Shopping deals

A lot of people seem to be blogging about veganism on the cheap, so I thought I'd throw in for the UK people. I hadn't planned this, but I ended up going to Asda today, then read Mo's post about checking out the dollar store, so I decided to share my wisdom.

Before I get into it, I'll say right now - I almost never shop at Asda. I know they're owned by Wal-Mart, and Wal-Mart is the enemy, etc. But every once in a while, you hear about a product they have or you just need to save some damn money, and you have to decide for yourself what to prioritise. Maybe this makes me a hypocrite, but I never said I wasn't (at least not in this aspect of my life).

That said, I'll explain what led me on this journey of discovery. I'm a "fan" of the Vegan Society on Facebook, and they posted some info about the Ethical Voice for Animals' Compassionate Living Fayre (which, of course, is the same day as both my work's coffee morning and an ARRG bout). While poking around their site, I found that they'd posted the vegan food items lists from most of the big box stores (their Co-op list links to the Sainsbury's list). I had a look at the other three and noticed that Asda seemed to have a ton of vegan junk food, so I decided to take a trip there.

Part of the reason I decided on this is because the Asda list is seriously outdated; I wanted to see how accurate the list was. But I also kinda like going to Asda because it's a really long bus ride away, and I like long bus rides (it gives me lots of time to read), especially when the last stop is my destination (so I don't have to keep looking up to make sure I haven't gone past where I'm going).

My mission was to score the following items on the vegan list - garlic bread, chocolate sponge mix, potato croquettes, battered onion rings, fruit jellies, and chicken-style fillets (and a few other things that I needed anyway). I had mixed success with this list. The potato croquettes were most definitely not vegan. I didn't find any fruit jellies, and most of the similar type of sweeties had pork gelatine (barf). The chicken-style fillets had egg in them (as do most of their frozen meat analogues). I did manage to get the cake mix, bread, and onion rings, along with a few other things:


Pictured in no particular order: tahini sauce, dark chocolate spread (more on that another day), garlic bread, vegetable pâté, soba noodles, chargrilled red pepper hummus, roasted red peppers, maple syrup, and chocolate sponge mix (more on that another day as well). Not pictured: onion rings, Linda McCartney sausage rolls (eaten), "Footballs" (like round potato croquettes), seedless raspberry jam, and some clothes (including some cozy-as-hell pajama bottoms).

The most expensive of the food items was the maple syrup at £2.99. Seriously - £2.99 for a bottle of maple syrup. Score! The chocolate spread, pâté, noodles, sausage rolls, and jarred peppers were also cheaper than anywhere else I've bought them. There were other deals to be had, such as Vitalite margarine (my favourite for most of my marg needs) for 80p, that I couldn't take advantage of because I didn't have space for them.

So if you have no problems with shopping there, hit up Asda for their surprising abundance of vegan items. Just be sure to check the ingredients if you're using the list they provided.

Tomorrow, if everything goes to plan, Mike will be guest blogging about his bread-making experience! This all depends on his actually making the bread, so we'll see what happens.