Nourish Me Please!!!

Acorn Cafe has something new & exciting happening on Tuesday’s!

We started asking on our Instagram page what folks were wanting to see on the menu, and it was from that feedback that we did some tweaking to the menu!

First our cafe manager Lily set out to find a way to jam pack some nourishment in a lunch item & voila!… may we present you our  “Nourish Bowls”!!

These sustenance filled bowls will alternate weekly so be sure to try them all!  We’ve already started with the first two (pictured) and all I can say is wow!! So yummy, so loaded with goodness and food fuel to help you get the most of your day!

In additional to the “Nourish Bowls” on Tuesdays, we are also making pizza buns!  These are great for grab & go lunches, or an afternoon snack and can be eaten warm or cold.  We are making our pizza buns using the newly stocked vegan pizza dough from Diana Cline of Diana’s Cucina , a 5 time International Canadian Pizza Award Winner!  This Moosehead beer based dough is for sale and can be found in our freezer section.  Adding to the deliciousness is DeLuca’s pizza sauce and topping it off with Vegan Fromagerie’s mozzarella! yummmmm!

Wednesdays have also become our baking day, so expect some drool worth scents when you walk in the door as savory scones, muffins and coffee cakes (all vegan of course) are being taken out of the oven!

Be sure to check out our other daily features on our menu by clicking here and our full menu can be found here.

We’re here for you so keep those comments, suggestions and feedback coming!

No Dairy?! – Ethics

Veganism for health or for the environment is easy to get on board with. They are full of facts, statistics, and science. But ethics? That’s a trickier one. There isn’t a bunch of numbers and research I can throw at ya to convince you that consuming dairy isn’t ethical. The ethical motivation has got to come from your gut.

It’s nice for some to imagine that your milk comes from a cow who is free to roam, who loves her caretaker, and can’t wait to go in every morning to get pulled by the udders. The unfortunate truth is that basically none of the milk you can purchase at a store is harvested like this. And even if it was… why do we consume a cow’s milk, and not mi

For starters, when I was going vegan I was hit with this argument a lot: “but females cows constantly produce milk anyway, naturally.”

Stop that right there…. what?!

How does any mammal come about producing milk?

Through pregnancy. Cows are not some marvel of evolution that are exempt from this. So let’s be clear – cows homework help on cinnamon toast crunch how to write a college essay in apa format moteurs de recherches sp cialis s cheap viagra professional online how to write an essay on leadership and influence writing a essay for college follow prednisone without a prescription with overnight delivery one dose valtrex for fever blister see essays on women in ancient egypt pfizer viagra coupon go here interpretive essay example go site professional book review ghostwriters sites for masters australia generic alternative to viagra research paper on consumer buying behaviour in india source site follow site viagra online sales click noprescriptionneeded 5mg cialis how to write an essay about my community only produce milk during and after pregnancy.

But what about the endless supply of milk in North America then?! The answer is as f’d up as you think it is. Cows are “forcibly impregnated” …every 9 months. Then specific measures are taken to stop the baby cow from drinking their mother’s milk (Which is “meant” for humans?)… *ahem* the veal industry.

Andy the cow was taken from his mother at birth. He would’ve be killed at 4 months old for veal if he wasn’t rescued by a sanctuary

All this, is aside from the fact that cows and all farm animals are kept in totally horrifying conditions. Lots of animal agricultural factories keep animals in a space not big enough for them to move. They are stuck like this their whole (very shortened) lives. Livestock cows are usually killed around 2-5 years old, because they’ve been worked so hard by the industry and their potential is worn out. Non-livestock cows on sanctuary grounds can live over 15 years old. I won’t go much further into this, and it’s pretty easy to google videos of inside factory farms, and see for yourself these horrifying practices. Or check out the movie “Earthlings” or “Dominion” if you wanna go really deep into it.

So even if you commit to exclusively getting your milk from a local, “happy”, “free-range” farm, these questionable practices still take place. Take the time to ask yourself if that’s something you are comfortable with contributing to (with your money.)

Dylan the cow, saved from the veal (dairy) industry, now over 15 years old. Living free at a sanctuary

Another small thought – have you ever thought about that fact that humans drink the breast milk of a cow, into their adulthood? Human breast milk is meant for a growing baby, and after the time of milk production in a person’s life, that baby is no longer in need of breast milk. Even if they were, why do humans consume the milk of a cow and not a pig, a giraffe, or a dog?

I feel like I could write about this topic endlessly. Cows are also totally sentient mammals. Have you seen those adorable videos of cows who live inside a house with their people? We know they’re adorable, and no one has a natural inclination to kill them. Cows feel, cry, and have a desire to live.

