The traditional American Thanksgiving comes equipped with stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and turkey. However, my family and I are not traditional, especially when food is involved. This will be our second vegan Thanksgiving and we could not be more excited for the array of food that we will enjoy.

You may ask: what are you going to eat? The better question is to ask what are we not going to eat?

My mother is preparing our vegan menu with stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, peas, mashed potatoes, green beans, asparagus and a vegan wellington. What is a wellington you ask? A vegan wellington is assorted vegetables, combined with tofu, seitan and wrapped together in a thin dough like pastry with assorted spices. This yummy alternative to a turkey is available for purchase at Native Foods in Encinitas.

Altering these traditional dishes, we tweak the ingredients so the food has no dairy or eggs. For butter, we have the vegan butter, Melt ‒ anyone can purchase this at Sprouts grocery store. Sprouts also offers vegan gravy that can be used year-round. Assorted vegetables are easy to prepare by tossing the vegetables with canola or olive oil and putting them into the oven. We like to make our own mashed potatoes by mashing boiled potatoes and adding vegan butter in the mix with garlic and spices.

My dad is a meat eater and this will be his first Thanksgiving not eating any animal products. Last Thanksgiving he had our vegan food in addition to his own slices of turkey. This year my dad is not having any turkey because he is satisfied with our vegan menu.

Some feel obligated to eat turkey on Thanksgiving to uphold tradition. Personally, I always believed turkey tasted dry and had no flavor growing up. Last year, my mom, my boyfriend and I had our first vegan Thanksgiving. We got to experience something new and exciting with our vegan wellington. To our surprise, we enjoyed the wellington and our other vegan options, not only for Thanksgiving, but for Christmas as well.

You do not have to compromise the delicious food that are typically eaten on Thanksgiving because there are many alternatives for all to enjoy.