New restaurants show meat-free Mexican is not a carne sin

"That's not real Mexican food," ''My grandma would slap you" and "sellout" are just some of comments Jose and Leticia Gamiz received when they started their pop-up vegan Mexican food business, Mi Vegana Madre, four years ago.

People saw them doing something new and took it personally, Jose Gamiz said. "We even had somebody write (online) in Spanish, 'They're probably not even Mexican.'"

Despite the haters, the couple's meat- and dairy-free endeavor has built a following. It's part of a growing vegan Mexican food industry in the U.S. that has seen Latinos take control of the kitchen and plant-based Mexican cuisine increasingly plant roots in areas with large Latino communities.

In this Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019 photo, fresh tacos served up at the Mi Vegana Madre restaurant offering Mexican vegan food in Glendale, Ariz. No longer just a few items on a mainstream restaurant’s menu, vegan Mexican food has become a widening industry on its own with Latinos taking control of the kitchen. (AP PhotoRoss D. Franklin)

Las Vegas and Austin, Texas, each have at least a few eateries or food trucks that are exclusively vegan Mexican. Across Southern California, there are a slew of options, including a vegan panaderia peddling traditional pastries.

The vegan Mex wave now seems to be sweeping Arizona.

Mi Vegana Madre expanded into a brick-and-mortar restaurant in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale last year. It offers vegan takes on carne asada, al pastor and nachos with a cashew cream-based cheese sauce. Another restaurant offering vegan Mexican and Mediterranean dishes opened in January a half-mile away. In September, a third place opened in Phoenix, also led by a Mexican American family.

In this Friday, Oct. 18, 2019 photo is two of the taco selections at the Earth Plant Based Cuisine restaurant in Phoenix. No longer just a few items on a mainstream restaurant’s menu, vegan Mexican food has become a widening industry on its own with Latinos taking control of the kitchen. (AP PhotoRoss D. Franklin)

Keren Aguilar, 19, and sister Keyla Aguilar, 22, launched Earth Plant Based Cuisine in Phoenix's hipster Grand Avenue arts district. Other family members, including their mother, also work there. The menu includes fish tacos, churros and soy chorizo (Mexican sausage) — all made in-house. They also have a plant-based BBQ sandwich, burger and hot dog.

The sisters and their parents have been vegan for nearly five years, and it was Keren's dream to open a vegan restaurant. It just so happened a space became available and a family friend was willing to be a financial partner.

While most American vegan restaurants offer a few basic Mexican-inspired items, the Gamiz and Aguilar families are trying to capture the array of recipes they grew up on.

In this Friday, Oct. 18, 2019 photo, is the entrance of Earth Plant Based Cuisine vegan Mexican restaurant in Phoenix. No longer just a few items on a mainstream restaurant’s menu, vegan Mexican food has become a widening industry on its own with Latinos taking control of the kitchen. (AP PhotoRoss D. Franklin)

"We didn't want it to have a 'vegan taste' or be bland. We wanted it to have flavors, so our spices are very important to making it Mexican," Keren Aguilar said.

Gustavo Arellano, a Los Angeles-based columnist and author of "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America," said restaurants like Earth Plant Based Cuisine are bringing a level of authenticity beyond the "hippy dippy white vegan stuff like tempeh, or they get a taco and put cubes of soy in it."

Arellano believes vegan food in Mexican and Hispanic cultures has blossomed as younger generations became inspired by ways they can cut animal products from cooking.

In this Friday, Oct. 18, 2019 photo, patrons dine at the Earth Plant Based Cuisine restaurant serving up Mexican vegan food in Phoenix. No longer just a few items on a mainstream restaurant’s menu, vegan Mexican food has become a widening industry on its own with Latinos taking control of the kitchen. (AP PhotoRoss D. Franklin)

"What blew up the vegan Mexican movement was these pop-up vegan food fairs where you have not just Mexicans, but Central Americans," Arellano said.

Since opening their sit-down locations, both family-owned restaurants have also noticed Latinos of a certain age sampling the food. Jose Gamiz recalls wrongfully assuming a father and daughter, both Mexican, were frequent patrons because the girl was vegan.

"(The father) said, 'I started doing it for my health,' and he was like, 'Nobody in my family will follow me except for my daughter,'" Gamiz said. "Usually the men in the family are the ones that are more resistant. I think there's a misconception that you need meat to be manly."

