The biggest news all over the world this weekend is the wedding of President Clinton and Senator Clinton’s daughter Chelsea. While Rhineback, New York is abuzz with tight security and throngs of media-hungry paparazzi, vegans and locavores are celebrating as well.
Ms. Clinton has been a vegetarian for the past ten years and for her $2 million wedding this weekend, she is applying her plant-based eating preferences to the entire weekend-long lavish affair.
Clinton will be serving an all-vegan and gluten-free wedding cake to her 300 guests. According to Life and Style magazine, Chelsea does not tolerate gluten very well, the protein found in grains like wheat, rye, barley and oats that can cause an allergic reaction in those who can’t metabolize it.
In addition, she and her husband-to-be, Marc Mezvinsky, are sourcing all of the wedding’s fare from local Hudson Valley farmers. But it’s not going to be an entirely all vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free event. The beef that will be served for the dinner will be grass-fed and organic.
A few years ago, ordering a vegan and gluten-free wedding cake may have sounded as extreme as having a wedding where everyone wore only pink, but today, as vegan diets are being lauded for their tremendous health benefits and gluten allergies have been gaining public awareness, speciality bakeries, especially like those in the culinary mecca of New York City, have creatively learned how to replace diary and gluten baking ingredients, like eggs, butter and white or wheat flour with alternatives.
Chelsea’s wedding is just one example, albeit a highly publicized one, of the growing need and importance of creating more awareness about the food we eat. That kind of consciousness is definitely worth celebrating.