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Vegan Beware – A Cautionary Tale for Vegans Celebrating Passover

by · March 26th, 2009
Advice, D'var Torah, Eggs, Pesach/Passover

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Being vegan made me feel focused, healthy, and proactive. That is except during Passover. I was neither focused nor relaxed on this holiday because I was hungry a lot of the time. Preparation is key for those of you who are about to celebrate the coming holiday and plan not to eat any animals or animal bi-products. On a normal day as a vegan I nourished myself with bean spreads, peanut butter, and an array of soy products. These are excellent everyday foods but all of these things include kitniyot which is a category of food not consumed by most Ashkenazi Jews during Passover. It is commonly understood that the avoidance of kitniyot is a stringency we place on ourselves to better shield us from mistakenly bringing home chametz. Examples of common kitniyot items are corn, rice, peas, beans and peanuts—i.e. major sources of protein for vegans. These foods have the potential to be ground up and made into a substance resembling flour.

Today I make a point of informing friends, who invite me over for meals, that I am vegetarian. I believe most hosts go out of their way to accommodate me, which is preferable, in my opinion, to the embarrassment a host feels when he or she finds out if you don’t tell. My first Passover as a vegan I hadn’t a clue about how difficult it was going to be and showed up at the home of a family member having done no preparation of my own. (I can’t imagine what they thought of me at the time. In this case I did inform them of my limitations but provided no possibilities or actual food.) Yet, one of the cooks did a brilliant thing and made a pot of soup with huge chunks of sweet potatoes in it and that is what I ate at every meal. It was warm, filling, and most importantly to me then– vegan.

It is no small task to avoid eggs on Passover. You can’t even look at a traditional seder plate without seeing one. The beitzah, or roasted egg, rolls around on the seder plate to symbolize korban chagigah or festival sacrifice that was offered in the Temple. So since matzah balls, most kugels, and anything cheesy is out then what are easy options? Well believe it or not the Peta website has some nice ideas that use some of the basic ingredients any vegan should learn to embrace on Passover: veggies and nuts. I recommend sautéing onions and other vegetables and blending them in a food processor with walnuts, salt, and pepper. At least then when everyone is sitting around the table spreading butter on their matzah in fast forward you will have something to spread too. Good luck!

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10 Responses to “Vegan Beware – A Cautionary Tale for Vegans Celebrating Passover”

  1. Hannah Lee Says:
    March 26th, 2009 at 4:51 pm

    Cecily, check out the pamphlets available from the Vegetarian Resource Group (www.vrg.org), including “Vegan Passover Recipes.” They were published before the recent discovery of quinoa. The Star-K Kosher website lists it as ‘Kosher l’Pesach,’ because it is not one of the five types of grain forbidden as ‘chametz’ nor is it ‘kitniyot.’ Quinoa was traditionally grown in the Andean region of South America and it is high in protein. It can be prepared like true grains, but be sure to rinse it well before cooking to remove the bitter coating.

  2. Hannah Lee Says:
    March 26th, 2009 at 4:58 pm

    Note that the rabbis recommend buying only whole quinoa from a company that does not process it with other grains, such as Ancient Harvest or Trader Joe’s. Another selling point of quinoa is that it’s gluten-free.

  3. balabusta Says:
    March 26th, 2009 at 6:20 pm

    Everyone, vegan or not, should benefit from the brilliant work of Debra Wasserman on No Cholesterol Passover Recipes. She did a lot of research to find Ashkenazi pesachdik vegan recipes.

    I am not a vegan, just a vegetarian, but I’m planning to spend on avocados. Matzah with guacamole is a dynamite combination.

  4. shev Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 9:04 am

    Sure, vegan food abounds kasher l’Pesach. Say, vegetables. Fruit. Herbs. Matzah.
    But it’s not enough to eat over Pesach, one also needs to be nourished.
    I wonder if there’s a rabbinic authority out there that would give Ashkenazi vegans the option to break with tradition, and eat kitniot.

  5. Rabbi Matt Carl Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 10:40 am

    “I wonder if there’s a rabbinic authority out there that would give Ashkenazi vegans the option to break with tradition, and eat kitniot.”

    There is.

  6. Diana Says:
    March 27th, 2009 at 1:56 pm

    Hi Rabbi,

    I read in the Israeli Conservative movement, one can eat beans during Passover. Are there any other movements or organizations that allow Ashkenazim to eat beans?

  7. Michael Croland Says:
    March 28th, 2009 at 11:11 am

    In November 1997, Rabbi David Golinkin of the Rabbinical Assembly of Israel addressed the Ashkenazi tradition of avoiding legumes and rice on Passover and said:

    “In our opinion, it is permitted (and perhaps even obligatory) to eliminate this custom. It is in direct contradiction to an explicit decision in the Babylonian Talmud (Pesachim 114b) and is also in contradiction to the opinion of all the sages of the Mishna and Talmud except one…”

    Also, check out my Passover survival tips for vegans: http://www.radicaltorah.org/20.....or-vegans/. Note: This guide is a few years old and erroneously referred to legumes and rice as chametz; they’re actually classified as kitniyot.

  8. judi Says:
    March 29th, 2009 at 4:09 pm

    For the last couple of years, we’ve been looking to the Pesach guide put out the Rabbis Abadi on kashrut.org (sons of Rabbi Abadi, former Posek of Lakewood). Their opinions are meant mainly for Sephardim, but anyone who has made the personal decision to include kitniyot at Pesach would be happy to see such a rational set of guidelines. For example, as someone who cannot eat gluten, I was pleased and surprised to see that they permit gluten-free products from wheat-free manufacturing facilities, as long as they have a regular hechsher.

  9. Judy Jackson Says:
    March 30th, 2009 at 12:12 pm

    Here’s another idea for a vegan Pesach spread:

    Almond, onion and mushroom pate: fry 1 large chopped onion in olive oil, then add 6 oz mushrooms, chopped, and continue frying. Season well, add chopped parsley and 4 oz ground almonds at the end. If you put the pate in the blender it comes out smooth, otherwise it’s slightly chunky.

    It comes from a little book I wrote called The Passover Menu Planner.

    Happy Pesach Cecily.

    Judy

  10. Cecily Says:
    March 31st, 2009 at 10:38 am

    Thank you to all of you for your good ideas and comments. Judy Jackson, I am honored, and thank you for your delicious recipe idea. I plan on making it this holiday!

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