Gifts for Your Favorite Animal-Loving Vegan

Thanksgiving has passed, the leftovers are gone, and your relatives have returned to their respective homes.  This can only mean one thing: time for holiday shopping! As you begin your search, you may wonder how to shop for your favorite animal-loving vegan.  Well, look no further!  We at Good Vegan have compiled five ideas for vegan gifts sure to impress.

1. How Not to Die Cookbook – If there is one thing that says “I love you” more than any other gift on this list, it’s a book that will help its users avert death.  This phytonutrient-packed culinary guidebook is a sequel to Dr. Michael Greger’s best-selling book How Not to Die (2015), which explored the scientific research on how to prevent/delay the leading causes of death while reducing morbidity.  (Spolier alert: it’s plant-based living!)  Now that Dr. Greger’s fans know the research, this book will provide doc-approved recipes that nourish your body and taste buds all at once.  Currently available for pre-order, this book will be released early December.
2. Tofu Press – While tofu presses are not new, they remain utterly essential to the lives of vegans who love to cook.  The difference between pressed tofu (think: chewy, restaurant-quality delight) and unpressed tofu (think: wet, bland, mystery blob) cannot be overstated.  If your favorite vegan doesn’t have a tofu press, or is still pressing their tofu between Mount Everest-sized piles of plates and books, it’s time to revolutionize their life.  Personally, my favorite is the TofuXpress.  At $55 (including shopping), it is more expensive than many other models, but it takes mere seconds to set up, and then you don’t need to adjust the springs or worry about water messes.  
3. Gentle snares – After watching homeless
   

   With a gentle snare, this rescue would be a breeze. (Photo from Hope for Paws)

   dog rescues through an embarrassing number of Hope for Paws YouTube videos – and crying through every one! – I have determined that every animal-loving vegan needs gentle snares on hand.  You can keep them in your car for the inevitable stray dog encounter, and then use the snares to safely and humanely capture the pooch for rescue.  As someone who has taken home innumerable stray, injured, and abandoned pooches, I know how helpful gentle snares would be.  And, seriously, it’s a universal law that vegans are magnets for animals in need.  

4. Vitamix – Certainly on the pricier side, but a Vitamix is almost as essential to the life of a vegan as a car is to others.  Sure you probably could get by without it, but why would you choose to do that to yourself?  A Vitamix is a very high-powered blender than can make anything from ground flax seeds, to soups, to sorbets, and more. But sometimes it is easier to appreciate a Vitamix for what it is not: It is not a blender that will need to be replaced every year.  (Many people report their Vitamix lasted 10-20 years!)  It’s also not a blender that has a million pieces to clean. And it’s certainly not a blender that will leave gag-worthy chunks of your raw kale in your green smoothie.  
5. Donation – If you’re just not sure what your favorite vegan already owns or wants, making a donation in their name to a vegan nonprofit can be a great way to go.  This can be an especially meaningful gift if you yourself aren’t vegan. Every vegan delights in seeing non-vegans support veganism, intentionally or not.  If your favorite vegan has ever made you try a cookie only to later laugh diabolically about how it was a vegan cookie all along, you can rest assured they would appreciate you spending your money to further the vegan cause.  Not sure where to give?  Consider some of the larger nonprofits, including: Vegan Outreach, Mercy for Animals, or Farm Sanctuary.

Well, there you have it – five holiday gifts for your favorite animal-loving vegan!  If you have other ideas for vegan gifts you would like to share, please tell us about them in the comments below.  Additionally, if we are your favorite vegans and you would like our address to send us gifts – ahem – we would especially love to hear from you!