It's a Green House

In this post I talked about our recent trip around Europe and there are some restaurant tips for the cities we visited. I also have some general tips on how to have a nice holiday, and not live off of chips: Plan ahead. I researched each city we were visiting and saved web pages as PDF's in my phone (in case we didn't have wifi access) with details of vegan friendly places. Sites like Happy Cow and TripAdvisor list vegetarian and vegan restaurants. Or just a google search will find you plenty of sites.  You can also download areas of google maps to use offline to take with you, and can search for addresses in it as usual so this can come in handy with finding restaurants from the PDF's. If you can't plan ahead that much, i.e. if you don't know where you will be staying, don't wait until you are hungry to try to find somewhere to eat. We tend to keep an eye out while walking around sightseeing in the day for places to go for dinner, look at menus outside ...

I went on my first few trips this year since I went vegan, and I didn't end up just eating chips! The first were short breaks to London and Dublin. There was plenty of choice and being English speaking places I could ask for what I needed, and I knew the chain restaurants I could go to if I had to. Then the big one, we drove around Europe for 2 weeks. Hm, that's a lot of different languages, cities, countries and cuisines. Didn't pick an easy one to start with! There is always chips, and I knew I could just go and buy some fruit etc if I really struggled, but it would be nice not to have to. As it turns out the only time I had to just have a plate of chips was in a random service station in the middle of nowhere in Germany so I think I did quite well. Anyone visiting Brugge, Amsterdam, Berlin, Prague, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Switzerland or Luxembourg...here's what I found! Click on restaurant names for links to their websites. We stayed in most places 2 ni...

After my first festival season as a vegan, I thought I'd share my tips. Most of these translate to vegetarian or other diets too. Tips for eating vegan at festivals: Prepare - If you have a food allergy or restricted diet you are likely used to taking food places with you anyway. I plan to take at least - granola/cereal bars, instant porridge pots (just ask vendors for hot water if you aren't taking a camping stove and kettle, sometimes it's free too although sometimes they charge), a few bananas and oranges, a couple of packs of sweets and some uht portions of soy milk (I got mine off ebay) for cups of tea. If you are not taking food then at any festival (even smaller ones) there are always going to be chips, jacket potatoes, some form of potato wedges/waffle/hash brown, some falafel type wrap and if you're lucky a veggie burger that's vegan. Also look out for mexican food as often that can be altered by asking for no cheese and sour cream. If you're going...

Following my post here on unexpected benefits of going vegan, I started thinking about the things that people told me would happen and didn't. Those things you hear all the time as a vegetarian or vegan, like protein, B12 blah blah blah. You'll never get enough protein Nobody ever cares about how much protein you are getting until they learn you are vegan. I get plenty of protein in my diet, and can supplement it if I need to. Protein is in so many more things than meat and dairy anyway. Food will be really boring/Doesn't vegan food just consist of lettuce? There are thousands of plants, spices, carbs and pulses we can eat. Why does cutting out meat and dairy mean that I will not have any variety? My diet the last couple of months has been more varied and interesting in some ways. In other ways I can still eat everything I could before, like pizza, burgers, pasta, cakes, biscuits, sandwiches, chilli, roast dinner etc etc etc. I could never go vegan/vegan food is...

Having recently gone vegan I noticed a few things happen that I didn't expect and I've been making a note of these things as I go, as I know once I get a bit more experienced this new phase gets forgotten! I didn't give up dairy with the aim of any of these things happening, but they are all very welcome. If you are thinking of going vegan, or just curious as to how it goes, then these are the benefits you may not expect: You will automatically start eating better, even if you aren't trying to, I expected to eat more fruit and veg but didn't think about the fact that I would eat more variety of fruit and veg or that I would make healthier food choices due to choosing vegan options. It's not all health food though if that's not what you want! You will get excited about food again. I'm trying new recipes, new foods and new ingredients that I never considered before.  You will learn to appreciate your supportive family and friends, and learn who your ...

