London vegan news, reviews & events
There are some situations in life that are baffling. How did I end up here? Why is this happening to me?
Yesterday was one of those situations. I visited the Tokyo DisneySea theme park (one half of the Disney Tokyo Resort) as typhoon wind and rain lashed down on the area.
It is an experience I’ll never forget!
Throughout the soaking I endured, at least the park did a good job of keeping me sustained with vegan food options.
Read more below.
One of the fastest growing fast food brands in North America just got a financial boost and vote of confidence from a Disney star.
As more and more people come to understand the value of a vegan lifestyle, a lot of people are also investing in plant-based companies. 2019 is the year that saw a whole bunch of celebrities and influencers associating themselves with leading companies focussed on the vegan and plant-based field.
Mena Massoud, the start of Disney’s Aladdin live action remake, has announced he has become an investor in San Diego-based Plant Power Fast Food.
Although best known as an actor, Massoud is recognised by his fans and social media followers as a passionate advocate of a plant-based diet. He is the founder of the travel show Evolving Vegan and is also known to regularly share photos of vegan cuisine or his thoughts about the vegan lifestyle with his 2.4 million Instagram followers.
Since opening their first location in San Diego in January 2016, Plant Power Fast Food has grown to a five unit chain with four additional locations in current development. They also have a new food truck operation in Los Angeles.
Describing his love of the brand, Mena states, “I’ve spent a great deal of time touring North America visiting a lot of plant-based restaurants. Plant Power Fast Food immediately stuck out as a big player. They have massive ambitions in the space, and they don’t just outsource their products like many of the other companies in the marketplace. There is great attention to detail, and we share the same outlook, that in order to cause real change, we have to make plant-based living accessible to the masses.”
He added that a vegan diet is much more than a fad or passing trend: “It’s about evolving in the right direction so that we can help save our planet, our bodies and our fellow living souls.”
You can follow Mena Massoud on Instagram.
You can follow Plant Power on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Visit the chain’s website online here.
Even though this is intended to be a brief blog post about vegan snacks available in Disneyland, I can’t go past telling you how problematic a trip to the theme park was for me.
Some of the old-fashioned attractions are straight up racist and I can’t believe they still exist in 2016. From animatronic cannibals and head hunters on the Jungle Cruise to the drum rhythms and sexualised dancing of ‘Africans’ on the Small World ride, the park is a colonial throwback like nothing else I’ve seen.
I half expected Michael Caine to shoot someone with a pistol at some point during the day.
The rest of the park features sexist language and imagery, romanticised depictions of frontier times and heteronormative merchandise like ‘his and hers’ matching Mickey Mouse t-shirts.
I felt extremely confronted, as though I had been transported back to a time before people knew better.
Now that is off my chest…
If you find yourself at Disneyland in California for any reason, here are a few vegan snacks you might purchase to help get you through the torrent of essentialism thrown at you.
