vegan

Vegan fashion police

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This article was originally written by me for Vegan Life Magazine. My column appears each month and you can find out about subscribing online here.

When faced with penning this column, I was slightly unsure of what I could say on the subject of vegan fashion. I’m not celebrated for my sense of style and I’ve been known to wear the same second-hand jeans for a decade.

But after a bit of reflection it became clear.

Fashion shouldn’t simply be about what it does for us personally. In addition to helping us get through the day and making us feel stylish, we need to consider what fashion does to animals and the planet.

There are many reasons why people decide against buying and wearing footwear, clothing, and accessories made from animals.

Of course the number one driver when it comes to dressing vegan is a desire to not contribute to animal suffering. For as long as there have been people not wanting to exploit animals, there have been attempts at dressing more kindly.

There are obvious materials to avoid when you start dressing with compassion such as leather and fur, but it sometimes takes a bit more convincing when it comes to wool. Even though they are not killed directly for their wool, sheep experience ongoing hardship such as exposure to extreme heat and cold while the practice of muelsing sees chunks of flesh being cut from them while alive and awake.

Pleather shoes, plastic skirts, acrylic cardigans, and PVC jackets started to find a following with compassionate fashionistas after initially launching as inexpensive alternatives. Just like we have accidentally vegan food, we have a lot of vegan-friendly fabrics that just happen to be that way.

There was a huge surge in the popularity of leather and fur alternatives in the 1980s and 90s as many celebrities took the cause to heart. Perhaps you remember anti-fur advertisements such as the series featuring rock band The Go-Gos brandishing the slogan ‘We’d rather Go-Go naked than wear fur’?

Purposively-vegan fashion brands started to emerge around this time including Vegetarian Shoes which commenced operations almost 30 years ago and Ethical Wares which came to be around 1993.

More recent high profile footwear and fashion brands include Will’s Vegan Shoes from London and VAUTE fashion label of New York City.

An important part of shopping for vegan fashion is understanding that not all animal-free materials are good for the planet or the people handling them.

Of course the fallout from leather is atrocious as it needs to be drenched in chemicals to stop it decomposing (a reminder that leather is dead animals!) and these chemicals are washed off into waterways therefore creating immeasurable environmental damage, however some alternatives can do their share of long-lasting harm as well. PVC has been used as a leather alternative for decades but we don’t currently have records to show how long this material takes to break down.

But where there is a problem, there is a more vegan-friendly solution.
Lefrik is an all-vegan bag and accessories fashion label using recycled plastic bottles to create fabric. The use of recycled PET fabric from plastic bottles saves 90% of water consumption and has a 75% lower carbon footprint than regular polyester. This fashion initiative is helping to keep plastic waste from landfills and oceans, as well as lessen CO2 emissions.

Other animal-friendly materials finding a home in the world of fashion include hemp, bamboo, pineapple fibre and cork. Many inventive designers are also repurposing and up-cycling vintage fabrics to help lessen the demand for animal skins and furs.

Steve Madden and Skechers now allow customers to search their online footwear catalogues using the ‘vegan’ category, while Reebok is going a step further to create a shoe made from organic cotton uppers and rubbery soles concocted from milled corn.

This mainstreaming of ethical and vegan products has been powered by compassionate fashion pioneers such as Angela Corcoran and James Beal of London ethical boutique and shoe store, The Third Estate.

Angela and James sell ethical vegan fashion to compassionate shoppers all over the planet via their online store and are a treasured local business with their shop front in North London.

I approached the duo to find out what advice they have for people looking to make better fashion choices for animals, workers, and the environment and they were both adamant when saying that there is no such thing as an inexpensive ethical product. If consumers are not paying very much for something, someone else is paying in other ways. A pair of shoes might be animal free, but if they are low-priced that undoubtedly means workers are being paid poorly.

The Third Estate is on the frontline of tackling all of the ethical dilemmas thrown up by fashion. The business promotes labels that put animals, workers, and the planet at the centre of all they do by using animal alternatives, paying fair wages, and working to strict environmental guidelines.

Angela reminded me of that old adage that less is more when it comes to fashion, but maybe in a different sense than the quote was first intended.

She said, “We should buy less fashion and we should think carefully about what we do buy. We can look fabulous and make kinder choices for animals, factory workers, and the planet at the same time.”

Sounds perfect to me. Kinder choices will never go out of style.

Vegan cafe in Norfolk market town

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The market town of Harleston in Norfolk has a new vegan café and it looks sensational!

Hungry Cat Vegan Cafe is a brand new vegan café/deli in Harleston and they are bringing vibrant, colourful, and delicious food to the local population.

