Why bleach, sugar, or rice? As soon as I see it, I
think of chemicals and I don’t want to eat it.”
Her current menu may seem expansive to a
vegan novice, though she considers it small.
There are apparently many great-tasting vegan
options that exist in the universe … including
The Green Fox’s famous Buddha Bowl. It has
already become a big hit, and is created with
fresh greens as the base. Cucumber ribbons,
fresh red pepper, Asian quinoa salad, cinnamon
curry roasted potatoes and hummus. are
added, then sprinkled with pepitas and sesame
seeds and brought together with the yummiest
maple tahini dressing.
“We are starting with a smaller menu right
now, but soon we will be expanding our menu,”
she said. “I’m looking to create a type of vegan
burger and more entrees like that. I’d like to
make more types of smoothies, with shots of
chia seeds, acai or hemp seeds … super foods
in general. You can order an extra shot of
those, whichever you like, and we can add them
to your smoothie. Most of them you can’t even
taste.”
Nicole said right now they are all vegetarian
with vegan options.
“We use some recipes that have honey in
them, which isn’t vegan, and one smoothie
contains milk because we tried it with all other
options and it didn’t taste right. We’re also
working on vegan cookies as well. So I could
say we are 95 percent vegan, but I eventually
want to be 100 percent,” she said.
The Green Fox Bistro is currently open
Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
but she is considering longer hours of operation.
One local family has found their vegan niche
and they love how they are feeling. Mark and
Kathreen Teaney and their daughter, Ava, have been
on a primarily vegan diet since December of 2016.
Mark said the game changer for him was reading
the “China Study” last year.
“The diet and lifestyle we have adopted, which is
called ‘WFPB’ or Whole Foods Plant Based, is the
diet the study concludes is the optimal human diet,”
he said. “It’s basically a vegan diet that also includes
oils and whole grains. The data in this study is very
comprehensive and compelling. To very briefly
summarize, this study overwhelmingly concludes
that the consumption of animal protein is the root
cause of all our major ailments (cancer, heart
disease, diabetes among others). I lost my mother
to cancer. She never got to meet my wife and
daughter.”
Kathreen said it has been surprisingly easy for her
to acclimate to the new diet, even though, she said,
they have always been pretty healthy eaters. She
did her own research on the subject prior to
converting.
“After watching ‘Forks Over Knives’ and ‘What
the Health’ documentaries, we were stirred into a
new level of awareness,” she said. “It’s not just about
your health, we learned that our food and drug
industry actually prefer us to be unhealthy. Then our
decision to go vegan also became about making a
stand against big business profit. The book The
China Study by T. Colin Campbell, PhD, of Cornell
University involved years of broad and local studies,
controlled testing, and in-depth research into the
physiological study of nutrition and well being.
“For us, it became a no-brainer: No meat and no
dairy equaled a healthier, disease-free life.”
Mark said he has noticed some dramatic changes
in his life and how he feels since he started the
WFPB diet.
January/February 2018 GASPARILLA ISLAND 49