Hey there!
Long story short - I have made this blog to document and share my food safari of all things vegan while traveling.Now for the long story, a bit about me - I am a vegan in it's infant stages, having only made the transition fully at the start of March 2016. Prior to that I had been a vegetarian since the end of October, 2015.
I used to be one of those people who silently judged and despised all vegans and vegetarians for their irrational life choices. I could not comprehend a life without meat, let along dairy and especially eggs. My background is Serbian and if you know anything about Eastern European cuisine, it's that meat is essential to a good meal, no questions about it. I would be happy to have a meal with up to 5 different meats on my plate and could never justify not eating it, no matter how many PETA ads I saw or slaughter house videos popped up on Youtube.
This is not to say I was unaware of veganism - I have known about veganism for the last few years by watching Youtubers such as Freelee the Banana girl. I understood animals were treated poorly but I could not comprehend a life where you only eat plant based foods, it seemed so sad to me and just plain ridiculous.
Towards the end of 2015, I did recognise I was eating maybe a bit too much meat, especially when a friend at work would give me so much flack for bringing so much meat left overs for lunch! I kind of wanted a way out, but didn't know where to start or why I should even stop eating meat. Then news from the World Health Organisation came out proving that red meat was a carcinogenic... As soon as I read more and more I thought to myself, great! This is my ticket out of meat town! Literally overnight I became vegetarian (I still consumed some fish for a couple of weeks after this revelation, not thinking that fish was also a meat/once a living being).
Anyways, there I was meatless, kinda not really into dairy and really struggling to justify giving up eggs (what is brunch without eggs!?). I started to watch more and more and more youtube videos and read more blogs/articles online, I read books; Peter Singer, The China Study and on the 1st of March this year, I decided I wanted to live the rest of my life without eating anymore animal products. This transition was made so much easier for the fact my younger sister was already 2 steps ahead of me, 1 being that she became vegan on the 1st of January 2015 and 2, she is absolutely amazing at cooking basically anything.
After only having been vegan for one whole month, I went on a bigish trip overseas to Europe and the U.S. for 3 months. At the time of writing this, I am at the start of my 3rd month away from home, currently in New York.
Initially I was not really fussed about being vegan and traveling, if anything I thought it would be a great thing because I would save so much money on food because there won't be many options for me to go out to eat so I will be forced to plan and prep all my own food. Oh man was I so so so wrong. Traveling through Europe and eating vegan has been an absolute dream. I have tried so many foods I never thought I would be able to try, I have met so many lovely restaurant owners and staff, I have seen parts of cities I would not else explore had it not been for that hidden vegan eatery on the corner etc etc.
Because of my positive and enriching experience, I have decided to post most (if not all) of my favourite vegan finds based on each city I visited. Rest assure I will also be adding a review to every single vegan place I visited on my absolute holy grail website (which made this entire experience possible) Happycow.net!
If you have read this far, thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy my posts :-)