The irresistible menu contains wraps, burgers, toasties, panini, smoothies, teas, coffees, cakes as well as take home treats such as cheeses, meats, chocolates, sour cream, cooking cream and whipping cream.

Visitors can fill up on alcoholic drinks including wines and beers in addition to unique super food lattes.

The café is making a name for itself thanks to its savoury plates including scrambled tofu on toast, mushrooms on toast, and the stunning mezze platters. The specials board showcases a rotating menu with standouts including beetroot salad with hummus, pasta, vegetable bake, lasagne, and sweet potato with lentil bake… and don’t forget the sausage rolls and pies.


Of course everything is 100% vegan.

Razz from Hungry Cat sent me some details to make it easier for you to visit:

OPENING TIMES – Tuesday until Friday 9am – 4:30pm. Saturday 9am – 4pm. Sunday 9am – 3pm. Closed on Mondays.

PARKING AND LOCATION – Harleston has a lot of free parking, the closest to the café is at the East of England Co-op supermarket behind them. Take the first road on the left after the café and drive directly into the East of England Co-op. You will only have a two minute walk to the cafe. Hungry Cat is at 25 The Thoroughfare, Harleston IP20 9AS. Click here to see the exact location thanks to Google Maps.

You can follow Hungry Cat on Facebook and Instagram.

Vegan Beer Fest UK says goodbye

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London Vegan Beer Fest was created back in 2013 because the UK capital didn’t have a lot of large scale socialising events targeted just at vegans. Actually, outside of events such as VegfestUK and the Animal Aid Fayre, there weren’t many ways I can recall to celebrate with a vegan beer in your hand.

Following on from a visit to the original Los Angeles Vegan Beer Festival (created and run by Nic Adler and Quarrygirl), I was inspired to create something similar for London that was completely plant-based and focussed around beer.

It started as a small garden party in Bethnal Green for 200 people and over the next six years grew into one of London’s biggest annual vegan parties, welcoming thousands of revellers.

In addition, Vegan Beer Fest UK events were launched in Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, and Coventry.

But here we are in 2019 and the vegan landscape has changed drastically. No longer is a moderately-sized vegan event with curated food, beer, and wine offerings such a unique occurrence.

Just as Hackney Downs Vegan Market found itself unwanted due to the mainstreaming of veganism, Vegan Beer Fest UK events started to feel a bit superfluous in the current climate.

People can buy vegan beer in every single shop, supermarket, and pub in the country while High Street restaurants have made veganism more than normal and common. Large scale music festivals are even showcasing entire vegan food and drink sections.

Josh and I are extremely proud of the events we put together and hosted over the past six years and are sad to be wrapping them up, but it is important to be realistic about how the climate for these types of events has changed.

Vegan Beer Fest UK events are not planned for 2019. Who knows? Maybe you will see them return in a different format in the future.

Josh and I would like to personally thank a number of people who helped make these events fun and valuable community happenings over the past half decade.

Much love to the businesses, breweries, and food traders who traded with our events around the UK. Some of you travelled great distances to be a part of these special days and all of you worked tirelessly to prove that veganism does not mean something substandard.

We have eternal gratitude to our host venues. Thank you for taking a chance on us and giving our little vegan beer events safe and special homes over the years.

I can’t express how important the people are who helped us stage and run the events. Some of you were paid and some of you helped simply out of the goodness of your hearts. All of you understood the value these events added to our community. Thank you.

Follow Your Heart has been associated with our events for several years and this California company specialising in vegan cheeses and salad dressings (including the legendary Vegenaise) made our events possible financially. If you saw some of the margins we were running on most years, you wouldn’t underestimate the importance of Follow Your Heart‘s support. We send all of our love and gratitude to them. They are a big company that truly cares.

I send personal and heartfelt thanks to my dear friend Ricardo who has worked on the event design and posters for several years. He is an extremely talented designer and helped us forge a unique personality for Vegan Beer Fest UK events. His ideas will live on in the hundreds of t-shirts and tote bags bought by attendees during the last few years.

These events would have been impossible without all of the wonderful people who attended each year. Thank you for supporting us and for partying alongside us. You drank beer, you devoured street food, and you helped us raise approximately £1,000 for our featured charity Isla Urbana (securing clean and safe water for people in Mexico) through our Charioke rooms at the beer events. We couldn’t drag people away from those amazing charity karaoke sessions!

Lastly, I want to state just how grateful I am to Josh for the support he showed my initial idea of launching a beer festival. In addition, he needs to be thanked for the ridiculous amount of work he put into making these events happen each year. There were early mornings, long days, car journeys from one end of the UK to the other to meet deadlines, karaoke hosting duties, clean ups, stall building tasks, door and ticket collecting duties, and probably about two dozen more jobs that I can’t recall.

Honestly, running these events on our own was emotionally and physically challenging like few experiences I’ve had.

