Customer Spotlight: Jess & Marisa
At LUHV Food, we have a herd of loyal customers, so we want to amplify their voices. SC, our Senior Social Media Strategist, had the opportunity to interview Jess and Marisa Cruz @VeganCruzes.
Jess is originally from New Jersey and Marisa is originally from England. Fate had it that they both signed up to work at a summer camp in New York (Jess as Head of Arts and Crafts and Marisa as Head of Drama). Two weeks after meeting, they started dating! They married in their New Jersey backyard in October 2020 with of course vegan food and cake.
Both Jess and Marisa are vegan (Jess since 2017 and Marisa since 2019). To them, veganism is a direct protest against animal exploitation. It can be an isolating experience for someone to transition to veganism if the rest of their family and friends aren’t vegan. Since they’re both gluten free and vegan, they have each other’s backs and love sharing and trying all the vegan and gluten-free food they can get their hands on! Jess and Marisa have found that these negative preconceptions about veganism stem from misinformation more than anything else, which has inspired them to use their social media (i.e. Instagram, Website, and YouTube) to demonstrate that vegansim is easier, less expensive, and tastier than many think. In fact, in honor of Veganuary they created a Weekly Vegan Budget Grocery Haul on Youtube where they showed them grocery shopping for vegan meals that’d last them a whole week. Some of the items they grabbed included avocado, bananas, broccoli, carrot, garlic, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, onion, canned black beans (you can view the whole grocery list here) and some of the dishes they made included a smoothie, peanut butter and banana toast, scrambled tofu on toast, smoothie, yogurt bowl, avocado toast, stir fry, black bean bowl, loaded sweet potato (you can view the whole meal plan here). Their total only came to $32! When their social media isn't enough to change peoples’ minds about veganism, they said cooking up delicious vegan food for non-vegan food is sure to do the trick.
Jess and Marisa are avid travelers (they’ve visited Spain, England, Poland, Budapest, Hungary, Wales, Istanbul, Turkey, etc.), so they have to be mindful about maintaining their veganism on the road. They said a lot of research and planning goes into their travel itineraries. While they were in Istanbul for two weeks, they had the best vegan food that they’d had abroad. Already a lot of the food there is naturally vegan like stewed potatoes, eggplant, grape leaves, falafel, hummus, etc. Since the set up of many restaurants in Istanbul is buffet-style, it allows you to choose items you want and avoid meat and cheese. One of the famous dishes in Istanbul is kofte, which is traditionally made with raw meat, but since health standards have banned raw meat, it’s started to be made from crushed almonds instead, so it’s become “accidentally vegan.”
When they’re not traveling overseas, they like to venture in the tri-state area for vegan food. The Baklava Lady in Englishtown New Jersey which serves up vegan Turkish food, Cats Luck in Neptune City New Jersey which serves up vegan comfort food (Jess designed the menus there!), Goldie Falafel in Philadelphia which serves Israeli food, and of course LUHV Food. Their favorite items from LUHV include the tuna salad, coleslaw, provolone cheese, chili, and the Italian hoagie (when they’re being “gluten rascals”).
Jess and Marisa have noticed that veganism goes hand in hand with caring about the world. Marisa said, “Veganism is an intersectional journey. It means less collective suffering. Harm reduction isn’t just about one section of your life, but across the board. ” Especially since many people transition to veganism because they care about the treatment of animals, so it’s natural that they also care about the treatment of people and treatment of the environment! They predict the future will bring more acceptance of veganism. People will view veganism as less radical, restaurants will be more inclined to offer vegan food, and going vegan will be less of an isolating experience.
