2019: increased visibility of veganism

Time for a recap of 2019! Yo, 2018 was a good year for veganism in Amsterdam and 2019 no less. More options in restaurants and supermarkets, making it easier for people to be vegan. Also, the increased visibility of a vegan lifestyle helps to normalise it which is great, as dealing with social situations as a vegan is not always easy.

At the moment Happy Cow lists 374 vegan friendly restaurants in Amsterdam, of which 39 are fully vegan! Albert Heijn added little vegan signs (see pic above) to various (not all) vegan products in the supermarket, this is huge. Many big nationwide companies are currently working on vegan options, this year for example Hema, Ikea, Multivlaai, Subway and Bakker Bart came with a vegan meal.

The changes in Amsterdam have not gone unnoticed, newspaper NRC highlighted several developments in a big article last summer, also quoting yours truly.  But hey let’s have a look at this year’s developments! Read more

Who doesn’t like pancakes?

vegan pancakes amsterdam

Finding vegan pancakes on a restaurant menu in Amsterdam used to be rare, but nowadays there are PLENTY options! A few hip pancake places opened up which of course have vegan options (can’t open a new hip place without it) but also traditional Amsterdam pancake places all of a sudden realised you CAN make a pancake batter without using milk and eggs.

So broadly speaking you can choose from vegan and vegan friendly-places, new hip pancakes places, or traditional pancake places. And then there are some others. Most places offer either American (thick and fluffy) or Dutch style (larger and thinner) pancakes. We found 13 places with vegan pancakes on the menu, check ’em out! Read more

Official Animal Rights March 2019 – the photos

Photos of yesterday’s Official Animal Rights March Amsterdam! Afterwards we had a short conversation with organizers Linda Guijt and Amadesha Assie:

Linda: “We read on Facebook about the march in London and thought, hey we should have this one here as well. Then we just took the initiative and organised it last year ourselves.”

Amadesha: “We thought it was a success and wanted to keep on doing it. We got noticed and people heard the message. We chose to put ‘End Speciesism’ on the banner, because a lot of people don’t know that word. So that when people think ‘Oh what’s that?’, that finally they will get the idea that it is really a form of discrimination, that we think there are humans and animals, and animals are worth less, even though humans are also animals. Read more

Newspaper NRC highlights the rise of vegan restaurants in Amsterdam

Screenshot of the article online.

“De tijd dat veganisten blij mochten zijn als ze een tomatensoep met patatjes geserveerd kregen, is voorbij. Waren er vijf jaar geleden nog slechts 45.000 vegans in Nederland, volgens de Nederlandse Vereniging voor Veganisme (NVV) zijn er nu al zo’n 121.000 mensen die geen dierlijke producten als vlees, zuivel, eieren en leer gebruiken. En daar speelt de horeca op in: in Amsterdam zijn er nu zo’n 35 restaurants die uitsluitend vegan gerechten serveren. Nog zo’n tweehonderd horecagelegenheden bieden ‘veganistische opties’.”

Big article in the Amsterdam supplement of national newspaper NRC. Featuring Deer Mama, Mr. & Mrs. Watson, Vegabond, The Dutch Weed Burger Joint and Vegan Amsterdam – aka yours truly! Read the article here.