Everyone’s veganism journey and experience is different. Veganism is a wonderful lifestyle for a passionate environmentalist, or a major health enthusiast. But you could not give even give a crap about the environment or health, and still totally understand why this is a rad way to eat and live. Veganism at its core, I truly believe, is about ethics.

Article series written by Savannah

No Dairy?! – Environment

Oh boy, this is a long one! But stay with me! Animal agriculture has all types of negative effects on the environment that are somewhat “hidden” from the public! I’ve tried to summarize here all the major points! If you don’t have time to read through this article, feel free to skip to the header that most interests you. There is a paragraph on water usage + pollution, air pollution, and land usage + destruction!

All of these effects contribute to the reasons that Acorn Cafe will not serve dairy (or any animal products!) As an eco-friendly store, we can’t reconcile being kind to the environment while eating animal products. These two things just don’t go together!


Water Usage

Fresh water is a precious resource. We literally could not live without it. Did you know only 1% of all water on earth is water that humans can actually use? That 1% is fresh water, the other 99% of water on earth is salt water. Fresh water is not something that should be taken for granted! Unfortunately, 55% of all the water that is used in America is used on animal agriculture (and dairy production!) If everyone had a plant based diet we could use so! much! less! water on a regular basis.

One pound of wheat only takes about 25 gallons of water to produce. To produce the same amount of beef it takes 2500 gallons! For reference, the amount of water used in one hamburger is equivalent to the amount of water that would be used if someone ran their shower 24/7 for 3 whole months! It isn’t just hamburgers that use too much water – there are similar statistics for all types of animal agriculture (dairy included.) 477 gallons of water for 1 pound of eggs, 900 gallons of water for 1 pound of cheese, and 1000 gallons of water to produce 1 gallon of dairy milk. (Sources)

Water Pollution

Not only does animal agriculture use soo much water, but it’s also the top cause of water pollution in America. What does animal agriculture pollute the water with? Animal excrement. That’s right… so. much. animal sh*t.

There are an overabundance of animals bred in North America at every minute, and the amount of waste they all produce is absurd. Unfortunately, this waste must go somewhere, and usually the industries decide that it will go in our water.

Animals raised for food produce excrement significantly faster than the human species. Animals in agriculture produce about 130 times more feces than the human population. About 86000 pounds of animal waste are produced per second which equals to 5 to 7 million pounds a minute. This is a huge amount of waste that doesn’t really have anywhere to go. (Source, source)

When this sweet, loveable breed is overbred – they create an unsustainable amount of waste!!

The water polluted by animal waste is also the cause of all and any E. Coli, salmonella, and listeria outbreaks. Despite popular belief that E. Coli can be sourced from plants, E. Coli only comes only from literal sh*t. Plants don’t produce any, so ultimately any plant with E. Coli has received it from animal agriculture/animal excrement.

This generally happens from lake or river runoff, or from spraying plants with unfiltered water. Sometimes filtered water even does it, considering the MASS amount of waste it tries to sort through, filtration can’t always successfully cleanse this water. (Source)

Air Pollution

Animal agriculture is also a major source of air pollution. Animal agriculture releases more green house gas emissions than other any industry. That means even more than the transportation industry, despite popular belief.

Air pollution has the potential to sicken the earth and all its human and non-human inhabitants. The meat, dairy, and egg industries all emit two highly poisonous pollutants  –  nitrous oxide, and methane. In addition to this, animal agriculture clears and burns rain forests. This process produces 165 pounds of carbon dioxide per hamburger that is produced on that land. (Source) This ends up being 51% of all worldwide CO2/greenhouse gas emissions.

More than that, methane is another air pollutant that can be 86 times more destructive than carbon dioxide. Cows happen to produce 150, 000, 000, 000 gallons of methane per day! (P.s. that’s 150 billion gallons.)

And even nitrous oxide happens to be 296 times more destructive than carbon dioxide. 65% of its human related emissions are due to livestock. (Source)


Usage + Destruction

There doesn’t need to be an over abundance of cows, but since there are they require an unsustainable amount of space!

Animal agriculture requires a huge amount of land. 2 to 5 acres are needed per indivual cow that is raised for beef. That’s 20x more land than what is needed to grow crops for a vegan diet.

On top of the land that is needed for livestock – tons of vegetation land is used to exclusively grow crops to feed to live stock. So 80% of all agricultural land is used to raise animals for food. There could be so much more food produced to feed so many more people if all of of the agricultural land was used for grain and plant production for human consumption.

Livestock covers 45% of the earth’s total land. 290 million acres in America have been cleared to grow animal feed. Most of the topsoil that is lost in America every year is due to dairy and beef production.  To feed a person who consumes animal products, about 3.25 acres of land are needed per year. Meanwhile, a vegan would only require 1/6 of a single acre per year.