Josh did them all alongside me because he believed, as I did, that we were making special places for people to feel celebrated in their vegan lifestyle.

Vegan Beer Fest UK events were our way of helping to improve outcomes for non-human animals by making people feel good about their compassionate choices.

I look to the future with memories of these events firmly and fondly in my heart.

Free vegan ice cream in London

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Dappa is a vegan soft serve ice cream company currently taking London by storm.

Not only have they announced a fabulous Summer residency in the capital, but they are giving away 100 free ice creams on Saturday April 20, 2019 t0 celebrate.

The residency kicks off this weekend inside Sourced Market, which is located inside St Pancras Station. They start serving from midday and will be there each week until the end of Summer from Tuesday through Sunday.

To celebrate their opening, they are giving their Instagram followers a chance to nab a free ice cream.

All of the details on how to claim your ice cream are contained in this Instagram post.

Get on over there to register but remember to be early on the day.

If the whole free ice cream extravaganza is too much for you but you wanna stay updated with Dappa, follow them on Instagram.

Vegan in Seville

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Guest post by Mirel.

I hadn’t chosen to visit Seville for the food, but a quick Google told me that some gems awaited me in this tiny but perfectly formed city.

We stayed at the Hotel Fernando III on a bed-and-breakfast basis. Vegan breakfast options were pretty decent; a huge selection of breads, jams, dairy-free margarine spread, cereal, soya milk (already out on the buffet table), three types of juice, nuts, seeds and fresh fruit was all available. From the hot options the baked beans, fried tomatoes and breakfast potatoes were suitable for vegans too.

Directly opposite our hotel was a charming tapas bar called La Bartola. It had good reviews on HappyCow and it was in an incredibly convenient location so we decided to check it out. They had a small but interesting menu with all vegan items clearly marked and knowledgeable staff on hand to provide extra information if needed.

We had the aubergine bruschetta and the sushi, which was battered and deep fried. It sounded like sacrilege at first, but one taste was all the convincing we needed! It was utterly delicious with a crisp outer but still fresh and zingy in the middle. The baked aubergine on the bruschetta had been roasted to perfection before being topped with fresh tomatoes and rocket. It was something I could easily eat every day!

The old town is tiny and very compact so there isn’t much need for public transport, it’s best explored on foot. As we walked down one little road we stumbled upon a lovely little smoothie bar called Milk Away. They sell lots of healthy options like porridge, fruit pots, salad bowls and so on but we had a giant smoothie each. You can choose any combination from the dizzying selection of options they have or pick one of their suggested blends.

While strolling around, we saw vegan options being proudly offered in so many places, sadly we didn’t have time to try them all.

Our final stop was at Bar Alfalfa. A good friend of mine had recommended that we visit this place during our trip, this was the only recommendation we had. It lived up to our expectations with some truly special options packed full of flavour. We had the red pesto bruschetta, pumpkin soup and seeded red pepper hummus with toasted breads. I know nobody can go wrong with hummus but this one definitely surpassed expectations. They told us that the pesto was made from scratch on the premises and the bruschetta was generously topped with toasted pine nuts. The soup was the perfect consistency and came topped with a few extra vegetables.

Black Cat has a second London venue

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The team behind Black Cat, Hackney’s oldest and arguably finest vegan café, have taken over the kitchen at Roadtrip & The Workshop.

Although London can luckily claim a few vegan pubs, this is the first time a bar, and a late night one at that, is catering a fully plant-based menu. (FGV note: I might argue that Karamel in Wood Green is the first)


The aim is to offer approachable vegan food to the multifaceted clientele of the Old Street location, from gig-goers to the followers of sports on the big screens to those looking for a meal to go with their night out in Shoreditch.

Black Cat will be serving up “tapas without borders”, a menu combining vegan versions of traditionally Mediterranean dishes with hints from other parts of the world.

The menu has been tested and served at their Hackney premises, and some have even been served at benefit gigs, music venues, gatherings, and special events.

Regulars to Black Cat need not be disappointed on their first jaunt to Roadtrip & The Workshop: Black Cat’s burgers will be also available and new dishes will appear weekly on the specials board.

Prices range from £3 for freshly-cut chips to £8.50 for the delicious cashew buttermilk corn-crusted seitan burger. The small sharing plates average around £6.

This will be the first vegan residency at Roadtrip & The Workshop, and the venue has gone to great lengths to ensure that diners can not only eat plant-based foods, but that the drinks menu matches the ethics behind the food!

All wine and beers behind the bar are vegan, as is most of the cocktail menu, which is clearly labelled while the venue works with existing suppliers and brands to clarify and find alternatives for its full back-bar of spirits and liqueurs.

