Get free cards to thank restaurants for serving vegan food.
England’s most vegan-friendly cities are Brighton, Oxford, Edinburgh, Cambridge, York, Newcastle, Norwich and Nottingham (shout-out too to Cardiff and Glasgow – the days of deep-fried Mars Bars are long-gone). It’s pretty cool now to boast a vegan-friendly town, with a culture of plant-based food in compostable containers (rather than towns littered with fast food wrapping with wildlife harmed in road accidents from scavenging old bits of meat).
Berlin (Germany) has the highest amounts of vegans by ratio on earth due to strong holistic health culture too (naturopaths have the same status as medical doctors). So it’s really easy to find food, restaurants and hotels – they even have vegan supermarkets. Portland (US) is another vegan paradise with street carts and malls. So why not try to emulate them?
- Ask pubs, shops and restaurants to cater for you, explaining that vegans don’t wants palm oil or coconut oil harvested by monkeys either. Focus on local and sustainable.
- Write a letter to the local paper, asking for better foods, listing brands as often they are not sold, because shops are not awareof them.
- Learn to cook, then use books to make your own meals from natural foods, rather than scour looking for ‘fake’ alternatives.
- Be polite, and always thank restaurants for making the effort. Recommend your favourite recipe books, so you don’t end up with ‘vegetable rice followed by fruit salad’.
How to Help Restaurants Go Vegan
Although there is some sympathy for chefs who don’t know how to cook vegan foods, there are now thousands of cookbooks (any bookstore sells a dozen or more). So there’s no excuse for them not to rustle up a few offerings, if they are blessed with cooking skills. They can also find professional help from Vegan Hospitality.
For cooking in quantity, The Professional Vegan Cookbook offers recipes ideal for restaurants, hotels, weddings and catering. Chef Brian McCarthy includes tips on lowering production costs, pricing and menu suggestions. You can find wholesale brochures for ingredients at Vegetarian Express. And find new customers by offering discounts to members of Vegan Society, Vegetarian Society, Animal Aid and Viva! (all get discount cards at participating eateries).
