Vegan Meatball Pizza with Green Goddess Ranch Dip

All your vegan pizza dreams came true with this meatball pizza. Tempeh meatballs, tofu ricotta (or vegan cheese of your choice), and veggies bake up into pizza perfection atop a homemade spelt pizza crust. Take it over the top by serving it with my Green Goddess Ranch Dip.

Recently, a number of high profile (high profile on social media channels, at least) vegans have come out and confessed that they have had to go back to eating animal products because years of veganism had made them sick. Bonny Rebecca, Rawvana, and most recently, Raw Alignment have all published videos outlining why they are no longer vegan. Now, I’m not a health professional, but what I have observed in many of the popular vegan YouTubers is an incredibly restrictive diet lacking in protein, fat (particularly omega-3 essential fatty acids), and numerous important micronutrients like iron and vitamin B12. It bothers me that people with such influence have been so irresponsible for so long, and profited handsomely off of spreading misinformation to millions of followers. By the looks of what they were eating (or not eating, in the example of Rawvana, who went on a 25-day water fast at one point), their behaviours were those of people with restrictive eating disorders, and can’t be blamed on the vegan diet. They were not eating a balanced vegan diet, and years of engaging in these restrictive habits will eventually catch up to anyone, vegan or not. (I don’t know how many of you know about Mic the Vegan, but he has skillfully dissected many ex-vegans’ claims using scientific evidence. I’d encourage you to check him out if you’re curious about digging deeper into the facts.)

I try to have compassion for everyone, and I would never judge a person because they weren’t vegan. That isn’t my point at all. My point is that a balanced vegan diet that incorporates plenty of healthy fat, protein, carbohydrates, and micronutrients should be maintainable for life. Some people choose to go back to eating animal products for various reasons, but if you’re doing veganism properly, health shouldn’t be one of them.

My food philosophy echoes Michael Pollan’s well-known adage: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” I think food has become really over-complicated in the digital age, with the next fad right around the corner, and it’s been made worse by influencers on social media such as the ones I just discussed who have only cursory knowledge of nutrition but proclaim themselves as experts.

This meatball pizza recipe is a celebration of enjoying a balanced vegan diet. It isn’t raw. There’s both tofu and tempeh on it (I know, soy, gasp!). It isn’t green (although the Green Goddess Ranch sauce just happens to be green, heh heh). You’ll probably go back for seconds and thirds. You’ll enjoy this with some beer. And that’s okay! That’s healthy. Enjoying an abundance of foods–both “clean” and not– is what will allow you to sustain veganism for years to come, if you decide that it works for you and aligns with your health, ethical, and environmental values.

Print