On Earth Day, chef Mollie Engelhart took to social media with an announcement that shook the Los Angeles vegan community: Her plant-based food mainstay, Sage Vegan Bistro, would become Sage Regenerative Kitchen & Brewery and would begin serving meat and dairy.
Following a vegan diet, the chef and owner said, is no longer enough to combat climate change, so the new version of Sage will focus on sourcing and proselytizing regenerative agricultural practices. That, along with years of post-pandemic financial losses, prompted Engelhart to introduce beef, bison, cheese and eggs from regenerative farms at his restaurants in Echo Park, Culver City and Pasadena.
The reaction on social networks was immediate. More than 3,000 comments have poured in, some calling it “a farce,” “deeply disturbing,” “an annoying ad,” “a huge betrayal of animals,” “devastating,” a “horrible transition,” and “benefits disguised as environmental protection.” ”. progress.” Dozens of influencers and vegan and animal welfare organizations have shared the news and some have called for a boycott.
“I understand their passion, I understand their sadness and I understand their anger,” Engelhart told The Times. “I had the same worldview as them before I changed my ideas based on my experience in agriculture, and I have compassion for what they feel. I hope that the vegan community and the regenerative community can really come together because I think they are both powerful avenues for change.
“It's vulnerable to say publicly, 'I believed one thing, and maybe I was wrong and now I believe something else,'” he continued, “but I hope it inspires people in their own lives to be willing to be open-minded. when something else makes more sense to you.”
Engelhart opened Sage in Echo Park in 2011. Starting May 29, the changes will be implemented at that restaurant, as well as in Culver City and its Pasadena brewery.
All three Sage locations, including the Echo Park flagship, will begin offering meat and dairy next month.
(Jill Connelly / De Los)
Vegan items will remain, such as buffalo cauliflower, tempeh burgers, and the Brazilian-inspired dish with kale, black beans, and plantains, but new items will be available, including folded, plant-based and non-plant-based “pizza sandwiches.” Beef and bison will appear on menus. Ramen will be added with vegan or chicken broth options. Fried eggs and roast beef can be added to existing menu items. Additionally, a new initiative to remove seed oils from restaurants will mean a switch to nut-based vegan cheeses.
Engelhart contemplated the decision for 18 months before pulling the trigger. “I guess I had to really have my back against the wall to be brave enough to do it because I knew the vitriol I was in for,” he said. “My restaurants have had a lot of difficulties, like many restaurants after the pandemic.”
According to Engelhart, who runs Sage with her husband, chef-owner Elías Sosa, in previous years the restaurants generated $7 million in annual business. But they haven't been profitable since 2020. To offset financial losses, they closed the Agoura Hills location, converted the Culver City restaurant into a takeout outpost and sold their RV, home and farm in Fillmore, called Sow to Heart, which previously provided Sage with approximately 20% to 25% of its production.
Several formerly all-vegan Los Angeles restaurants have opted to include meat and dairy on menus in recent years, including Hot Tongue and Burgerlords, citing financial viability. By not offering items that appeal to omnivores, restaurants theoretically lose business; An increase in restaurants offering vegan options, in addition to fully vegan restaurants opening each year, can also make success as a fully vegan restaurant more challenging.
While Engelhart said the decision is partly financial, the most important factor is the promotion of regenerative agriculture and more ecologically sustainable practices. That topic first came to his attention more than a decade ago through a TED talk by author and agricultural consultant Graeme Sait, which addressed soil degradation and studies linking it to climate change. He sent her on a years-long mission to immerse herself in regenerative agriculture, a term that has no single definition that can be applied to a range of agricultural practices. It often encapsulates closed-loop soils and feeding systems that offset and sequester carbon, usually depending on a number of animals, natural fertilization and other factors to improve the land.
His brother, Ryland Engelhart, co-founded Kiss the Ground, a regenerative agriculture nonprofit; Mollie Engelhart serves as a director on its board. In 2018, she and her husband purchased a family farm and began fighting food waste by transporting the compostable byproduct from their restaurants to their farm and putting it back into the soil. After selling their family farm in California, they moved to Texas and built Sovereignty Ranch, which also houses workshops for practices such as farming and dome building.
