London vegan news, reviews & events
This guest post was written by Rachel Cousins from hungryhouse, the UK’s leading online takeaway platform that features restaurants across the country including Glasgow, Birmingham and Nottingham. I’ve used this service in the past to order from the vegan menu at The Grove Cafe in Leeds.
Rachel gives a fantastic overview of the recent Vegan & Vegetarian Summer Festival in Berlin. It sounds like a lot of fun and only increases my desire to visit this city.
Take it away, Rachel!
In some parts of the world, it can be a struggle to be a vegan.
If you are located a long distance from a major city, plant-based foods and cruelty-free supplies can be difficult to track down let alone finding a vegan social event in your neighbourhood. London spoils me for choice, but I never forget what it was like to live in smaller, less vegan-friendly locations. Heck… I was even situated (for a short period) in Rockhampton, Australia. If you care to investigate, I believe you will discover Rockhampton is considered the beef capital of Australia.
For isolated vegans, the light at the end of the lonesome tunnel often takes the form of a local vegan/veggie support group. Likeminded individuals get together to share advice, recipes, food, friendship and interests. Your local support group can often be the only time your choice to be cruelty-free is taken seriously.
There are a huge number of veggie/vegan support groups all over the UK but as Leeds is close to my heart, I would like to focus on the Northern city for a moment… specifically the Leeds Vegetarians and Vegans group.
Following on from the wildly-popular posts about airline food (one by me and one by my friend The Vegan Butcher), I put out an open call for readers to submit their own stories of vegan food served in the air.
A few people have sent in anecdotes relating to the animal-free food they have been served inflight. I have posted some below for your reading pleasure.
Please get in touch if you would like to see your food in the sky experience posted on Fat Gay Vegan. We are going to start up a nifty collection of vegan airline food stories at this rate! I especially encourage you to send photos with your reviews. Seat belt sign has been switched on. I hear the food trolley rattling down the aisle…
Shelly of Las Vegas writes:
CLICK HERE TO SIGN or read on for more details
Do you remember when we all joined together as one vegan superpower and got Holland & Barrett to reverse their decision to not stock the Fry’s Vegetarian frozen vegan product range?
Well, we are about to flex our collective plant-based consumer muscle once again to ensure the same vegan food options are available all over the UK… in Sainsbury’s!
What is this campaign all about?
Consumers choose foods free of animal products for many reasons. Scientific evidence suggests the production of plant-based food contributes significantly less to environmental damage and climate change than animal farming.
Many religions require devotees to adhere to meat and dairy free diets during certain celebrations. People often choose a diet free of animal products for ethical reasons as they don’t agree with modern factory farming methods. Health is another major factor. A plant-based diet is completely free from cholesterol.
With plant-based food choices becoming increasingly popular amongst UK consumers, it is time for major food suppliers such as Sainsbury’s to answer this call for more vegan choices in their aisles. Brands such as Quorn and Linda McCartney have monopolised veggie shelves in UK supermarkets but very few of their items cater to people who want animal-free food. Quorn and Cauldron have the biggest presence of any veggie brands in the UK. The trouble is, they are the same company and clearly have little interest in serving the vegan community. Most of their products are not animal-free and those that are, are not even labeled suitable for vegans.
We don’t want egg in our food. We want burgers, pops, pies, schnitzels, sausages, sausage rolls, chunky strips and everything else made by Fry’s Vegetarian because it is all vegan!
What can you do?
Click here to sign the petition to urge Sainsbury’s to carry vegan food by Fry’s. The petition will be sent to Sainsbury’s on your behalf.
Add extra steam to the campaign by emailing the following Sainsbury’s contacts to strengthen your request:
sarah.lich@sainsburys.co.uk Category Product Developer
alison.atkin@sainsburys.co.uk Buyer
richard.hall@sainsburys.co.uk Head of Frozen
andy.phelps@Sainsburys.co.uk Category Manager
Post a link to this page everywhere. Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest. Google+. Tumblr. Post it on message boards and your own blogs. Email it to family and friends and enemies. Get everyone you know to take one minute out of their day to sign the petition. Use any part of the text on this page in any way you see fit.
Leave a comment below letting us know if you have emailed/signed the petition/heard back from Sainsbury’s. Like all big businesses, they are not going to take notice unless we have big voices.
My recent trip to the gorgeous Mexican city of Xalapa was downright sensational. I enjoyed a long hike through coffee and banana farms, I took in the sights of the glorious Teocelo waterfall and I swam during a torrential tropical rainstorm.
Oh, I almost forgot. I ate a lot of vegan food, too.
The city of Xalapa in the state of Veracruz won’t win any awards for being vegan-friendly. Heck, I even passed a restaurant that proudly proclaimed ‘NO VEGETARIANO’ on its front sign. Yes, it can be difficult to eat plant-based in Xalapa but the addition of a Loving Hut to the landscape has certainly brightened the outlook.
Loving Hut outlets are seemingly popping up everywhere and it is making vegan travel easier. After our gruelling day of hiking and sightseeing, Josh and I were desperately in need of some recharging. Loving Hut Xalapa came to the rescue in a big way.
Following on from the immense interest shown in my recent post about vegan airline food, I have started to ask people to share their words and pictures about their own experiences.
My friend The Vegan Butcher has kindly supplied me with a written account of her meal on a recent Air Canada flight. Doesn’t sound too shabby!
If you would like to submit a story about a vegan meal you have been served in the air, please email me (with photos) at fatgayvegan at hotmail dot com. I would love to feature some guest contributors. Let’s build a library of vegan airline food stories!
Take it away, The Vegan Butcher.
I don’t plan my eating around religious concerns, unless you consider indiscriminate vegan overeating a religion. My food consumption, like all areas of my life, exists outside organised religion.
But my food atheism certainly doesn’t prohibit me from benefiting from belief systems that instruct devotees to separate their animal products when eating.
Enter Kosher Kingdom of North London.
Mexico City is turning up some vegan surprises, that’s for sure.
I have purchased chocolate soya milk in grocery stores, enjoyed massive jars of tofu/olive paté and let’s not forget about the wonderful vegan cupcakes made right here in Distrito Federal. Oh no, I haven’t been going hungry.
Amongst this cornucopia of hidden vegan delights is one of the loveliest food outlets anywhere in the world. Vegans and vegan-curious, please let me introduce you to Falafelito.
TOPAS bring some of the best vegan meat products in the world to my plate with their Wheaty range. The fact they are market-leaders is non-negotiable and I’ve known it for a long time. If you haven’t tasted their Chorizo sausage, you haven’t lived.
But what I didn’t know about TOPAS is that they produce a small and mouthwatering range of vegan pâtés. I recently discovered the three flavours of pâté made by this vegan company and it is safe to say I will only be growing more familiar with them in the future.
The TOPAS pâté range features paprika, marjoram and mushroom flavours. Most of the ingredients used are organically-sourced and all of the flavours are gluten free.
Whenever I am asked to name my favourite vegan snack (and that happens a lot actually), one name keeps coming up again and again.
Moo Free Chocolates.
Moo Free Chocolates are a constant in my life. Whether I am breaking off a chunk of their amazing caramelised hazelnut bar or sinking my teeth into an award-winning praline, you can be assured barely a week goes by where I haven’t gobbled a gorgeous Moo Free treat.
It’s obvious I’m already a die-hard supporter of this tremendous vegan confectioner, but my dedication has only been further cemented by the release of their new Mini Moos line of chocolates. I have fallen head over heels for these delights.