My second post on vegan food through the past month, don't worry I'm not going to spam you with food pictures every month but just documenting my finds over the first few weeks! November saw some new meals for me, my first roast dinner at someone else's house for one. My dad cooked it for me, I brought Linda McCartney pies and left one in his freezer for next time, he did all the veg and potatoes with no dairy :) We had the second one shortly after and Toms mums and I took Tesco nut roasts. First take away too, from Eurasia in Cheltenham - no photo as we got a power cut as it arrived so we ate in the dark! Tom likes an Indian takeaway so I knew this would be a hurdle to cross and bulk emailed a load of local restaurants to see who offered a vegan choice. I had mushroom sagwalla, chapati and poppadoms - just not having the mint and yoghurt dip. I like a korma so am looking for somewhere that does vegan korma (theirs has dairy), but it was a really good alternative and ...

Recently I started substituting all of our cosmetic and cleaning products to cruelty free versions. I don't know why some animal tested products had found their way back in but they had. Maybe I just got lazy over the years or to be honest I think I just stopped checking products after a while as I thought I knew who tested and who didn't. Also AVON started testing on animals again. Which screwed up my whole system as ALL of my cosmetics were from them!! So I had to restart the whole process of finding cruelty free cosmetics, and I thought I might as well redo the cleaning products while I was at it. Seriously AVON wtf, like wt actual f. Anyway... It is so much easier nowadays as you can check in store on your phone if a company tests on animals (when I went veggie in the olden days it was if in doubt don't buy it, go home and look it up or ring them on the landline and ask...then go back and buy it if it was ok). I also use facebook groups and this website or thi...

A lot of questions people ask me generally, or if they are considering giving up meat and/or dairy, is about eating at restaurants.  I had my first meal out as fully vegan last week (before I've noted vegan choices but not necessarily always picked them), I made a little extra effort than I had before and rang the restaurant we planned to go to in advance to check what they had available. We went to the Storyteller in  Cheltenham . They were very helpful on the phone advising that at least 2 of the vegetarian options could be made vegan easily if I just ask for no cheese or dressing. It’s south west American food, the fajitas and burrito could easily be made vegan I was informed. It was no  hassle  ordering, the waiter got what I wanted  straight  away and adjusted my order with no problems. It was also really nice and I got extra guacamole with my starter as I wasn't having the cheese dip, without me even asking. Great service, and the foo...

First few weeks vegan went well! Feeling good, lost weight/bloat not sure but I look slimmer around the middle, eating well, not hungry, actually liking the lack of fat and grease from cheese. All in all it's been an easy-ish transition this time and I think it's going to stick. Here's my finds, lessons and gratuitous food pictures. I can still have  macaroni and broccoli 'cheese' I went to a vegan fair on the 31st of October, so I went vegan fully 2 weeks before. I figured I'd be able to find any gaps in what I wanted and fill them at the fair. I was a little disappointed in the food choices there, a lot of bakery stuff so I had some nice cakes but I was looking for some food staples and a lot of it was cosmetics, accessories, and animal charities. Don't get me wrong all really good just not what I was hoping for as a new vegan. Rice, tofu, spinach and nutritional yeast However I did speak to some people from Pulsin' and got some vegan prote...

Part time vegan I've been a vegetarian for almost 15 years now, meaning I don't eat any animal products. No not even fish, and no I don't miss bacon (I miss haribo tangfastics, chicken and mayo sandwiches and ordering whatever I want off a menu just fyi), and no if I was trapped on a desert island with a pig I wouldn't eat it... Now the usual questions are answered...my rationale behind stopping eating meat (so far as I remember, I was 14) was that I was against animal cruelty, also it's healthier to eat less red meat and I never have to worry about getting my 5 a day. I recently also started reducing my dairy intake, not going vegan necessarily (I don't check every label and ingredient) but let's say part time vegan, I've substituted as much dairy as I can so far...I'll probably go the whole hog sometime this is how I went veggie.  For anyone thinking of going veggie or just curious, some of the myths and misconceptions I've encounter...