Vegan tacos may sound like the kind of cultural appropriation that happens when white influencers start cooking on TikTok. But there’s a growing movement among Texas-based Latinos to improve the health of their community — and they’re willing to wade into controversial, plant-based territory to make it happen.
Let’s start with the problem. For most Latinos in the U.S., poor statistics about the community’s health are no surprise. If you live in Texas, those health statistics get even more bleak: 39.2% of Hispanics here suffer from obesity, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And in 2022, nearly one out of five Hispanics in the state above the age of 18 were diagnosed with diabetes, according to the CDC.
There are a variety of factors to blame for such poor health outcomes. Hispanic communities are more likely to be uninsured, die from avoidable causes, and lack access to health care, according to a report from The Commonwealth Fund, which tracks data for the purpose of advancing racial equity in U.S. health care.
And that’s just the beginning. A report from the National Council of La Raza says Latinos in Texas have less access to healthy food stores than other racial or ethnic groups: there’s only one supermarket in Latino neighborhoods for every three in a non-Latino neighborhoods.
And even if there were more grocery stores, you need money to shop for food. Every Texan, a nonprofit that helps improve equity for people of color, reports that Hispanic Texans make up the largest group of people living in poverty in our state.
Now, some are taking matters into their own hands.
Meet the Latinos on a mission to fight those grim health statistics — one taco at a time. As 29-year-old restaurant owner Sofía María Rentería put it: “Food is such a center of what we do with friends and with family. You don’t have to sacrifice that. You can have both.”
Chris Rios – Vegan Nom
Tucked into the historic east side of Austin, underneath and between all the new buildings, is the Rockin Vegan Tacos & Vegan Food Park. Its owner, 42-year-old Chris Rios is proud of his spot, which he told The Barbed Wire is not only an homage to his mom, but also an “homage to the neighborhood that I grew up with.”
“This is my neighborhood and I feel grateful for being here,” Rios said in a video call with The Barbed Wire last week. He started an all vegan food truck, Vegan Nom, in May of 2012, six months after he became vegan. It sells what you’d see at any Tex-Mex spot: chips and queso; their version of a crunchwrap supreme; and a taco called Gracias Madre concocted with house-made chorizo, scrambled tofu, and queso blanco. The name of the taco translates to ‘thank you mom’ — and it’s one of the reasons Vegan Nom exists.
Rios became vegan because of his compassion for animals and desire to help save the environment, according to his website, but also to improve his health. Rios’ mother, Lily Mae, died in 2008 after suffering from chronic illnesses, including diabetes and hypertension, he told The Barbed Wire.
“She was my closest person in my entire life and (her death) changed me, and it’s hard,” Rios said. “I grieved for a long time.”
After she died, he wondered what he could have done differently.
“If I would have become vegan before then, I think it probably would have helped (keep) her from becoming sick,” Rios said, adding that his mom spent a lot of time in the hospital. “Nutrition is medicine. But we’re feeding patients processed food. I feel like veganism would have played a key difference.”
It’s impossible to say what might have changed things for Rios’ mom, but studies show that while veganism can’t cure diseases like diabetes, plant-based diets can help lower insulin resistance, decrease saturated fat intake, and help lower blood pressure.
Sixteen years later, Rios knows that starting a vegan restaurant won’t bring his mom back, but he hopes introducing a different way of eating to his community can help others. Rios wants people to still enjoy the authenticity and flavors of the meals that connect him to his late mother’s memory. But he also wants to help encourage others to eat more plants, a move the American Heart Association says decreases your risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, and type 2 diabetes.
“What makes me happy, what warms my heart, is that now, when you look at the community (that comes to Vegan Nom), it’s more diverse,” said Rios. “There’s a mix of everybody. I have El Milagro ladies that work (at the tortilla factory), and they’re like, ‘oh, Vegan Nom!’ and they come over here to get tacos.”
Sofía María Rentería – Plantaquería
And it’s not just Austin. What started as an Instagram page in 2020 has grown into a full-on vegan taqueria in the heart of downtown San Antonio. The woman behind Plantaquería, Sofía María Rentería, says she never imagined she’d own a restaurant, let alone a vegan one. (She went to school to study psychology, and her parents wanted her to become a doctor.)
