Vegan food on QANTAS

I recently flew out of Australia with QANTAS and the vegan food was on the correct side of acceptable.

First up was the main meal an even though the photo is atrocious, the meal itself was tasty and satisfying.

I enjoyed and pasta, vegetable, and tofu dish with a mini vegan bread. This main was also accompanied by a moist slice of chocolate cake and a pack of dried fruit pieces.

Once again, economy lighting and space restrictions mean I feel the need to apologise again for the terrible photography.

Next up was some sort of breakfast muffin sandwich that was so outrageously hot from overheating, I actually couldn’t hold it for fifteen minutes.

Once it cooled, I chomped my way through it and loved it. It was like a breakfast muffin filled with a bean patty.

Finally, I was served a breakfast dish consisting of vegetable and bean rissoles, mushrooms, and tomatoes.

This was accompanied by a bread roll and a packet of quinoa and apple crispy bites.

Of course this food wasn’t going to win awards, but it certainly kept me feeling well-fed and nourished during the 13-hour flight between Brisbane and Los Angeles.

As far as inflight meals go, QANTAS is up there with the best.

Most vegan friendly non-vegan shop in the world

Some non-vegan stores are better for plant-based consumers than others, but I think I might have just been to THE BEST non-vegan store catering to vegans on the planet.

Seriously. This blog post is dozens and dozens of photos of vegan products all taken in one store.

Sam Coco in Brisbane, Australia is a 24-hour (that’s right, they never close!) fruit store and butchers that for some reason also has an amazing amount of vegan groceries.

I don’t know what else to say except please take your time to savour all my photos below.

These photos don’t represent even close to everything vegan available in the store.

You can visit the Sam Coco website.

Vegan food in an airport

Veganism has come a long way but us plant eaters can sometimes still be caught short at airports.

This is why I was so surprised to find an eatery in the domestic terminal of Sydney airport with incredible vegan options.

As you can see in the image above, there is a huge vegan menu sitting alongside their non-vegan menu.

Tacos. Burritos. Salads. Quesadilla. Just so many tasty options and the big attraction is that Mad Mex offers vegan cheese!

I was absolutely bowled over by how fresh and tasty this food was at the airport in Sydney.

Mad Mex also have dozens of locations spread out around Australia so check their website for all the spots you can devour these vegan options.

You can also follow Mad Mex on Instagram.

Understanding my privilege

The following is an excerpt from my first book Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t.

While I am sometimes marginalised and oppressed with regards to my sexuality and weight, I understand that I also live with extreme privilege because I am a white, cis- gendered and able-bodied man. It’s the white man part of me that gets a lot of people to listen to the fat and gay parts of me.

The modern world is designed to reward me for simply being me at the expense of people who are not me.

We need to know our own place in the world in order to be the most positive force we can be. So, with that in mind, let me start by exploring my understanding of my privilege for a short while before we move on to a plan of action. (Apologies. Plan of action is included in the book but not here)

I grew up in a poor family with a lot of abuse and sadness in a town where gay kids like me were routinely harassed by law enforcement and local homophobes, but I survived when many people around me didn’t.

Inequitable systems of oppression were in place to benefit me as a white man even while I was being targeted for my perceived sexuality. People around me who didn’t present as white men had safety and opportunity taken away or denied to them.

I left school at age fifteen and moved out of my family home. Even though I didn’t complete the most basic high school requirements, I was never out of employment from the moment I left the school gates for the final time.

Of course, a lot of that employment was dreadful and underpaid, but the point is that even as an uneducated young person I was employed for any position for which I applied and nobody can tell me my appearance wasn’t responsible. I was able to earn a desperately needed income for food and accommodation when a lot of people my age were discriminated against because of institutionalised racism embedded in Australian society.

An adult close to me sexually abused women in my family and these women have lived with the ongoing trauma of that abuse. As a young man, I was statistically less likely to be abused by this person and I wasn’t.

My teenage friends and I were searched by the police with alarming regularity during our often drunken nights wandering the streets of our hometown, however, indigenous Australian young people in the same predicament didn’t get off with just a warning or even with their lives in a lot of instances.