To try and keep up with this unsustainable amount of land needed to meet the high and excessive demand of meat and dairy products, tons of land and rain forest destruction takes place. In rain forest countries, about 220 square feet of rain forest is cleared to produce 1 pound of beef. The amount of rain forest destroyed for animal agriculture everyday is larger than New York City. This displaces and destroys 2600 pounds of other living matter (not to mention habitats,) and endless species. Unlike coniferous forest, tropical rainforest can never be replaced once it’s cleared. It is the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction. (Source, source)

*Please note – information and facts here are not Generation Green or Acorn Cafe’s. All information has been outsourced. Please reference the links in this article to further investigate! You are your own health advocate so make informed choices!!

Article written by Savannah

No Dairy?! – Health

We talk alot instore to folks that want to make lifestyle changes for a variety of reasons. Sometimes due to health, sometimes it’s because of ethics.  Having many vegan staff working at Generation Green/Acorn Cafe really helps us to collectively have a better understanding.  We are always open to discussing, and of course, learning.  This article is hopefully able to offer some better understanding or at the very least, have you researching!

Dairy is not good. It is especially no good for our health. We all can take some time to focus on our physical well-being. Unfortunately the mass amounts of false information in the world can lead us astray when it comes to what is best for our bodies. I think its safe to say we all grew up learning that dairy was a staple to optimal health. Dairy is the key to healthy bones and teeth, right?…Wrong! Sooo wrong! Here’s a couple of my top dairy health facts, starting with the healthy bones and teeth myth.

Assistant Store Manager, Savannah, at Woodstock Farm Animal Sanctuary in N.Y.

Bones + Teeth

Dairy (specifically animal protein, which in milk, is casein) actually contributes to osteoporosis! (The degradation of bones and teeth.) I’ll try to explain in the simplest way! – Blood and tissue need to always remain at a neutral Ph. Milk is very acidic to the body and phosphate is the key to re-balance Ph in the body if it is too acidic. Phosphate is found in the bones only in a form which it is bonded (stuck) to calcium. The body extracts this phosphate that is bonded to calcium from the bones to offset acidity caused by dairy. It only needs to use the phosphate and then excretes the calcium through urine. (Source)

What does this mean? What we do know is that calcium is key to strong bones and teeth. When we consume dairy, it literally causes us to dispose of calcium!! This Harvard University Nurses’ Health Study states that dairy products offer no protection from bone fractures or osteoporosis!


Unfortunately, animal protein in dairy is a huge factor in the formation and reemergence of cancer. For a similar reason actually as to what I mentioned above. Dairy is very acidic! Even if cancer is entirely removed, cancer “activators” will still remain present and thrive in an acidic environment. A plant-based diet does not cause an acidic environment in the body! (Source)


Dylan the cow, resting and free, at Woodstock Farm Sanctuary, N.Y.

Many people are intolerant to dairy, by not being able to produce the lactase enzyme to digest lactose. Its actually not really natural for humans to produce the lactase enzyme. Many people do though because they begin to consume dairy as children right after being weened off of breast milk/formula. This is also why if you stop consuming dairy at any point in your life, you will likely become much more sensitive or even intolerant to it, since your body will not naturally produce lactase. It only produces lactase as a response to consuming lactose. These issues lead to common side effects of eating dairy such as bloating, indigestion, and acne and skin problems. (Source)

Hormone Consumption

The machines used to pump the milk out of a cow’s udders can very often cause infections inside and outside the udder. Even through pasteurization and inspection, a fair amount of somatic cells (pus) can end up in your dairy. This can also happen on organic/free-range/grass-fed/antibiotic-free farms as the machines still easily cause infections, and the animals are most susceptible to it if they are not treated with antibiotics. In fact – farmed animals are legally allowed to be fed grain with 2-20x the “healthy” amount of chemicals that humans are regulated to consume. Not to mention  the other chemicals that are applied to cows to kill flies, mosquitoes, and diseases… which all end up absorbed by the body and at some point processed into the foods a person can consume.


Organic dairy farms and chemicals

Chemical + hormone consumption

Article written by Savannah

Where Do I Put My Garbage?

It happens every day. I’ll be at the cafe, prepping food, making drinks, or doing dishes, and a confused-looking customer will come to me with a handful of empty food containers. Are these compostable???

Yes, all Acorn cafe packages are compostable!

Honestly, I don’t blame anyone for being confused and it makes me really happy to be able to say that EVERYTHING at the cafe is compostable.

Before I started research for this article, I wasn’t even sure what the distinction was between compostable and biodegradable. And where does recycling fit into this mix? Why can’t I put compostable things in the trash?

The more environmentally aware we become, the more conscious we have to be about where our garbage goes. It unfortunately can’t just disappear or be launched into space. There are real consequences of wasting or misinformation, and if you want to be part of the small population of people who know about this process and be informed, then keep reading!