“I come from a family with heart disease, and high cholesterol runs very rampant,” Rentería told The Barbed Wire. Her first dive into veganism was 10 years ago. She and a group of friends tried a food cleanse that required a vegan diet. She didn’t keep up with it entirely — she started meat-free at first — but it inspired a new health journey.
Five years ago, Rentería eliminated all animal products from her diet and figured out a way to make her coveted tamales with a vegan twist. That’s when people started getting curious and asking for more.
“It was never meant to become an actual business,” Rentería said, laughing. But she recognized the demand as an opportunity. “Like that old school Latino thing, like, ‘I’m gonna figure out how to get it done.’”
It wasn’t easy. Her family and friends teased her about her food choices, and she said it was a challenge to educate them about plant-based eating.
“You can’t take people’s traditional foods from them, but if you can recreate them and give them an alternative, I feel like, my gosh, healthwise, it would be a game changer for Hispanic families especially,” she said.
Rentería grew up in San Antonio, where she wasn’t raised to eat green vegetables; she grew up on potatoes, meat, and carrots. Her mom’s side of the family is largely from Brownsville, in the Rio Grande Valley, where she spent time as a kid.
“There’s a lot of lard. It’s not a lot of bright, fresh food because there’s not a lot of access to that down there,” Rentería said. “Food becomes tradition based on where your family resides; this is what I’m familiar with. It’s like everything with pork fats, everything with manteca in it.”
As an adult, Rentería is on a mission to combat those dark statistics, and she plans to do it with tacos.
“You can have the traditional foods and you can also be on a plant-based diet and you can also care about your health,” she said. “It’s really the intersection of that.”
Sergio Tamez – Nissi VegMex
Walking into North Austin restaurant Nissi VegMex is like walking through a portal into Mexico. It’s spotless, and there’s the familiar smell of the staple cleaning solution, Fabuloso, in addition to other aromas: warm corn tortillas, al pastor spices, and chile.
It would make anyone’s mouth water.
Mexican ranchera music blares loudly with the sounds of accordions and tubas over sizzles from the grill. Past wooden tables and chairs sit three men from the restaurant, catching up during a slow moment between the lunch and dinner rushes. Among them is the owner, Sergio Tamez.
“We started slinging tacos since September 1, 2018, as a food truck on the east side,” Tamez told The Barbed Wire through a bright smile. The restaurant moved to a brick-and-mortar location in May 2022, but Tamez’s journey really began in 2010.
“My uncle, he was told (by doctors) to go home and die because he was very ill,” Tamez said. Afterward, his family tried every diet they could think of — including Alkaline diets, and then eventually veganism. His uncle got better, and his cousin lost 100 lbs.
To be clear, there are no studies that expressly state that plant-based diets cure diseases. However, studies have shown that adopting a vegan diet can boost your immune system, reduce inflammation, and lower your risk of cancer. But veganism, on its own, isn’t necessarily an improvement. A plant-based diet can also be filled with junk and processed foods, which would counteract some of the benefits of eating plant-based.
Tamez’s family recognizes there’s always a balance and admit, they have people in their family who can’t be fully vegan due to certain health concerns. Still, they believe making the decision to have more awareness about what they eat and introduce more nutrient dense foods into their diet helped save their uncle’s 14 years ago and they’re happy they can provide alternatives to people who are looking for authentic Mexican cooking.
“We actually became vegan in 2016, but we were here in Austin and we couldn’t find (vegan food) out there if we didn’t cook it,” Tamez said. “I love cooking, don’t get me wrong, but every now and then I want to go out and eat my Mexican tacos.”
To satiate that desire for more options, and to fill a gap in the Austin restaurant space, Tamez and his wife married authentic Mexican flavors with the vegan food they’d started eating.
“Half of the menu is Chihuahua,” beamed Tamez. “Half of the menu is Monterrey.” For the uninitiated, that means that some of the menu is cooked with red chiles and others are made with green chiles.
“We cut it and we slice it to kind of mimic (the original animal protein) so that whenever you’re eating and (if) you have your withdrawal from like the chicharron or the Birria, we still have the flavors there and the texture, so you won’t notice a big (difference),” said Tamez.
And it’s nice to attract customers who may have been vegan or vegetarian all their lives, but had no previous exposure to real Mexican food, he said: “They come here, they walk out satisfied, the next time they come with their friends, so we must be doing something, right?”
