THANKS FOR WATCHING, FRANDS! If you’re in LA You simply must go to El Cocinero! What’s your favorite vegan taco meat? 👀 mine might have to be jackfruit
I'm Mexican and the conFUSION in my mom's family when my sister and i went vegetarian was PALP-A-BLE. Then my grandmother realized there are a TON of things she could make without meat for us. Mexico, especially rural Mexico, is a little slow to understand alternative diets, but they're actually VERY familiar with cooking without animal products when they couldn't afford them. It's getting past the mindset that only poor people eat this way.
Yup, meat was a luxury in our old ranchitos, so our elders look down at the idea of eating like that now that "we can afford better." But all those organic, home grown ingredients are now what's in vogue. Our viejitos were culinary hipsters before it was cool lol.
Oh definitely, I'm Nicaraguan and our family from my mother's side was so confused! Some of them still don't get it and think it's weird but they're also slowly understanding what you said. Because eating meat for them means you can afford it and you're well off but it's changing and I'm glad.
Love this!! My family is not vegan but El Cocinero is our favorite restaurant for all of us! My parents go get it every single Friday and for everyone’s birthday. The absolute best!! Veganism is the future and El Cocinero is definitely paving the way 🌯🌮🌱❤️
Merle, thank you so much for all you do highlighting delicious vegan food and being an advocate for ending the suffering of animals. I love your videos and reviews! You are a goddess xo
Gahhh thank you, you are so incredibly kind. I gotta give some love to my girl Rachel for producing this fantastic series - couldn’t do it without her big brain
If you want to try an alternative, super recommend following a vegan mushroom dumpling recipe. Mushrooms have a fantastic Umami taste. The Thai basil vegan dumplings at Walmart are good but I always need more soy sauce personally.
I went to a Mexican restaurant that served very good vegan tacos. The menu itself is not strictly vegan but it didn't have a single mock meat. The ingredients (such as beans, lentils, sweet potatoes) were proudly used as is and not mimick meaty textures and flavor of chicken and meat. So flavorful, so good.
Shredded jackfruit ( there's a dried young version that's brown that's really nice to wrom with ) , hibiscus flowers , and oyster / maiitake mushrooms are my fav choices for vegan birria 💗
I'm so glad they aren't using the processed faux meats at El Cocinero! PLs come to North Carolina (LOL). For either way, I'd need to reduce the oil use greatly for myself, but that's always doable.
It's not NC but theres a awesome vegan Mexican chef active in Atlanta. I can't recall her name but she's super active on social so she shouldn't be too hard to look up!
Uh, the food at El Cocinero looks so amazing! We don't have anything like that in Finland sadly... But I want to try to replicate some of it at home :)
Really wish there was a vegan restaurant in my town! Would love to have some better options, eating out most places have 1 vegan or 1 vegetarian option if you're lucky...
Oh my gosh it's so good to have Merle around!! I so appreciate any and all vegan/vegetarian content I can get, it's so lacking!! 💖💖💖 edit: I F*cken LOVE that our queen always gives us Celcius info too!!! SOO GOOD!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Omg she didn’t try the chicken?!? It’s the only place that has the most realistic chicken texture and flavor wise!!! I miss their food but sfv is sooo far for me. Gotta plan a trip soon
This looks unbelievable. Where I live did like this is not available anywhere. Can anyone here recommend a good vegan Mexican cookbook. I need more tacos in my life
Don't worry about cooking with Jackfruit because it isn't sweet at all. I'm speaking of the green unripe Jackfruit that you get in cans that is used for savory applications. Not sure why she was picking up on sweet but it definitely wasn't coming from the unripe jackfruit. Ripe Jackfruit on the other hand is sweet and epically delicious.
Merle, you have a beautiful heart too! And that Mexican restaurant I wish it was close to me 😩😭 either way I’m going to look it up and make sure I stop by if I’m ever in that area. Great video!
the real MVP here is Carolina's white jacket. I was dreading it would get stained ... Mexican here, I know those delicious flavors don't wash away easily
El Cocinero is the best vegan Mexican food in LA. Alex puts so much love and time into his food, and it shows. I met Alex well before Vegatinos and eventually El Cocinero, and that love for food was ALWAYS there. I'm glad he's getting highlighted here. ❤️
To everyone who sees this comment, keep pushing in life and never give up. Can't wait to see you successful one day and May God bless you!!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
I actually enjoy my Mexican food with refried beans or black beans if available…no meat req not that I won’t chow down on a meat version if that’s the only thing avail.
A lot of popular American channels/creators get called out for only giving instructions in Fahrenheit because literally the rest of the world uses celsius...so I guess Merle has been called out for doing the same in the past, don't know...
@@adyaaa Thank you yea my mom just passed away a week ago from cancer. On top of that so many people we know are popping up with with stage 4 cancer. Something is not adding up. I'm going back to clean eating. But also growing my own veggies. I notice a lot a fruits now don't have seeds and that's unnatural. Food should not hurt or make u sick. I lost my gall bladder some years ago. Doctors told me why am i not dead i was so sick. Cutting out dairy,soy,sugar and meat kept me alive. So i gotta go back to Gods way. A lot of food say organic and it's not. I am taking back control of my life and it feels good.
@@thaliacrafts407 no it’s naturally in foods, some foods are liberators, some inhibitors, even our bodies produce it. So you just have to live with problems that never go away, only have the least amount possible
I watched this and enjoyed it, but noticed your final birria recipe took from a few other youtube videos or blogs where people shared their recipes - for example, the use of hibiscus flowers. I noticed this because I looked at a few videos & blogs to learn how to make birria and combined a few of them together - and it is clear you did as well. Because I watched so many for both veg and meat birria, I noticed what you took was quite unique, so they are not just a "common" method (unlike using mushrooms or jackfruit, for example - hibiscus is absolutely uncommon and clearly taken from this other video). We all mix and match other people's recipes but we don't get views and make money doing so - so I really think you need to give credit where it is due in your videos. I am sure they would appreciate the clicks too so give credit and link them. This goes for all of your content where the recipe was taken or influenced by someone else. At the very minimum, mention them. There's never any mention of where you got your recipes or who influenced them. That's not cool - it's borderline plagiarism. The video with hibiscus: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Nk_b2z5Xlco.html
Merle could you make a video about being vegan and having a cat? I really want to adopt one when i’m going to live on on my own, but it does not feel right for me to feed it animal products neither raising it vegan. Thanks.
Please speak to a veterinarian before trying any plant based diets with a cat. It can be done but it is extremely tricky and would require multiple supplements, and this would be insanely expensive. I love cats and I am a vegan, but cats, in my opinion, should be fed what is natural to them as obligate carnivores.
I’d recommend following the Kitten Lady Hannah Shaw. She’s vegan and a kitten rescuer who does a great job of explaining why kittens/cats should not be put on a plant based diet since they’re obligate carnivores.
What kind of traits do you like in cats? Though it may be a bit unorthodox I'm sure there's naturally vegetarian pets that could fit those traits and your lifestyle.
My best friend is vegan. She's also her butcher's best customer, because her cat is on a raw meat diet. She's okay with it because cats are obligate carnivores and they usually only eat hard to sell 'undesirable' cuts anyway. Yeah, it technically funds the butcher a tiny bit (it's a housecat, not a Bengal tiger), but otherwise most those cuts would probably just end up in the thrash.
I would LOVE. YOU TO. HAVE. THE. RESTAURANT. . OWNER. ON. THE. SHOW ….THANK. YOU. YOU. HAVE. A. GREAT. SHOW. GREETINGS. FROM. IRELAND. ☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️☘️
