All posts filed under: varia

Vegan eating out in Ostend

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Food’ Oostende, the culinairy department of the tourist office of Ostend (visitOostende), asked me to list some restaurants in Ostend, where vegans are welcome. So here is a shortlist with places with vegan options (or offering vegan on request), on their website. If you want to read reviews of places I have visited in Ostend (restaurants, shops, …) see this #tag on my blog vegan Oostende . For a more extensive list of places in Ostend (and other places in Belgium and beyond, see the list on my blog: restaurants outside Bruges

New Platform: Crip HumAnimal: about ableism and speciesism

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I have created a new space Crip HumAnimal, to specifically address the interconnections between ableism and speciesism. A place to highlight stories of disabled vegans, a place to address the ableism in the vegan and animal rights movement. Some of the topics that I want to address on Crip HumAnimal are mentionned here. Where you can also find an explanation on why I choose the name Crip HumAnimal. Any help with spreading the word is really appreciated. Also, if you have any recommendations, input, suggestions, I’d love to hear! website: https://criphumanimal.org/ facebookpage: https://www.facebook.com/criphumanimal/

Nearly one third of youngsters find vegan labelled products more appealing

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A recent US study by Morning Consult on consumer trends covered these three topics: 1) online versus in store shopping habits 2) purchasing considerations and 3) product labelling. In this last section on product labelling, respondents were asked to indicate whether respective terms made food more or less appealing to them. The terms included free range, glutenfree, fresh, natural flavours and another dozen or so terms. A vegan labelled product Stats with respect to the term vegan: Overall, 17% said the term vegan made the product more appealing to buy. 35% said the term vegan made the product neither less nor more appealing. Another 35% said it made the product less appealing. And 12% said they didn’t know, or had no opinion. So that means that over half of respondents (52%) find a vegan labelled product more appealing or neither less or more appealing (combined). ‘Fresh’ was found to be the most appealing term to label a product with, while ‘vegan’ was overall the least. 81% of respondents say that a food or beverage product would be more appealing …

Some changes on the blog: about me, google map and new lay out

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Up till now, I’ve been writing this blog more or less anonymously (the same for my other blog in Dutch, Graswortels). It felt more important to me to have a digital platform were I could lay ‘my vegan egg’ (it’s a Dutch expression, I don’t know whether this translates well in English 😉 ) to have a place where I could drop some ideas, without having to be in the picture myself. But I realise that people want to know something about the person who is writing the blog. To be able to place it in a context, to be able to put a face to it. A blog is of course a personal story, my thoughts and considerations about issues related to veganism and animal rights, so it is interesting to know whose mind those considerations have sprung from.   So I have decided to take the plunge, and a couple of weeks ago, I have added some information about myself. Since I have also made some vlogs, and my face is now linked to the …

Vegan brownie at Cat Café Dreamcathers, Ghent

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Dreamcathers is a cat cafe in between the city hall and the Vrijdagmarkt, in a small alley. It is not far from vegan lunch bar Mie Vie. There are a couple of resident cats who are up for adoption. Dreamcathers work together with the organisations Dierenasiel Gent (shelter Ghent) and Kat Zoekt thuis (Cat looking for a home). Dreamcathers has vegan cakes and brownies and also offers drinks to enjoy while being among the cats (I think all the cakes are vegan, but not quite sure). Cats and vegan cake: a great combination! 🙂 I was here a couple of weeks ago with a friend, after our lunch at vegan cafe Mie Vie. Dreamcatchers works with timeslots. It is advised to make a reservation, but you can always try to inquire on the day itself to check availability. So I did (telephoned beforehand) and it was no problem to come over. The entrance fee is 3 euro per person (if you become a member, which is 10 euro, the entrance fee is reduced to 1,5€). …

A look inside Bed & Breakfast AM/PM in Bruges

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Bruges is visited by millions of tourists each year. Some only spend one day in Bruges, others come for a short city trip and stay overnight, possibly combined with excursions to other touristic hotspots in Flanders, like Flanders Fields or the coastal area. As I live near Bruges myself, I hardly know any places to stay overnight (or at least, not well enough to recommendend any). To my surprise, I saw a vegetarian bed and breakfast listed on Happy Cow last year, called AM/PM.  And through some mutual friends, I also heard that the hosts of the B&B, Tiny and Kevin, are more and more exploring veganism, and that they also serve vegan breakfast! (NOTE: see update below) As such, I asked them if I could pay them a visit, to take a look inside! And so a couple of weeks ago, I had a nice chat with host Tiny, about the renovation of the house, their journey to veganism and their experiences with running a bed & breakfast in Bruges! Bed & breakfast AM/PM is …

About the smallest room of the restaurant!

