Vegan Las Vegas? How to be a #TradeShowVegan at IMEX America
Ahead of IMEX America, Paul Harvey dons his #TradeShowVegan cap once again to catch up with the vegan queen of Las Vegas...
I kicked off my #TradeShowVegan challenge this year - with the aim of following a plant-based diet at all the major industry trade shows.
So with IMEX America taking place on 17-19 October, the big question is, can I stay vegan in Vegas?
Well... actually, I'm not going to Vegas, unfortunately. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to abandon my fellow #TradeShowVegans! No, if I can't be there, I'm at least going to try to help the #TSVs who will be in Vegas this month.
And so with that in mind, I caught up with the leader of the vegan community in Las Vegas, Diana Edelman. Edelman is the founder of Vegans Baby, a business dedicated to making vegan life easier and vegan dining more approachable. As the author of The Las Vegas Vegan Dining Guide, Edelman was the obvious port of call for advice for any aspiring #TradeShowVegans at IMEX America...
PH: Vegans and Las Vegas, they're not too words that you necessarily put together. How did that come about?
DE: It came about with time. Vegas is a culinary hotspot. It's one of the best destinations in the world for foodies and a lot of times previously when people thought of Vegas, they thought about steak buffets, dollar shrimp and things like that. And over the past six or so years, Vegas has really become one of the best cities in the country for being vegan.
As the founder of the Las Vegas Vegan Dining Month and the annual Las Vegas Vegan Dining Guide, you've been called the de facto leader of the vegan community in Las Vegas. How does that feel?
It’s a very sweet thing, it’s very flattering. I dedicated six years of my life to really working to bring veganism to Vegas and working with restaurants and the community to really make vegan dining more accessible to and to make it more approachable for people that aren't vegan and show people that there's options if you don't want to eat meat and you're not vegan but you just wanna give it a try and you can. I promise you're not missing out on anything. I think I accomplished that.
Have you found that people are excited about vegan food and the vegan lifestyle at the moment?
Yes, very much so. During the pandemic, it's become much more accepted. Obviously there's still people that just want to eat steak, but it very much has grown and continues to grow. The ocean hit 100 degrees yesterday in Florida... we’re really becoming much more aware of what the impact of animal agriculture and our choices are doing to the world and to climate change.
It's definitely not going anywhere and I love seeing people excited about it.
A lot of people say, well, it doesn't make a difference if I skip one meal, but it truly does, because there's some staggering statistics on what would happen if everyone ate vegan for one day a week. The numbers, the things we could accomplish and how we could help save the planet, it's just wild to me. One person really can make a difference.
Since I started doing Trade Show Vegan, I've also found that I am eating more vegan food at home because, well, I actually like it.
I always think it's funny when people say “I don't like vegan food”, and I look at their plate and like, you're eating it peanut butter and jelly sandwich and you have French fries, like everything on their plate is vegan right now.
How do you prepare for attending conferences and trade shows as a vegan?
When I'm invited to meetings and events, I always, especially if I'm speaking at them, I always let them know that I'm vegan, just to make sure there's vegan options.
If I'm attending a trade show or something like that, typically, conference centres do a good job with having vegan options. If you're going to somewhere that is a popular place, it's not too hard to find vegan options, especially if you're in the States. It's not something I really think about anymore.
I've been vegan for so long, I'm not worried about where I'm gonna eat, cause there's always something I can always find like fruit or a bagel or something to eat if, like, the the place itself doesn't have a lot of food.
It's exciting to see the way chefs, the way restaurants, the way the hospitality industry has really embraced veganism and the same with tourism. There's a lot of tourism campaigns right now, Japan is doing a whole vegan tourism campaign right now to get vegans to come to Japan. So there really is a recognition of this audience.
How have things changed since you became vegan?
I’ve been vegan since 2016 and it has changed a lot since then. People have become a lot more open to it, a lot more receptive. Restaurants have certainly upped their game. I worked with a lot of restaurants in Las Vegas to get them to add vegan options.
I currently work with an organisation where we certify restaurants as vegan and vegan friendly, but they have to have 20 per cent of each section of their menu with vegan options. So there really is incentive for these restaurants now, especially with the economy the way it is and the way business is, to add more vegan options, because then they will capture more of the vegan market and more more customers.
It has grown substantially. I remember when I lived in Vegas and I would go to the strip when I first went vegan and you're getting a plate of vegetables at a steakhouse. Now there's steak houses that have full vegan menus, which is just wild to me.
What does the future hold for veganism? Where does it go next?
More and more people I think are going to go vegan. Maybe not out of necessity yet, but because they're more conscious of what they're eating and how it impacts everything.
The innovations that have come out of the food industry the past few years have been really amazing. You’ve got the cultivated meat now that's coming up. Once that becomes a more attractive price point than that will become something that people will start to really look into and do.
The future is definitely geared or focusing more towards a vegan lifestyle or lifestyle where we're not using animals the way we have been using them because we just simply can't. Our food system is not sustainable the way it is right now. We can't continue with the population growth and be able to sustain our food.
IMEX America takes place at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, on 17-19 October.
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