New vegan burgers sell out in minutes

Newport Harbor High School started small with veganism on Monday, frying up only 12 meatless burgers in case sales went slowly. In the end, there was no need to have a cow.

The school, the first in the Newport-Mesa Unified School District to sell vegan food at lunchtime, sold out of the burgers within a few minutes and still had requests coming in, according to cafeteria manager Sue Lindsey.

As a result, she said the school would prepare twice as many vegan patties today.

"We've gotten orders already for some teachers," Lindsey said. "I'd say it's going to start booming."

Newport-Mesa announced plans last week to begin offering vegan food — which contains no meat, milk, eggs or other animal products — at every secondary school cafeteria in April.

District nutritionist Dale Ellis said the other high schools would likely adopt the recipes in the next week or two, with TeWinkle Middle School and Ensign Intermediate School to follow later in the month.

The brisk business Monday at Newport Harbor, she said, left her optimistic.

"That's a good sign that there's more demand than we thought," Ellis said. "Hopefully, it will continue."