Two years ago, I went to the Vegan Beer and Food Festival in Portland. As you can imagine, it was pretty awesome. When I lived in Ottawa and Toronto, I attended many vegetarian and raw food events. (I didn’t have a blog when I lived in Toronto and only when I returned to Ottawa from Busan.) Because they are large centres, there was always some food or health-related festival or celebration in the city.
Thankfully today veganism and vegetarianism has become more mainstream. We’re beginning to see more festivals/celebrations in more places. On Saturday, Calgary hosted its first VegFest at Shaw Millennium Park. The first-of-its kind event focused on supporting local businesses, education and community.
I’m not sure if Edmonton has had a vegan festival. I wouldn’t be surprised if it has because that city has a strong vegan community with great vegan and vegan-friendly restaurants and meet up groups. Red Deer definitely has not held anything along the vegan or vegetarian line.
I carpooled with Mark, Karin and Crush to Calgary. It was great to catch up with the dynamic duo. I just hope I didn’t freak Karin out with my constant chatter. It was great to hear about Mark’s racing season and to catch up with all the Red Deer Runners gossip. Seeing Mark also makes me feel guilty. (I need to run with the Red Deer Runners again.)
We didn’t really have a plan for the day. We walked around and browsed through the booths. I didn’t see anything that I needed save for a glass of ginger kombucha. We were hungry so our first order of business was finding something to eat. We had our choice of three food trucks – Avatara Pizza, Hearts Choices and Madison’s 1212. There was also Sugar Creek Kettle Korn and Yummi Yogis.
Nachos for the win. The food truck also had the shortest line up when we arrived. Although Karin did manage to buy a couple of bags of kettle corn while we waited for our orders. Karen went for Mexican (right) and Mark had the wild mushroom and truffle nachos. Mark said it was worth the drive just
I went for the wilted kale and roasted yam because it sounded relatively healthy. Boy did it ever taste good. Next time I am going for the mushrooms. I think I was full until that night. Not everyone ran 20K before they drove to VegFest. (Although I hit 10K when I got home!)
The weather was perfect for the festival, and it was fun to be around like-minded people. Also the smell of kettle corn was so enticing better than roasted dead flesh any day. I can’t really say how many people attended the festival. But I can say there was a wide range of people – not just the stereotypical unwashed hippies. (Not sure if I saw any, actually.)
As this was the inaugural Calgary VegFest, there were some definite hiccups and things to improve on for next year. But I am not going to dwell or event mention those things. I dislike nothing more than someone going on a rant in a blog post about a race/event/concert without seeing the whole picture.
Vegan/vegetarian food festivals are about community, solidarity and education. They are also very encouraging for those new to the lifestyle. Who doesn’t like to feel like part of a bigger purpose?
The Shaw Millennium Park was excellent (IMO) for walk up traffic – you know the people who stumble upon and wander into festivals. I wonder how many of those people who attended the festival were not vegan or even vegetarian. Perhaps the festival reached just one person, and now that one person is reconsidering his or lifestyle choices. Perhaps it helped another person who is struggling with giving up “cheese” or “bacon” to realize that he is not giving up something but gaining so much more.
Peace.