Black Cat’s head chef, Nacho, commented: “We’re delighted to be able to bring our food to Old Street, and the whole team are excited to reach as many people as possible to highlight how going out eating vegan is affordable, easy, and most importantly, it can be enjoyed by anyone!”

Carla, who manages the café with Nacho, added: “We’ve been on the lookout for a second site for Black Cat, and when Paul from Roadtrip & The Workshop got in touch, we knew this was the perfect place to bring our tapas menu to. We are super excited and thankful for this opportunity given to us by the venue.”

Both Black Cat venues will be open simultaneously and can be booked for large parties, birthdays, or other celebrations.

Follow Black Cat on Instagram.

Photos used in this post were taken by Al Overdrive.

Eating vegan in Hammersmith

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Vegan food is everywhere in London.

I don’t simply mean there is a lot more than there used to be. I mean there is vegan food ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Take my recent walk through of the Hammersmith Broadway centre. The shopping plaza is overflowing with vegan food options.

Your plant-based cuisine options inside the centre include:

  • Coco di Mama is a London-based chain featuring Italian food and coffee. You can grab delicious comfort food including lasagne
  • Leon is showing us just how spectacular a non-vegan chain can cater for vegans and their new burger is sensational
  • Pret is still making vegan options a priority
  • Wasabi has some stunning vegan sushi, salad and soup options
  • Pulse Juice Bar is a kiosk overflowing with vegan toasted sandwich options, as well as salad and soup to go
  • Crosstown have a kiosk near the front entrance of the centre and always have about five vegan donut flavours

This list isn’t even close to everything vegan in the centre, which also houses a Tesco that has a huge selection of the Wicked Kitchen range of ready meals and sandwiches.

A vegan food revolution inside the Hammersmith Broadway centre is underway and is indicative of what’s happening all over London and the UK.

How are the vegan options in your local shopping centre?

Zero waste market returns for London

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Following a successful launch in 2018, London’s first plant-based, zero waste market is back! This is a not-for-profit initiative with all profits going to Animal Equality, a leading animal protection organisation.

Dedicated to all things eco, Zero Mkt is a one-stop shop with over 40 stallholders. You can purchase bulk grains and fresh produce, upcycled accessories, soaps, candles, cosmetics, vintage clothing and much, much more – all under one roof!

And you get to enjoy tasty vegan food and drink as you browse.

There will also be free workshops taking place throughout the day, including a cooking demo from plant-based, zero waste chef Max La Manna; a talk from Humane Society International (UK) about the environmental impacts of animal agriculture; and an eco embroidery workshop with Offset Warehouse.

Zero Mkt is all about:

  • Zero animal products
  • Zero single-use plastics
  • Zero waste

Surplus meals will be donated to City Harvest and leftover food will be composted and used by the venue’s Gardening Club. Trees will also be planted by event founders, as part of a carbon offsetting mission.

Zero Mkt is taking place on Saturday April 13, 2019 between 10am and 5pm at Saint Thomas More Language College on Cadogan Street, Chelsea.

The nearest underground station is Sloane Square. Lifts and disability accessible toilets are available on site.

Entry into the event and all workshops is totally FREE. Simply download your free ticket in advance on Eventbrite to guarantee entry.

You can follow Zero Mkt on Instagram.

Vegan Delice in Stratford

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This is simply fabulous news.

One of our most popular traders from the now-defunct Hackney Downs Vegan Market is now trading as a pop-up inside Westfield Stratford.

Vegan Delice helped make our weekly Hackney market one of the most popular vegan destinations in the UK, and now Chanel and her team have launched a counter inside the massive Stratford shopping mall.

Chanel’s cupcakes, tray bakes, and cookies are the stuff of legend and now you can get hold of them INSIDE Westfield until March 11, 2019.

This is a huge opportunity for Vegan Delice and I’m thrilled to see a fiercely independent vegan business getting this platform. Nobody works harder than Chanel when it comes to promoting veganism through tasty food.

Get along to support Chanel and make yourself happy with cake!
Follow Vegan Delice on Instagram.

Mexican vegan restaurant in Las Vegas

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It’s been a few years since I last dined with Pancho’s Vegan Tacos and my visit this week reminded me instantly why this is one of the best places to eat in Las Vegas.

With a location about 4 miles off the world famous casino Strip, Pancho’s is the perfect place to load up on Mexican comfort food.

But be warned. The portions are HUGE.

Gil and I were almost outdone by the giant loaded fries… seriously, these things were almost too much.

The rest of the menu reads like one of my dreams. Quesadillas. Pozole. Tacos. Burgers. Cake. Agua frescas.

Follow Pancho’s on Instagram and watch out for extra locations (like Henderson and a mobile truck) and others coming very soon.