In this Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019, photo, Jose and Leticia Gamiz, owners of the Mi Vegana Madre restaurant, stand inside the dining area of their vegan Mexican restaurant in Glendale, Ariz. (AP PhotoRoss D. Franklin)

Adults in the U.S. have a 40% chance of getting type 2 diabetes, but Hispanic and Latino adults have more than a 50% chance, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hispanics/Latinos also are at greater risk of developing diabetes at a younger age and getting complications like kidney failure and vision loss. The CDC says some of the factors contributing to this are genetics and the cultural value in eating meals high in fat and calories.

Yet for some Latinos, going sin carne can still feel like a sin. Linda Sepulveda, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, which has virtually no all-vegan Mexican restaurants, would find it hard to give up an omnivore's life. Her house is always stocked with ground beef, tortillas and salsa.

"I'm intrigued by (vegan Mexican), but I think a part of me knows it won't taste the same," she said. "We are always trying to find where we can add veggies, but there always has to be a main meat and everything else dresses it up."

In this Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019 photo is the entrance of the Mi Vegana Madre restaurant in Glendale, Ariz. Restaurant owners say vegan Mexicans are becoming more commonplace. (AP PhotoRoss D. Franklin)

While some may say veganizing is misappropriating Mexican food, the country's indigenous natives actually ate mostly plant-based foods, according to Arellano. Colonizers from Spain irrevocably altered the food culture with introductions of beef, lamb and pork.

"They don't realize, if you're real Mexicans, you're not supposed to be eating this meat in the first place because colonizers brought it over," Arellano said. "I eat everything, but I'll eat vegan Mex if it's good."

Terry Tang is a member of The Associated Press' race and ethnicity team. Follow her on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ttangAP

In this Friday, Oct. 18, 2019 photo, patrons line up to place their orders for Mexican vegan food at the Earth Plant Based Cuisine restaurant in Phoenix. In recent years, plant-based Mexican cuisine has been planting roots in areas with large Latino communities and doesn’t seem to be slowing. (AP PhotoRoss D. Franklin)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A big, new package of U.S. military aid will help Ukraine avoid defeat in its war with Russia. Winning will still be a long slog.

The arms and ammunition in the $61 billion military aid package should enable Ukraine to slow the Russian army's bloody advances and block its strikes on troops and civilians. And it will buy Ukraine time — for long-term planning about how to take back the fifth of the country now under Russian control.

“Ultimately it offers Ukraine the prospect of staying in the war this year,” said Michael Clarke, visiting professor in war studies at King’s College London. “Sometimes in warfare you’ve just got to stay in it. You’ve just got to avoid being rolled over.”

The U.S. House of Representatives approved the package on Saturday after months of delays by some Republicans wary of U.S. involvement overseas. It was passed by the Senate on Tuesday, and President Joe Biden said he would sign it Wednesday.

The difference could be felt within days on the front line in eastern and southern Ukraine, where Russia’s much larger army has been slowly taking territory against massively outgunned Ukrainian forces.

The aid approval means Ukraine may be able to release artillery ammunition from dwindling stocks that it has been rationing. More equipment will come soon from American stocks in Poland and Germany, and later from the U.S.

The first shipments are expected to arrive by the beginning of next week, said Davyd Arakhamia, a lawmaker with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party.

But opposition lawmaker Vadym Ivchenko, a member of the Ukrainian parliament’s National Security, Defense and Intelligence Committee, said logistical challenges and bureaucracy could delay shipments to Ukraine by two to three months, and it would be even longer before they reach the front line.

While details of the shipments are classified, Ukraine’s most urgent needs are artillery shells to stop Russian troops from advancing, and anti-aircraft missiles to protect people and infrastructure from missiles, drones and bombs.

What’s coming first is not always what front-line commanders need most, said Arakhamia, the Ukrainian lawmaker. He said that even a military giant like the U.S. does not have stockpiles of everything.

“The logic behind this first package was, you (the U.S.) finds our top priorities and then you see what you have in the warehouses,” Arakhamia said. “And sometimes they do not match.”

Hope for future breakthroughs for Ukraine still hangs on more timely deliveries of Western aid, lawmakers acknowledge.

Many experts believe that both Ukraine and Russia are exhausted by two years of war and won’t be able to mount a major offensive — one capable of making big strategic gains — until next year.

