Whilst it might seem like all we do is bake these days, we have been working on the app too! We have added a bunch of new places in Oslo recently and I think you might like to hear about a couple of them...
More vegan friendly places in the app!
New places in the app
There are even more new places in the Vegan Norway app. In fact these past two months there has been so many places being added, some places that have sadly taken vegan items off their menu and some other places that have made a grand comeback that we decided to check the stats. We currently have exactly 729 places active in the app! 415 in Oslo, 127 in Bergen, 98 in Trondheim, and 89 in Stavanger.
Week 8 is coming
You know when you are waiting for a bus for ages and then all of a sudden four of them come at once? Well, we have some good news for you. We are soon about to enjoy a windfall of new vegan products released to stores here in Norway. Not just any old products either... really amazing and highly anticipated ones. Read on to find out more about what they are, and when and where you can get them.
Your first three weeks as a vegan
Thinking of trying out veganism? We know that it might seem like a massive scary change at first, but it gets easy really fast, and in fact by the time you get to your third week as a vegan you will probably find that the lifestyle feels mostly effortless to continue. It's a bit difficult to know how exactly to start with going vegan so we thought we would write a guide to help make those first few weeks of trying out veganism in Norway so much easier. At the end of the three weeks you might not know all the little tips and things that someone who has been vegan for many years does but you will definitely be over the hardest part and know more than enough to stay vegan if that's what you want.
Veganism on a Student Budget
A common misconception about veganism is that it is so expensive. We recently picked tackled some of the concerns and issues surrounding this in our latest blog post: Is veganism only for the rich? It can be expensive to be vegan, sure. But it is totally possible to do veganism on a budget. To give you a real life, down to earth perspective on a cheap vegan life we asked two members of our team, Arja Sivapiragasam and Mariel Melø Hansen to tell us how they do it. You might find yourself picking up some great hints and tips on how to save money and have a great time as a student whilst simultaneously saving animals lives.
A Vegan Norway Christmas
Over the past few weeks we have been discussing what we should make (we are all massively into cooking) and recipes and ideas have been thrown back and forth. We managed to whittle it down though and thought we would share with you some of our favourites we will be making over the holidays from some of the best food blogs.
Adopt an animal
I first heard about Kattensvern at Dyreverndagen a few months ago. I heard a great talk by Jeanette Laxdal, one of the main people in the organisation. She has been working there since 2010, helping to find homes for many cats, fighting to get animal police in Bergen and spreading knowledge about how to look after cats conscientiously.
Since Kattensvern started in 2004 they have rehomed more than 3000 cats in Bergen and have worked outside of this to improve cats welfare and change common attitudes towards caring for pets for the better. As well as their rescue center they also have a shop in the city center and also conduct awareness-raising activities. There are a few excellent people that volunteer their time to take care of the cats and run the shop.
In Norway people often have a very old fashioned concept of what animals needs are, they think that is natural to not neuter the cat and let it live in the barn and hunt for its dinner. But the reality is that moden felines are just not equipped to be born into that type of lifestyle and all homeless cats in Norway need human help to survive, whether they're domestic cats, or so-called "wild cats".
The mission of Kattensvern is to find homes for homeless cats, work to sterilise/castrate cats (helping combat homeless kitties being brought into the world), to make sure that cats get proper medical care and vaccinations, to care for the cats that are currently homeless, to spread attitude enhancing information in the media, and to cooperate with animal welfare associations in Norway and abroad.
IKEA goes vegan
We in Vegan Oslo, together with several others from NOAH - for dyrs rettigheter, Norsk vegansamfunn, Veggispreik and more, were lucky to get invited this Friday to taste the new “grønnsaksboller” (vegetable balls) IKEA are launching.
IKEA is betting big - with their 800 million customers each year they expect to sell a 100 million tons of these new vegetable balls a year, which is a third of what they currently sell of the world famous IKEA meatballs.
The new focus on these vegetable balls are the result of an interest in the environment and animal welfare. They want to get more people to eat sustainable and cruelty free food, with the largest focus on sustainability. WWF reports (1) that if we continue to eat like we do today, we’re going to need 3 earths to feed the world's population by 2050.