The worst thing to happen to my group of white friends was watching our cheap sparkling wine being poured down the storm water drain while the police laughed at us and ridiculed our clothing. We were not arrested, detained or physically assaulted thanks to our white skin and we were afforded privilege, consideration and relative physical safety during these acts of police surveillance. This was not the case for young people who didn’t look like us.

There is a story I think of quite often involving a young man in my hometown. He lived with a physical disability that resulted in him walking with a limp. I would smile at him as he passed by my workplace maybe once a week. We were the same age and we both recognised the other
as a queer teenager in a sad town where our kind was not celebrated. We both started going to the same gay bar as teenagers where we mixed with a lot of older people.

One terrible night, my hometown comrade was targeted by an older man who took him to a dark alley behind the gay bar and brutally bashed him until he was no longer alive. I found myself in countless compromised situations as a young gay man but I didn’t find myself targeted for living with a disability. To understand how people with disabilities are more often targets of violence, search for statistics in your local area and be prepared to be upset by what you find.

Following on from decades of dead end jobs, I secured a place at university to follow up on my interest and desire to become a schoolteacher. The four-year undergraduate degree culminated with a multi-month practical placement in a real classroom. I was the only person out of my group of friends offered a job by the school at the end of the practical teaching placement. I was also the only one of said group who was identifiable as a white man and I’m comfortable in saying that I was nowhere close to being the most accomplished or hard-working student teacher amongst my cohort.

I’m not reflecting on these memories to get a pat on the back for being progressively aware, I’m telling you because it is crucial for those of us living with and benefitting from privilege to understand that the animal rights movement is not separate to everything I’ve described above.

I have discovered that if I want to be a worthy activist for animals I must also learn to resist and challenge oppression in multiple forms within vegan circles. Vegan businesses, vegan activist groups, vegan socials, and vegan online spaces all operate within the same systemic framework of oppression that favours me in the ways I described above. If I am being rewarded, someone is being oppressed. That is how it works.

If you would like to read the follow up to this section, you can order my book from independent bookstores as well as online via WH Smith, Foyles, and Amazon. The book is also available via Audible for listening.

New vegan chicken pizzas by Fry’s

Great news, pizza lovers!

The Fry Family Food Co. has just launched two amazing-looking vegan pizzas featuring their legendary chicken-style strips.

Both the Smoky BBQ Woodfired Pizza and the Mediterranean Woodfired Pizza feature the chicken-style strips and are currently being sold by Coles supermarkets all around Australia.

The famous meat-free brand has suggested on social media that the pizzas will start to make their way into other stores soon and as they are made in Italy, it would make sense to find them in the UK before too long.

Yay for vegan pizza!

You can follow Fry Family Food Co. on Instagram.

My childhood memories of animals

This is an exclusive excerpt from my book Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t. Published by Nourish.

My auntie Jackie once took me to the circus and you had better believe me when I say the animals outnumbered the humans. I lost track of the number of creatures forced to jump through flaming hoops, walk on wires or drive tiny motor vehicles.

I had grown a lot taller than other children my age by the time my circus trip was foisted upon me and the donkey assigned to carry me around the ring did not look pleased with the prospect. My brown-corduroy adorned legs dragged in the dirt as the hot lights beat down and depraved-looking clowns smirked at the tall kid on the sad donkey. I’m fairly certain that was my final experience at any form of circus, but I think more due to the mortification and shame felt by me rather than concern for animal welfare.

Christmas in my hometown was always brutal. First of all, it was always sweltering hot and furthermore we had the joy of sitting around with relatives ranging from mildly to wildly racist. Animals featured heavily Christmas day, from the pig-now-called-ham wrapped in a water- soaked pillow case to keep it fresh to the family dog sitting under the table hoping for scraps. Prawns, crabs, chickens and turkeys who used to all be alive at some point were scattered around the buffet in order for me and the people I didn’t like all that much to experience festive cheer.

So, animals were absolutely everywhere in my life as a child in Australia, but I honestly didn’t give them much more thought than what I have described above. Not one adult explained to me the difference between prawns on the table and the dog under it. Understanding how animals lived and died was not my concern. I was socialised into thinking animals were available to eat, wear and prod with sticks unquestionably.

