Today we wanted to pop by with a little inspiration, and celebration. It’s world vegan day, and whether you are vegan or not, here are a few cool things you could do today…
Stavanger Launch!
Don't forget the B12
Vitamin B12 is required for the proper function and development of the brain, nerves, blood cells, and many other parts of the body. The only natural places it can be found in good enough quantities are foods such as meat, fish, and dairy products, that's why vegans and vegetarians must take it as a supplement.
B12 helps your body in so many ways so please put some time aside in your morning routine to down your pill with your morning coffee, orange juice and toast.
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.
Protein: myths and facts
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.