Still, Russia is pushing forward at several points along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front, using tanks, wave after wave of infantry troops and satellite-guided gliding bombs to pummel Ukrainian forces. Russia is also hitting power plants and pounding Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, which is only about 30 kilometers (some 20 miles) from the Russian border.

Ivchenko said the goal for Ukraine’s forces now is to “hold the line” until the bulk of new supplies arrive by mid-summer. Then, they can focus on trying to recapture territory recently lost in the Donetsk region.

“And probably ... at the end of summer we’ll see some movement, offensive movement of the Ukrainian armed forces,” he said.

Some military experts doubt Ukraine has the resources to mount even small offensives very soon.

The U.S. funding “can probably only help stabilize the Ukrainian position for this year and begin preparations for operations in 2025,” said Matthew Savill, director of military sciences at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank.

In the best-case scenario for Ukraine, the American aid will give commanders time to reorganize and train its army — applying lessons learned from its failed summer 2023 offensive. It may also galvanize Ukraine’s allies in Europe to increase aid.

“So this just wasn’t about Ukraine and the United States, this really affected our entire 51-country coalition,” said U.S. Congressman Bill Keating, a Democrat who visited Kyiv on Monday as part of a four-member congressional delegation.

Zelenskyy insists Ukraine's war aim is to recapture all its territory from Russia — including Crimea, seized illegally in 2014. Even if the war ultimately ends through negotiation, as many experts believe, Ukraine wants to do that from as strong a position as possible.

Whatever happens on the battlefield, Ukraine still faces variables beyond its control.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who seeks to retake the White House in the November election, has said he would end the war within days of taking office. And the 27-nation Europe Union includes leaders like Hungarian President Viktor Orbán and Slovakian Prime Minister Richard Fico, who have opposed arming Ukraine.

Ukraine’s allies have held back from supplying some arms out of concern about escalation or depleting their own stocks. Ukraine says that to win the war it needs longer-range missiles it could use for potentially game-changing operations such as cutting off occupied Crimea, where's Russia's Black Sea fleet is based.

It wants Army Tactical Missile Systems, known as ATACMs, from the U.S. and Taurus cruise missiles from Germany. Both governments have resisted calls to send them because they are capable of striking targets deep within Russian territory.

The new bill authorizes the president to send Ukraine ATACMS “as soon as practicable.” It's unclear what that will mean in practice.

Sometimes, promised weapons have arrived late, or not at all. Zelenskyy recently pointed out that Ukraine is still waiting for the F-16 fighter jets it was promised a year ago.

Meanwhile, Russia is using its advantage in troops and weapons to push back Ukrainian forces, perhaps seeking to make maximum gains before Ukraine's new supplies arrive.

For weeks it has pummeled the small eastern city of Chasiv Yar, at the cost of 900 soldiers killed and wounded a day, according to the U.K. Ministry of Defense.

Capturing the strategically important hill town would allow them to move toward Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, key cities Ukraine controls in the eastern region of Donetsk. It would be a significant win for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who Western officials say is bent on toppling Ukraine’s pro-Western government.

Russian pressure was aimed not just at gaining territory, but on undermining Zelenskyy and bolstering critics who say his war plan is failing, said Clarke of King's College London.

The U.S. aid package decreases the likelihood of a political crisis in Ukraine, and U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson deserves credit for pushing it through Congress, he said.

"He held history in his hands,” Clarke said.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

From left, U.S. representatives Nathaniel Moran, R-Tx, Tom Kean Jr, R-NJ, Bill Keating, D-Mass, and Madeleine Deane, D-Pa, talk to journalists during a joint news conference outside Saint Michael cathedral in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 22, 2024. A newly approved package of $61 billion in U.S. aid may prevent Ukraine from losing its war against Russia. But winning it will be a long slog. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A volunteer makes a camouflage net at a facility producing material for Ukrainian soldiers in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 22, 2024. A newly approved package of $61 billion in U.S. aid may prevent Ukraine from losing its war against Russia. But winning it will be a long slog. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Davyd Arakhamia, a lawmaker with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's Servant of the People party, talks during an interview with Associated Press in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

A woman rallies to raise awareness on the fate of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Ribbons with the colors of the European Union and Ukraine are attached to a tree next to memorial wall of Ukrainian soldiers killed during the war in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

The body of a woman killed by Russian bombardment in Chernihiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, April 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)

Soldiers carry the coffins of two Ukrainian army sergeants during their funeral in Lviv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)