Hi there, my name is Greta and I’m a second
year Visual Effects student and today I’m
going to talk about surviving Uni as a vegan,
and this may seem very daunting for people
who are just, you know, moving out of their
parents’ house and following a vegan or
a vegetarian diet, and I know it might seem
like a difficult task, but I’m here to tell
you it’s easier than you think. So, the
first thing I’m going to talk about is uni
food. So the place I go to the most is definitely
the main canteen kind of cafeteria place,
in the Heart space, in the St Mary’s campus,
and they always have loads of vegetarian and
veggie options. For vegetarian people they
always have like meat substitutes. So for
example, you can get a vegetarian hotdog,
or vegetarian sausages, or vegetarian lasagne,
whereas for vegans you can always like ask
the person working there what is vegan and
what’s not, and that’s what’s super
super good about the people working in the
cafeteria, is that they’re so helpful and
so informative. They’ll always go in the
kitchen and ask for you if something is vegan
or not. Another thing that you can do is if
you don’t find something necessarily from
the hot foods that you like, you can go to
the salad table which is in the middle of
the cafeteria. The third option and that’s
what I usually do, is just grabbing some snacks
and a smoothie. So there are snacks in the
cafeteria that actually says suitable for
vegans, so you don’t even have to go through
the entire reading through the ingredients
thing that we oh so often go through, and
what I usually go for is popcorn and these
coconut bites that they just introduced that’s
super good for you and super yummy and I usually
go for a mango smoothie and that makes for
a great, kind of like, quick lunch. If you
are worried about shopping, Ealing is surprisingly
good for vegan shops. There is a shop just
outside of Uni called ‘Vegan HQ’ and it
serves hot foods, it serves drinks and stuff
like that, so if you want to grab a lunch
there that’s fine. If you want to buy some
stuff, it also serves as a small shop. But
if you go further down in Ealing you will
find two other shops, one of them being ‘as
nature intended’. This one is not entirely
vegan, it’s really good for finding specific
stuff, so for example when I was looking for
tapioca starch or tapioca flour for making
vegan mozzarella, that was the place I found
it in and opposite to ‘as nature intended’
is my favourite vegan store. It’s called
‘Wholefood Organic’ and it’s fully vegan,
you know, I think most of their stuff is organic
as well. Another thing that you can do is
shop at any other supermarket and just go
and look for the ‘free from’ section and
you can find loads of good vegan foods or
vegetarian foods, if that’s what you’re
into, or maybe gluten free if that’s what
you’re looking for, you will find it all
there. If you are a vegan or vegetarian, the
one thing you could be worried about is going
out with your friends, but here are some tips
for you to make it easier to veganise your
meals in places that aren’t vegan. So one
of the places that is in Ealing Broadway
which is where you’ll probably be eating
with your friends is ‘Pizza Express’,
and they’ve actually got this deal where
you can bring in your own vegan cheese and
they’ll make your pizza with that cheese.
The cheese has to be sealed, it has to be
in the packaging and the date has to be on
show and that’s all the requirements. So
I did that with my friends and it was lovely.
Another place that you can veganise your meals
at is ‘Wagamama’s’, they’ve got the
whole vegan menu and they’re super helpful.
The third place I want to talk about is ‘Wasabi’,
which is like a sushi place and also they’ve
got some curries and stuff like that, but
a lot of the sushi is actually vegan. The
last thing I want to talk about is something
that is a tip for everyone, not only vegans,
not only vegetarians, everyone. Home cook
as much as you can. Home cooking can save
you so much money, it’s unbelievable. Get
yourself a blender, because smoothies are
such an amazing thing to have for breakfast.
You can make the vegan if you just use vegan
milk or vegan yogurt or whatever you want
to use in your smoothie and then just buy
some frozen fruit and its cheap, its filling,
its healthy and its quick, and it’s all
you need as a student. And cooking at home
saves you so much money, it’s really easy
to make sure that it’s vegan because you
know what you put into it. So yeah, these
have been my tips on surviving Uni as a vegan
or vegetarian. I hope you found them helpful,
and I’ll see you next time.
