Vegetarian Restaurants In Grants Pass
If you are a hungry, traveling, vegetarian and do an internet search for vegetarian restaurants in Grants Pass, you’ll get lots of results. However, virtually all that come up are nothing more than standard fare restaurants that have a few paltry meatless options.
Or you could pull into one of the fast food giants or national pizza chains and get a “vegetarian” iceburg salad topped with a shredded cheese-like substance, complete with packets of dressing made from GMO soy or cottonseed oils and artificial colors. Is that really the quality of food you’re looking for? Rather than eat that stuff, I prefer to skip meals like those and go on a short fast.
The fact is that automated internet searches cannot distinguish between a restaurant that prepares truly healthy, top quality food with care and consciousness versus places that offer Monsanto-made meatless plates and simply call it vegetarian cuisine. Some places now offer salads with trendy, buzz-word laden marketing phrase descriptions like: “organic baby field greens topped with walnuts and cranberries.” The problem is that even IF their field greens actually are organic, everything else on their table is manufactured by mainstream agribusiness.
It’s quite likely their dressings are the lowest cost they can find and come out of big cans supplied by standard mainstream suppliers. Confirmation that a restaurant is using low quality ingredients can be made by observing the contents of their salt shakers. If it’s bleached white and comprised of perfectly uniform granules, you can bet it’s nothing more than iodized sodium chloride. Forget about finding anything resembling a balanced supply of trace minerals in that stuff. Most restaurant owners don’t know the difference good quality salt makes for optimum health and taste.
My body runs on organic, non-gmo foods. That’s what I look for when I’m dining out. If you’re like me and you’re into real food that’s produced in sustainable ways, then you know how hard it can be to find a delicious, healthy meal, even at places that the internet searches classify as vegetarian restaurants.
I currently own Susnhine Natural Foods in Grants Pass Oregon. Prior to that, in the early 80s, I was co-founder of one of the very best natural food restaurants in the country. Through the mid 90s we were featured on the TV Food channel and appeared on CNN and CBS at least ten times. I know how to prepare delicious food and I know what the words healthy, organic and non-GMO actually mean. In fact, all the produce in our store is certified organic. This is a way of life for me, not a sales pitch.
The vegetarian restaurant within Sunshine Natural Foods in Grants Pass offers a simple menu of truly healthy, organic, foods that are fast and delicious. The vast majority of what we offer is vegetarian or vegan. We have an organic salad bar that is priced by the pound. As fast as you can fill your plate and have us weigh it, you’ll be eating a great tasting, healthy meal. We also offer organic soups, made-to-order organic roll-up sandwiches and chef salads, and an organic juice and smoothie bar. We offer filtered water free of charge and it actually tastes good. In my experience, most restaurants can’t even get the water right.
The condiments we offer are among the best in the world. On the salad bar and as an add-on for your roll-up sandwich or chef salad you can choose organic, raw unpasteurized sauerkraut. Our vegetarian soups are usually seasoned with organic miso. We also use organic, wheat-free soy sauce in some of our preparations. The only vinegar we use in our home-made salad dressings is Bragg’s Organic, Raw, Unpasteurized Cider Vinegar. We use organic, cold-pressed sunflower and organic extra-virgin oils – never canola or soy bean oils.
Our homemade cookies and muffins are always made with organic flours, oils and sweeteners. They are all vegan and, most importantly, delicious!
Our food tastes good, is good for you and is good for the planet. It’s always a “win-win-win” at Sunshine.
There are about a dozen other restaurants in Grants Pass that may come up when doing an online search for vegetarian restaurants in Grants Pass. Frankly, the food and menus at most of these appear to have been prepared by people with little understanding of the relationship food has with health or wellness. But in fairness to them, they never claimed they considered health in the creation of their menus.
Sunshine Natural Foods offers our prepared super-healthy food and drink options, all day until until a half hour before closing, The food is delicious, organic and according the Sneak Preview newspaper reader’s poll, the “Best in the Rogue Valley.”
Generally, the other places to eat in Grants Pass that come up in an online search for vegetarian restaurants use a lot of “Monsanto-made” ingredients. Nonetheless, when traveling I know we sometimes need to compromise a bit, so I’ll offer a quick description of the better places in Grants Pass I’ve tried.
There are four Thai Restaurants my family occasionally dines at. They all offer fairly low cost vegetarian options with reasonably fast service. All are family owned and it’s quite likely that some family member will be waiting on you. Food is generally colorful and tastes good. Quality of ingredients (not organic, sketchy quality oils) could be better.
- Royal Barge is one door down from Sunshine, offers brown rice: 120 Sw H St Grants Pass
- Thai Barbeque, offers brown rice: 428 Sw 6th Grants Pass
- Pongsri: 323 Ne E St. Grants Pass
- Sunflower: 1571 Ne 6th St Grants Pass
Sushi Restaurant: Musashi’s continues to improve and is by far the best Sushi in restaurant in southern Oregon. Their choice of vegetarian sushi is very limited, but I guess the demand is not very great for that. Very good vegetable tempura. If you’ve acquired a taste for Natto, they offer it here. Like all good Sushi restaurants, it can get expensive quickly. Address: 314 SE. H St. Website
Blondies Bistro offers a full service sit down menu with good variety. They have some reasonably good quality vegetarian choices. Hard surfaces inside sometimes can contribute to a somewhat noisy dining experience. For those who eat decadent desserts, I’ve been told theirs are quite satisfying. Located in the historic downtown about a block from Sunshine. Mid-priced Address: 226 Sw G St Grants Pass