Sovereignty Ranch in Bandera, Texas, is the farm owned and operated by Mollie Engelhart and Elias Sosa of Sage.
(Meli Neubek / Sage)
The ranch's supply chain is still in the planning phases, with the exception of the corn, used for masa, which will make its way into Sage's tortillas. When Sage moves to its new menu next month, Engelhart and Sosa plan to serve beef and bison, all grass-fed and finished on partner farms through mass grazing, or the practice of moving the animals daily to allow the grass and the land will grow again. and regenerate nutrients between grazing. The chickens at Sage will be pasture-raised and also moved daily. Ohio-based Origin Milk will produce some of Sage's dairy products, including cheese.
“I'm not just saying I'm adding meat to the menu to try to get more customers,” Engelhart said. “I'm saying that I think the most important path to carbon sequestration is grass-fed beef, and in order for us to have it at scale, we need people to support it.”
Engelhart attracted the attention of PETA, an animal rights nonprofit, which took to Instagram to criticize her ad. A PETA representative told the Times that Engelhart's ad is an example of “greenwashing,” or using sustainability buzzwords to attract or distract customers.
“Sage Bistro is trying to rebrand itself as an environmental advocate while serving meat, and it's like a firefighter spraying fuel on the flames and saying they're doing something to help,” said Amber Canavan, vegan campaigns project manager for PETA. She added that terms like “humane,” “free-range,” “pastured,” and “regenerative” are “meaningless labels” that “ultimately still imply the violent death of an individual who did not want to die.”
“I'm deeply aware of how people use some of these practices to greenwash,” Engelhart said. “But I am also deeply aware of how these practices, when implemented correctly, make a profound difference.”
According to a 2022 study of more than 100 farmers by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental organization, regenerative agriculture results in reduced chemicals and healthier soil, which could trap carbon and help water retention. The same report stated that these practices “fight the climate crisis, grow healthier food, protect the environment, rebuild rural farming communities, and make agriculture profitable again.”
Not everyone agrees. A 2022 academic review by biochemist William H. Schlesinger, formerly of the Cary Institute for Ecosystem Studies, found that most regenerative agriculture practices “are not likely to lead to large net sequestration of organic carbon in the soils,” sometimes due to the requirement for additional practices that create their own carbon dioxide emissions.
This week, the Sage team has been answering questions about these practices, as well as their thousands of comments on social media.
A vegan pizza with spinach artichoke dip currently on the Sage menu. Starting next month, pizzas made with dairy and meat will also be available.
(Jill Connelly / De Los)
Some have responded positively to the announcement. Instagram follower Jenna Rainey Pezzolo wrote, “I know this decision was not easy or light and I respect your ability to pivot and continue to honor our land.” Others began to personally attack Engelhart verbally.
“I saw them calling me a murderer like my father because my father has a small dairy farm in Idaho,” Engelhart said. His father, Matthew Engelhart, is co-owner of the vegan restaurants Gracias Madre and Café Gratitude.
“My dad ate a hamburger for the first time in 40 years in 2015 and it had a huge impact on all of our businesses. He had a huge impact because people were really upset.”
(According to Engelhart, experts had informed his father that one of the cows on his farm could not be saved, and he chose to harvest and eat its meat when it died.)
Mollie Engelhart still doesn't eat meat. The chef and owner considers herself a vegetarian at home and chooses to make her own yogurt, sour cream and kefir with milk from her cows, but she is vegan when she dine out, as ingredient provenance and farming practices are less clear.
According to the World Resources Institute, beef requires 20 times more land and emits 20 times more greenhouse gases per gram of edible protein than beans and most other plant-based proteins.
“Here's the thing: People still eat meat everywhere they look,” Engelhart said. “If you want to eat meat… where can you get high-quality meat that has been raised in a way that reverses climate change instead of causing it? It's a numbers game. … I think the next step forward is regenerative agriculture, and for that to move forward it needs to be in the zeitgeist, it needs to be in our everyday conversations. And this is my way of contributing to that, of giving people options.”
