Eco-positive weekly diary #126: a huge restaurant fail in Enschede

Hi there! Welcome back into my personal weekly diary. In this diary I try to show you what an eco-positive lifestyle looks on a daily basis. What choices and habits make my life (almost) eco-positive and where do I try to make positive impact? The past week I went to Groningen for a birthday party, made an amazing vegan noodle bowl and went out for dinner in Enschede at a vegetarian/vegan restaurant! Want to read along? Here’s eco-positive weekly diary #126.

Thursday

As you might have read in my last weekly diary, I work a lot this week. And so today, I worked again from 8:30 till 17:00. Once back home I made some vegan pasta for myself. I got some organic, package-free pasta from my closed webshop Loose and my dad gave me some vegan minced meat which was about to expire. We still had an onion at home and I bought some organic canned tomatoes and saved broccoli from the Jumbo (discounted food which is about to expire is the most sustainable plant-based food you can buy). Simple, but good. Since the schools are closed because of the holidays, I was free from handball. I decided to watch this documentary about sustainable investing and at night made myself some good, zero waste, organic popcorn! I can really recommend the documentary and I want to highlight how important it is to switch to a sustainable bank or invest sustainable, money makes a massive impact!

Friday

And again, another full day of work from 7:30 till 17:00. At night I watched Louis Theroux, which is usually on tv on Fridays. He makes really good documentaries, this one was about prostitution.

Saturday

Crazy day! When I woke up I had a text from my boss asking whether I could come to work earlier. I did and so I rushed to get breakfast and got dressed. At work it was quite busy and so when I got home I was still in that rush-mode. Consequently, I went to my dad, where my storage from my closed webshop Loose is (if you follow me longer you know more about this, if you don’t check out my older weekly diaries :)). I packed up some spices in tiny jars as a gift since I was going to Groningen (a Dutch city far up north) for a friend’s birthday/housewarming. I packed up the spices in plastic. Ew, plastic?! Yes, I reuse all the gifting material I once got myself and so I reused this packaging. I went to the library to get another book for myself to read since I am already done with the last one. I choose to lend books, since that is a sustainable way to read a lot of books (which I do and love haha!). Home again I made a quick vegan pizza (from the Lidl), danced like nobody was watching with the sound on level deaf (I really needed that after all the rushing and nobody was home anyway haha) and went off to Groningen with friends! We went by car, which is less sustainable than the train. But this time I didn’t feel like going alone while everybody was going to go by car and since we were sitting in the car with 4 persons and a lot of stuff I found it efficient enough to go along.

Sunday

The morning after. After everybody woke up around 12 I went to supermarket with friends to get some breakfast. We always do these things after a night of partying and so I brought my reusable bags with me for some zero waste sandwiches. I personally bought 3 sandwiches with vegan steak tartare and some blackberries (which are not seasonal nor zero waste but I was craving them and well..). When we travelled home I didn’t go to Enschede but to Harderwijk to my boyfriend. For dinner he had made some lovely vegan Vedic dishes from the workshop we attended a few weeks ago and at night we went out bowling with friends, it was a great day!

Monday

Today I was traveling back to Enschede by train again, the most sustainable way. And I must say, it felt really good. I love reading a book on the way, listening to podcasts or just staring out of the window. I went back home because I had to work, but just before that I made myself some sandwiches with vegan herb butter. It was delicious! After work I made myself a vegan noodle bowl for the first time. A classmate recommended it to me and told me it was really simple and so I made it today. It was very yummy, I really love noodles. I also edited my weekly vlog for my (Dutch) Youtube-channel!

Tuesday

Another day of working (I’m sorry this is so repetitive, but it’s just what I do now). At night I made myself some vegan burgers from the Lidl with some vegan mayonnaise, baked onions and pickles, hmmm.

Wednesday

I am free from work today! Yes! But well, I planned my dentist appointment at 8:30 in the morning.. But, positive news again, my teeth are still all good! No cavities or something. It proves again that my humble brush does its work perfectly well, zero waste ánd healthy! I’ve never had any cavities fortunately. At night my boyfriend came over, we were going out for dinner. He is taking me out to dinner wherever I want because I passed my premaster. That means I can do the master Environment and Resource management in September in Amsterdam! Feels amazing! I was very much tempted to choose all-you-can-eat sushi again, because sushi is my all-time favorite. But! There’s a vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Enschede I’d been wanting to go to for a while, but all my meat-eating relatives never wanted to go with me. Luckily my boyfriend loves vegetarian and vegan food too and so I wanted to go there, it’s called Het Paradijs. I also recently realized that all-you-can-eat restaurants are not quite sustainable, even though I eat 100% vegan there. They source the cheapest ingredients in mass amounts. I choose the vegan options, but the biggest part of the menu is still fish/meat. The cheapest products are never good. If you don’t choose fair trade, local and organic somebody is paying the price. The price of slavery, the price of a way too low wage, the price of environmental destruction, it’s caused by these restaurants too. And so, I should not really consume the vegan products there either. Non-fair trade rice for example is awful. If you want to learn more about all this, you should watch the (Dutch) episodes of Gefileerd. Het Paradijs (where we went) chooses local and mostly organic ingredients and is all vegetarian. That’s the place I want to support. That does not mean I will never go to an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant again, because I don’t think I can (it’s my favorite food). But I will try to go there less often, like I tried today. And if I want sushi I can go to a vegan sushi bar (which since a while is available in Amsterdam)! Okay, so after this whole preach we went to Het Paradijs and they were full… I tried the Twentsche Foodhallen (which are quite sustainable too) but they were closed too. And so, we ended up eating all-you-can-eat sushi hahaha! Omg, this is so awkward but sometimes shit happens. Next time I will make a reservation to be sure there is room for us at the vegetarian restaurant!

Favorite song of the week: 

Toni Braxton – Please

Yours sincerely,
Romee