BY HANNAH DEAR (‘17)

NEWS EDITOR

Valentine’s Day is an infamous day for vegans. All of a sudden the world is covered in chocolate candy that I cannot eat. Why?!

Chocolate, flowers, and love are the immediate focuses of Valentines. However, for single vegans with severe allergies, Valentine’s Day becomes a rather unfortunate holiday. This means that vegans must try extra hard to make Valentine’s a fun day.

There are still a few candies out there that vegans can enjoy. My personal favorite is ring pops. Ring pops provide the sickening candy aspect of Valentine’s accompanied by the concept of love. After all, it is a ring!

Despite the variety of vegan candies available, chocolate is usually amiss. With a little hunting online or at your local Whole Foods you can find the occasional vegan chocolate bar. The one that I am currently obsessed with is the Unreal peanut butter cups. If you cannot find actual vegan chocolate bars, feel free to just add a little cocoa powder to your oatmeal. Another alternative is to make your own chocolate ice cream by putting frozen bananas in the food processor with a little bit of almond milk (or other non-dairy milk) and cocoa powder.

The omnivores in relationships have the opportunity to go out to nice restaurants on dates. What do single vegans do? There is still a way to make this random Tuesday in February a fun day for you single vegans out there. Remember those Ring Pops I mentioned earlier? Get a couple of those and some chocolate oatmeal together. Netflix is the home to awful chick-flicks. If you are into those, I highly recommend “After the Ball” and “The Prince and Me” if you want to laugh at the stupidity of chick-flicks.

Maybe you are someone who wants a little more than Ring Pops and vegan chocolate bars. I recently attempted to make red velvet beet pancakes. Beets may be vegetables, but they are naturally sweet. With a little bit of coconut cream you can also make a coconut whip to top it off. These pancakes make a festive addition to a vegan Valentine’s.

If you identify with my plight of being a single vegan on Valentine’s Day, I wish you the best. We may not have a romantic night or a fancy steak dinner planned, but we can still celebrate in our own way. By this I mean Netflix, Ring Pops, and maybe some dairy-free Ben & Jerry’s ice cream.