That’s what I think I have in common with a lot of you turning these pages right this moment.

Reflect for a moment on just how much animals were used in your young life, but how little thought was given to the how, what, when and why. Did adults and people responsible for your emotional growth explain the process of factory farm to dining table? The shark took a chunk from the turtle (another story from this chapter) just as I watched crabs being boiled alive in my kitchen at Christmas time, but they were all just ‘things’ in my mind. Objects. Just like the pine cones and the cliffs and the polished glass fragments at the seaside.

I didn’t understand that these animals were capable of fear and pain because nobody told me, and I would bet my last block of tofu they didn’t tell you either.

If you would like to get hold of a copy of this book, you can order online via Amazon.

If you are in the UK, you can order online via The Hive. This is a great way to support your local independent retailers as your order will be fulfilled by a high street store.

You can also buy directly from independent vegan businesses such as What The Pitta in Brighton, Essential Vegan in Shoreditch, and Ms Cupcake in Brixton.

You can also buy online from Foyles and WH Smith.

Vegan store damaged in fire

There has been some bad news this week out of Melbourne, Australia.

The Cruelty Free Shop in Fitzroy was severely damaged as a fire that started in the back alley behind the shop quickly spread to the shop, destroying stock and equipment in the process.

See a post made by the store owners below.

The store has asked for support in the form of people ordering stock through their online store. This will help them get back on their feet following on from the fire as quickly as possible.

The online store houses more than 3,500 products!

Of course they ship all over Australia, but unfortunately they do not send goods internationally.

If you don’t live in Australia but would like to support the Cruelty Free Shop in their efforts to rebuild the Fitzroy shop, now would be a great time to order a box of goodies for your Australia-based friends and family.

Click here to shop now.

FGV book in Australia

I was tagged in a fabulous post on social media a few days ago.

As you all know (because I never shut up about it), my first ever book titled Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t was published a few months ago.

But in news that has just reached me, my book is now available in Australia!

It’s a nice feeling to know this book is finally available to buy in the country where I spent my formative years.

There are so many stories from Australia packed into the book, from my childhood spent marauding across Queensland beaches to my young adult years in Sydney share houses.

If you are in Australia and would like to buy a copy, you can ask your local independent bookstore to order it in. Alternatively, you can order online from Booktopia.

Follow this vegan band

One of my favourite bands out of Australia is Love Like Hate.

Heather and Sonja write, record, and perform irresisitible and atmospheric pop music.

I was encouraged to remind you about them after I saw the following Instagram post from the band.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BkD-EBrF1Ra/

Love Like Hate isn’t just a vehicle for fantastic music, the people involved are also fierce social justice advocates. Both Heather and Sonja are long term vegans and both are continually using their platform to speak out against injustice.

Please take some time to listen to Love Like Hate over on Bandcamp.

Follow Love Like Hate on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Vegan eatery in Melbourne

I’m not sure I’ve ever been so impressed by vegan food photos.

When I stumbled across the Instagram account for Melbourne café Olivia Spring Café, my mind went straight into overdrive with plans on how and when I could visit Australia again.

Before I show you a few of my favourite photos, take a read of this description of the business and how they got their name:

Cute cosy cafe serving the most affordable and delicious vegan food – Genuinely welcoming service and fresh ingredients ONLY! We’re very particular about food from the way we make them to how we serve them on your plate. We want to bring healthy plant-based cuisine closer to as many people as possible. Olivia Spring Cafe is a family business, named after our daughter Olivia who was born in Spring time. She’s the soul of the place, playful and talkative. You’ll probably see her in the weekends, hanging around telling tales or dancing.

This is a great addition to the Melbourne vegan scene.

You can follow Olivia Spring Café on Facebook and Instagram. You can see the exact location of the café thanks to Google Maps.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bg1-iXlD3rf/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BgcO4U-lbP8/

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bf9S1_wDkkI/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BdvsgHXjEGF/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BcvNXVIjqvB/