and new restaurant openings.
Closing Out the Decade
During the last year of the first decade of the 21st Century we found ourselves swept up into the social networking maelstrom. In June we sent out our first "tweet" and have a sizable number of people who choose to receive our less-than-140-character Twitter messages. We realize we'll never have as many followers as Ashton Kutcher or President Obama, but we are enjoying this way of keeping in touch with our readers.
Our Facebook page debuted on the net in December and is slowly accumulating fans. The photo albums contain pictures of Zel's culinary creations on Vegetarians in Paradise and in The Nut Gourmet.
In January Zel inaugurated her NutGourmet Blog that, of course, focuses on her interest in nuts. The blog is a potpourri of nut recipes, facts, quotations, and nutrition information. The blog features Nut Traditions in Afghanistan, Nuts in the Bible, nut studies, and color photos of Zel's recipes. It is linked to Vegetarians in Paradise as well as Facebook and Twitter.
Recognizing that our Airline Vegetarian Meals database was no longer relevant in this era where many domestic airlines no longer offer special meals, we sadly removed this page from our magazine. What was once one of our most popular features, this page no longer had much value to flyers within the continental United States.
During the year Zel again was interviewed on the Louie Free "Brain Food from the Heartland" radio showWASN AM 1500 in Youngstown, Ohio. She also was interviewed by Lisa Henderson on Veggin' Out . Her recipes were reprinted regularly on Health World Online.
In September Reporter Clare Sayas interviewed us for the story "Veganism provides healthy LA lifestyle" that appeared in the USC Daily Trojan. "To people like the Allens, the conscious decision to nix animal products from their diets is a form of personal expression," she wrote. "Citing animal activism, a greener way of life, and morality as reasons to become vegan, the couple also noted a more pronounced societal consciousness about the origins of food within the past decades."
HealthCastle.com, "The largest online community run by registered dietitians," reprinted Zel's recipe for Beetcakes. For Thanksgivng 2009, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine again featured her recipe with photo of the Thanksgiving Torte. Perhaps, it may become an annual tradition.
The most unusual reprint request came from Japan. Students wanting to enter a Japanese university will have to read an excerpt of Garlic's Mystical Powers from our article, "Garlic -- Stinking Rose or Revered Medicine," to demonstrate their proficiency in English.
Keep in Touch
As always, we depend on feedback from our readers to add new features and improve on existing ones. Don't hesitate to email us. We love the comments, suggestions, and kind words we receive from you. Your notes of praise we receive almost daily are very heartening and spur us on to make this publication even better.
Once again we want to express our appreciation to Jeff and Sabrina Nelson of VegSource for their kindness and generosity that provide the opportunity for us to reach this vast audience. We never imagined it would be possible.
Health and Joy,
Zel and Reuben Allen
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