Finding accurate vegan recipes and information can be overwhelming when you have the entire Internet to explore. Becky Striepe, author of “40 Days of Green Smoothies,” owner of Glue and Glitter, blogger at Eat, Drink, Better, and friend of MNN, has come up with a solution – The Great Vegan Search Engine.

 The search engine looks only at 100 percent vegan sites delivering solid vegan recipes, nutrition, and lifestyle goodness, making the chances of getting bad recipes or misinformation less likely.

 I asked Becky to answer a few questions about her new project, and she was happy to share some information about The Great Vegan Search Engine with us all.

 MNN: Explain the concept behind The Great Vegan Search Engine.

Becky Striepe: The Great Vegan Search Engine Project was basically a time-saver for me that I realized might be handy for a lot of other people. I created it to make my own research easier. I was tired of finding bad recipes, incorrect nutritional advice, and other less-than-ideal search results.

 Including "vegan" in a Google search just wasn't refining the results the way I wanted. The Engine accomplishes that by only including super awesome vegan sites. No more guesswork!

 Who created the search engine?

The Engine began as a personal project for my own research needs, but since then I've enlisted some folks to help suggest sites and evaluate new submissions.

 Since launching, I've gotten tons of emails from the vegan community with suggestions for sites that should be included. It started with just me, but now it's this wonderful crowd-sourced community effort! Honestly, I'm floored. It's been amazing to see folks excited about this tool!

 Does the search engine cover only recipe sites, or does it also cover other sites that are of interest to vegans?

It started with a focus on recipes and nutritional information, but since I decided to share this tool I wanted it to be more inclusive. It now includes nutrition, lifestyle, and crafting sites, and folks can use the tabs at the top of search results to filter by the sort of information that you want to see.

 If you're searching for vegan nutritional information, for example, the engine includes sites like The Vegan R.D. and Jack Norris R.D. I trust that these are folks who know their stuff when it comes to vegan nutritional issues and base their recommendations on science.

BDST: 1403 HRS, JUNE-08, 2014