Veganmania 5 Aims To Be Largest Version Yet

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 22, 2013 9:50PM

Even with the wide restaurant offerings and options available for vegetarians and vegans in Chicago, the city still remains obscenely proud at times of its stockyards and steakhouses past and present. The annual Veganmania festival was established as a way of celebrating the strength of Chicago’s vegan community and the true spirit of the city’s culinary and lifestyle diversity .

Last year, Veganmania found a spacious home at the Broadway Armory after years of packing the Pulaski Park Fieldhouse and organizers are hoping to grow upon the 4,000 people who attended.

Veganmania 5, slated to run from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. Sept. 21, is a nexus of celebrations for Chicago's vegan community, culture, couture, cuisine and commerce. Enjoy a day filled with guest speakers such as Jenny Brown, author of the best-selling memoir The Lucky Ones: My Passionate Fight for Farm Animals and co-founder of Woodstock Animal Sanctuary, dietitian Julieanna Hever, author of The Complete Idiots Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition, and Ellen Jaffe Jones, author of A Kitchen Divided: Vegan Dishes for Semi-Vegan Households.

Veganmania has a slew of cooking demos from restaurants like Native Foods Café and The Chicago Diner, panels, a Culture Café with live music all day, an ”Ask the Experts” table and Chicago’s largest vegan food court with participating restaurants including Urban Vegan, Ras Dashen, Bot Bakery, Arya Bhavan and more.

In addition, there are many other speakers on topics related to health, compassion to animals, cooking and more.