Being environmentally conscious isn’t just about recycling anymore. We have to take stronger measures to save our planet, and it will affect every area of our lives, from the way we eat, to what we use to eat it, to how we dispose of it when we’re done.

My mom always told me “Waste not, want not,” and I’m really just starting to understand what that means. Now, I want to share it with you.

Follow along this series to learn about the difference between biodegradable and compostable, what can be recycled and more!

Next article to follow: Recycling Explained

Series written by Chantal Delaquis


Adaptogens & Superfoods Are On The Menu!

One of the first things we were sure we wanted to incorporate into our Acorn Cafe menu were adaptogens and super foods infused beverages and food.

Adaptogens are substances from plants, herbs, and mushrooms that help our bodies adapt or balance.

That could mean adapt to stress, balance hormones, ease digestion, increase energy, or even clearing brain fog and helping memory. Adaptogens are also great at contributing to a strong immune system and have been used to fight cancer and/or manage the effects of cancer treatments.

Adaptogens are not anything new. Adaptogens have been used by healers and herbalists for thousands of years!  They are becoming more common now, as people start to look for more natural ways to deal with common issues. A very common issue being chronic stress!  We all have to deal with stress. And are all affected by it; either physically, emotionally, or psychologically. And we all try to find ways to manage it. Stress can likely be the root cause of many health issues, including weakened immune systems, digestion issues, and inflammation in our bodies.

Some of the adaptogens you will find on the Acorn Cafe menu are turmeric, ginger, milk thistle, and reishi and chaga (medicinal mushrooms.) Just to name a few!

Superfoods, of course, are plant-based foods that are loaded with nutrition! Essential for healthy diets and optimum function. There is a long list of super foods that will be found in our menu items. A couple worth mentioning are: matcha green tea and E3 Live’s Blue Majik.

Matcha is a green tea that’s processed less than regular green tea. Since they grow in shade, the natural nutrients found in the leaves are entirely preserved. The leaves are never heated.  The benefits of matcha outweigh the benefits of some of the other most popular superfoods! Matcha contains over 6x the antioxidants in goji berries, 7x the antioxidants in dark chocolate, 17x more antioxidants than blueberries, and 60x the antioxidants found in spinach. In just one teaspoon!  Try out Acorn Cafe’s matcha latte (my personal favourite,) and experience an energy burst that lasts with no crash!

E3 Live’s Blue Majik is relatively new, and has some serious health benefits! Blue Majik is the most dense superfood known, loaded with the highest concentration of proteins, vitamins, trace minerals, and essential fatty acids. One teaspoon of the fresh or frozen concentrated algae is equivalent to eating a large salad. The Blue Majik concentrate is great added into lattes and smoothies!

In addition to adaptogens and super foods, our tea menu contains beneficial herbal concoctions created by Hollow Reed, that are known to help with digestion, stress, colds, and more!

Stop by Acorn Cafe at Generation Green and let our staff create something new, just for you!

Please note that all the information found on is not meant to treat or diagnose health issues. We intend to provide information on our products and ingredients. We encourage everyone to do their own research and consult with a professional before diagnosing or treating a chronic condition. Also take caution if nursing or pregnant.

There are many types of adaptogens which may work differently for everyone. For alternative treatment to chronic issues, I highly recommend a consult with master herbalist, Chad Cornell at Hollow Reed Holistic.



Acorn Cafe NOW OPEN!

This post is from 2018!

Please check out our Acorn Cafe page for the most up to date information!

We are soooo excited to announce that our cafe is finally ready to open tomorrow morning, Monday , January 15th bright & early at 7:30 AM!  Our cafe hours will be weekdays, 7:30am-6:00pm and weekends 9:30am-6:00pm.

We have expanded our team with some awesome folks that just so happen to be fabulous barista’s!  Our new cafe team will be led by our cafe manager Lily, who has done an amazing job getting everything set up!

We will be starting off with beverages, offering Deluca’s organic, fair trade coffee, espresso, latte’s and local teas from Hollow Reed Holistic and Amsterdam Tea Room.  You can also grab a Morning Glory muffin from Tallgrass Bakery to pair with your morning beverage! We will have some feature beverages that will change monthly and our menu will expand as we settle in, to include adaptogens, smoothies,

Meet our new staff!

smoothie bowls, soups, salads, summer rolls, chia seed puddings and lots of Happy Dance Hummus!  Our menu so far is all vegan even though we stated we were a vegetarian cafe.  We hope everyone is open to trying some new things, including dairy free options and sugar alternatives.

Watch for updates as we announce new additions, including food items and in-store sampling! We have so many exciting things planned and can’t wait to be able to share them with you!