I used to be a “flexetarian” while I traveled. This meant I would sometimes bend my self-imposed dietary restrictions to fully experience the cultures I was visiting. I didn’t want to offend anyone by refusing their food. Though I was normally vegetarian, I would have fresh fish in coastal cities where it was a staple. Then, after I became vegan, “flexetarian” eating meant accepting the occasional baked good without checking whether it contained eggs or dairy. I was more concerned with being polite than sticking to my guns, and eventually that made me feel conflicted while I was travelling, because I wasn’t acting like myself. After becoming an activist, I knew I couldn’t go back to having cheat days or flexible standards, even while travelling, but I worried it would be harder to do, or maybe even disrespectful. Once I set my mind to it, however, it actually made my travels much more enjoyable because I didn’t have any qualms about whether I was doing the right thing.
I was on exchange in Barcelona for three months this term. I had been there before, and my impression was that it was difficult to be vegan in Spain (people tried to pressure me into eating pork, “it’s not just any ham, it’s jamón serrano!” This time, however, I saw an entirely different side of the city. Catalonians are actually passionate activists for various causes, and there is a large vegan community there. A quick search yielded seemingly endless results for vegan restaurants in Barcelona, and plenty of health food stores to boot. Since I went into this trip with the assumption I would have to find plant-based options, I did! I only ever thought it was hard to find vegan options before because I wasn’t looking very hard.
At the start of the year, I marked all the vegan restaurants that appealed to me with a green want-to-go flag, and I made it my mission to visit them all before I left three months later. To my surprise I did not manage to visit them all, but for a very good reason. Those I did go to were so delicious that the next time I went out for food, I wanted to return rather than try a new place. (This behaviour is extremely out of character for me, as I suffer from chronic FOMO.) The vegan food there is just that good! Barcelona is definitely a veg city, and this realization made me wonder what else I was missing out on buy not looking hard enough. More importantly it made me realize there were other travellers who were missing out like I was when I wasn’t looking hard enough.
That is why I committed to reviewing every restaurant I visited. I didn’t want others to miss out just because they didn’t see a big green VEGAN sign on a store front! My hope is that if there are reviews stating what vegan food is available- especially at non-vegan restaurants- tourists won’t miss out by falsely assuming it isn’t. I also like to comment on the helpfulness of the staff in accommodating my requests, Even if there are no plant-based options on a menu, the server will usually be very helpful in adapting something and asking the chef what can be whipped up. I think this is useful information for anyone because a staff that is open to questions and adjustments will probably be willing to accommodate other dietary or physical needs, which means they are a more accessible business. I know veganism is just the criteria that is most salient for my decisions, but everyone is different and their needs and values are just as important as mine. After seeing “wheelchair accessible” and “woman owned” as badges under some restaurants, I figured I should keep an eye out for other info that would be helpful in a review for people wanting to be conscious consumers. Now I want to include even more factors into my reviews, like accessibility, languages used, and waste produced.
Seeing how my reviews and photos were getting hundreds of views each, thousands in total, I am convinced that this promise to myself really was helping others. I started pre-researching vegan options in every city I visited and was pleasantly surprised by the options available across Europe. Not only are these option easy to pass by if you assume they won’t have anything for you, but it is extremely important to order the vegan options in non-vegan establishments, to alert the owners that there is enough demand to justify keeping these alternatives on the menu/shelf. As an economist, I believe in the power of the consumer to change the market by voting with their dollars for products they believe in. No government legislature can ban all exploitation of animals, but if consumers are informed as to the reality of the industry, and the wide availability of cruelty-free alternatives, then we can have a direct influence on sellers by paying for the change we want to see in the world!