Vegan in Poland

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Permalink Reply by Suesie Markwart on August 31, 2011 at 10:09am

After spending a year living in Poland, I can say that it is very definitely vegan-unfriendly!  You may be interested to read my blog post about recent vegan adventures at http://gordonsuesie.wordpress.com/2011/08/01/being-vegan-in-poland-.... 

In brief, you need to be very specific when ordering.  When ingredients are listed against a dish on a menu they don't bother to include any sauces that are poured over the top of almost everything and is often a cheese sauce, or lard (animal fat). Vegetable soups often have meat in them.

The language barrier is also a problem - we have on several occasions checked that there is no meat, cheese, etc, met with smiles and agreement from the waitress, but then found the offending ingredients on our plates ...

In Warsaw and Krakow there are a couple of reasonable vegetarian restaurants, have a look at www.happycow.net to find them.  Bioway and Greenway are vegetarian chains that have vegan dishes, but you still need to be careful that they don't decide your vegan dish would taste better with some cheese on top.  In large towns you will usually find an Indian restaurant with vegetarian options too, but not in the smaller towns.  Outside of big towns we have found it really is best to just go to a small grocery and buy lovely fresh bread and salad and eat in a park.  On the plus side, in the small groceries the majority of the veggies are organic and taste wonderful - the potatoes here are so tasty! - and the bread is great too.

Enjoy your trip!

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Permalink Reply by Amber Griffin on January 19, 2012 at 4:47pm

Yes!! Pack it all, and pack it well!!! I spent the summer hiking in Iceland, I survived on what I brought. 

From my 'Chocolate Vegan Will Travel Post on my Blog here is what we packed for 2 people, and it lasted about a month.

Make sure you have a proper stove and tent. eh?  ;)

You will need to get rid of all extra packaging and portion your own “just add water and heat” meals.

This is what we brought from home;
- 300g vegan chocolate (like I’d leave home without it!)
- lb of almond butter (use it up before climbing over mountains for days)
- 1036g Chocolate Vega Meal Replacement
- 12 pack of chocolate Vega whole food vibrancy bars
-12 assorted cliff bars
-12 assorted Larabars
-12 Super Food Slam ProBars (these are amazing)
-635 g Progressive Vega Greens
-336 g Coco Camino dark hot chocolate
- 984g Carb-Boom Strawberry Kiwi gel
-129 g Ultima Replenisher Lemonade
- 552g Vance’s DariFree Potato Milk Powder
- A huge bag of nuts and dried fruit

- Mixed spices and nutritional yeast

With our tight student’s budget we didn’t want to buy all pre packaged meals so I bought in bulk:
- cooked, dehydrated balck beans
- bulk dehydrated vegan chili
- dehydrated hummus
- cooked dehydrated kidney beans
-dehydrated potato flakes
- Barley flakes
-brown rice flakes
-Oatmeal

Portion out tantalizing mixes of grains and beans into zip lock bags and season with nutritional yeast, dried herbs, spices, and bullion. Write cooking directions on the bag in permanent marker.

With the proper planning and preparation you should be able to go anywhere without going hungry.
Good luck!!

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Permalink Reply by Beata on January 20, 2012 at 9:04am

Hi Cristen,

I'm sorry I didn't see this post last year but I will post an answer just in case someone else would go to Poland.

 

Most of the people in Poland don't know what vegans are, some don't even know what vegetarians are but this is less likely but don't worry, you should always find something because it's very easy to find vegan side dishes like:

- plain rise

- plain potatoes

- plain vegetable salad

Be very carefull with fried potatoes or fries because very often they are done on lard.

I totally agree with the post below by Suesie.

 

If you are going to visit small places in Poland it's better if you have some names written in Polish, hardly anyone speak English in small villages. If you go to Cracov or Warsaw you will find many restaurants where people speak English.

In Warsaw you will find many vegetarian restaurants which serve also some vegan dishes (only the ones with V): http://weganwawa.wordpress.com/category/restauracje/ - unfortunatelly in Polish but you will understand the addresses :)

Here you will find some restaurants in Krakow:

- http://vegarestauracja.pl/aboutus.html - also in English

- http://www.vege.pl/str.php?dz=8&Msto=4 - few addresses, unfortunatelly everything in Polish

 

Here is a small dictionary:

- fruits - owoce

- vegetables - warzywa

- eggs - jajka

- cheese - ser

- meat - mięso

- chicken - kurczak

- fish - ryba

- potatoes - ziemniaki

- oil - olej

- lard - smalec

- bread - chleb

- bread rolls - bułki

- butter - masło

- buttermilk - maślanka

- yogurt - jogurt

- I don't eat any product derived from animals, for example... - Nie jem żadnych produktów pochodzenia zwierzęcego, na przykład...

and here you can choose few from the list above

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