What is Roots Food you ask? Roots foods is made with ingredients that support your health, are kind to the environment, and are — of course — mouthwatering! 

Shade, meat, water, fiber, milk, seeds, cream, oil, erosion prevention, oxygen, flour, sugar, shells, wood…This list is seemingly endless when it comes to the ways we can utilize a coconut tree!

Moku Roots’ menu is about 95% vegan and 100% vegetarian - offering local eggs - and operates with the absolute highest integrity of purchasing ingredients with putting locally sourced, organically grown, and minimal packaging above price and convenience always. 

So many restaurants, so little time…That’s how it can sometimes feel on Maui with all the options for dining out. Here at Moku Roots — small, but mighty —we have set ourselves apart from many of the eateries on the island by FULLY integrating our values and “roots” into our menu and practices.

It’s that time of year again… 

You all know what I’m talking about, time to vote for 2019 ‘Aipono awards!  We appreciate your support and hope you will vote for your favorite Maui Vegan Restaurant at this website: 

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Aipono2019

Maui is a place that most anything can not only grow — but thrive! When you look around, you’re bound to see a towering mango tree, a rambling lilikoi vine, or a ripe bunch of bananas. Since Maui has a wide range of micro-climates, that translates to a wide range of fruits and vegetables that can be grown locally. 

At this point, pretty much everyone knows how proud I am of how little trash we produce at Moku Roots.  I think it’s also notable that we haven’t bought trash bags since we opened on May 1st.  Some people bring us produce in bags and we just repurpose those as trash bags along with other miscellaneous bags that come into our lives such as my dogs 50 lb bag of food.  

When designing our menu at Moku Roots we did so with two main considerations. 

One, we wanted to create recipes based around Maui grown produce and re-design classic recipes to feature local ingredients instead of whatever store bought ingredients they typically contain. The taro burger is a great example of the former and our yuca-based (and garbanzo free.. where on earth are garbanzos from anyways??) falafel is one of the latter.

As many people are aware these days, the world’s recycling programs were recently thrown for a loop.  Until January of this year, China was taking a majority of the plastic recyclables from the states and other parts of the world, and then due to a number of factors including poor recycling habits by Americans resulting in dirty, contaminated recyclables, China stopped accepting everything.  This resulted in a nationwide standstill of recyclables. 

Food Waste in America is not something I find myself thinking about nearly as much plastic waste in our oceans and landfills. Perhaps it’s because it’s something we intrinsically try to avoid at home as well as at Moku Roots, whereas avoiding plastics in today’s society is a little trickier.  Lost food equals lost profits of course, or in your home its your hard earned money spent on food and lost into your trash can.