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Readers who have been following this blog, or who have read some of our restaurant reviews, will have noticed a peculiarity that we try to include in our restaurant reviews. We post pics of the food, the interior, we write about how we were welcomed, the service, and the atmosphere, and …. we also try to include a photo of the smallest room of the restaurant. Well, mostly the toilet or restroom is the smallest room of the restaurant, although we have also encountered some where you could almost park a car 😉 ‘Why are there photos of toilets in some of your restaurant reviews?’ A restaurant experience is formed by many things. First, and foremost, the food of course, but there are many other factors  that shape our impression: comfort, tidyness, service, attitude, location, accessibility, choice of vegan options, presence of non-vegan items, etc. And yes, also the state of the toilets or restrooms. Hygiene is of course important in a setting that serves food to clients. How clean a toilet is (or not) might be …

A relaxed holiday at La Maison du Vert, Ticheville, France

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Restaurant review #140  – La Maison du Vert is a vegetarian bed and breakfast in Normandy, France. In the evening, La Maison du Vert also opens as a restaurant to outside guests, so it could also be considered a hotel (although there are only 3 rooms for overnight stay). We spent a couple of days here at the beginning of Summer, after a short stay in Paris (La Maison du Vert is about a 2 and a half hour drive from Paris). We had made our reservation many months before going to Normandy, to be sure to have a room at La Maison du Vert. Vegan options are really scarce in Normandy, so it was comforting to know that we did not have to worry about breakfast or vegan dinner during our holiday. We were warmly welcomed by the hosts, Debbie and Daniel, a British couple who settled here 20 years ago and renovated what became la Maison du Vert and shaped the garden. After settling in in the room, we relaxed in the lovely …

Take a look around! Adding travel snapshots to reviews

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A couple of weeks ago, I decided to add snapshots of the surroundings to blogposts. So whenever I publish a post with a review of a shop or restaurant, there are now not only photos of the restaurant, but also one or two photos, or even a short video, of the area. A city view, a particular monument, or a spectacular landscape. It gives you an idea of the surroundings (albeit just a glimp), and some of the things we have spotted during our visit to that city or area. And for me it’s also a way of documenting some memories from that particular city trip or visit! Here are some of the pics that were included in recent reviews. Some link to Instagram. View this post on Instagram Biking around Louvain #tandem #castle 🚴🚴🚴🚴🚴 #biking #cycling #louvain #leuven #vegancyclist #whatvegansdo #whatspooniesdo #kasteel #castle #kasteelvanarenberg #multicycle #multicycletandem #tandembike #fietsen #duobike A post shared by trudi_brugesvegan (@trudi_brugesvegan) on Sep 5, 2017 at 11:15am PDT View this post on Instagram Biking in Paris 🗼 #paris #tandem #tandembike …

Interview with Trudi

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A couple of months ago, Ned from The Way of the Squirrel Books posted a call to other bloggers to do an interview. I had seen such calls for interviews before on other blogs, but had never actually done one of them. I was contemplating on editing the ‘about’ section on my blog anyway, but then thought this was also a great way of introducing readers with the person behind the blog. A good opportunity to share some insights into why I started blogging, some general thoughts on veganism (keeping in mind it is also an opportunity to reach people who may have never heard of veganism) and just some more general personal stuff. Ned sent me some questions, which I replied to, and he then edited it. It was fun doing, and thanks again Ned, for the opportunity! 🙂 The original post is up here on Ned’s blog, The Way of the Squirrel books, reposted here with permission. INTERVIEW: MEET AND GREET MONDAY – BLOGGER: BRUGESVEGAN Well, here we are again.  Another Monday and another …